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Navigating Ancestors with the Same Name: Bibiana Caban Mendez

Mapa de la Moca, 1901. ADNPR.net https://archivonacional.com/PL/1/1/5761 What do you do when you find ancestors who bear the exact same name?  This two part blog post is about Bibiana Caban Mendez, one of three women who carried the same name and sorting which one was which.  Many have Caban in their trees, along with endogamy that continues for generations. You can descend from Caban who lived…

Navigating Ancestors with the Same Name: Bibiana Caban Mendez

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Support My Birthday Fundraiser for PROPA (ends 4/21/2026)

I’ve started a brief birthday fundraiser for PROPA, the Puerto Rican Organization for the Performing Arts based in Orlando, Florida. This is a first for me, that celebrates a significant birthday, and this goal brings friends, family and ancestors together into focus. Preserving the cultural memory of Bomba y Plena also means working with care with the community and the genealogies of the…

Support My Birthday Fundraiser for PROPA (ends 4/21/2026)

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Anasco: When two resources are better than one

Mapa Militar La Moca a Anasco, 1893. ADNPR.net Recently, the Sociedad Puertorriquena de Genealogia published a new volume in its series on Anasco. This hefty tome features a historical essay by Dr. Andres Mendez Munoz and transcriptions of Libros 6 & 7 de Bautismos for the Parroquia San Antonio Abad de Anasco from the eighteenth century. There’s over 200 pages of transcriptions of early…

Anasco: When two resources are better than one

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What do you do with all that data? Rediscovering Latinidad: Season 8 Ep. 2

Delighted to announce that I’m a guest on another episode of Rediscovering Latinidad! This time, together with Melanie McComb, Senior Genealogist at American Ancestors. There’s something to be said for learning how to manage large volumes of materials for one’s genealogy and family history. Decades ago, the process was different, as one scanned through reels of microfilm ordered at a local…

What do you do with all that data? Rediscovering Latinidad: Season 8 Ep. 2

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November 2025: Presentations & Podcasts

Migration & Names, Genealogy Quick Start, November 2025 This was a busy month! On Tuesday evening, I was a special guest on Shamele Jordon’s Genealogy Quick Start on the Migration and Names episode, talking about my third great grandfather in The Many Names of Telesforo Carrillo, based on a previous blog post. She is an amazing host, and I love her energy. Michael John Neill did the first part…

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Registration is open for Finding Moses Williams, a virtual event on 19 November 2025. Follow the link to sign up!

Finding Moses Williams: a virtual program, 19 Nov. 2025

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Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale

Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale A few weeks ago, I saw a hint on my Ancestry family tree for Estevan Vale Caban. To my great surprise, it included a photograph! Could it be my great uncle?  After finally locating the origin of a foto for Estevan Vale in Ancestry’s Passports database, I was struck by how much of a desire there is for an image of an ancestor. For some apparently, this…

Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale

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Celebrating My Phyllis Wheatley Award Recognition

Thrilled to learn that I was awarded a Phyllis Wheatley Award for my article, “Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation, and Moses Williams’ Family, Philadelphia 1776-1833.” from the Sons and Daughters of the US Middle Passage (SDUSMP)! The article is in the AAHGS Journal v.43 Winter issue. The Phyllis Wheatley Award Ceremony is coming up on Friday, June 6, 2025, at 6:00 PM, as part of the…

Celebrating My Phyllis Wheatley Award Recognition

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Tejer la vida: Lacemakers remembered

A look at some literature on mundillo and seven tejedoras in Moca, Puerto Rico

I was blessed to meet an elder generation of lacemakers— tejedoras or mundillistas–, before they passed on.  I met  many amazing people when I was involved with field research for my project, thanks to happening upon Ada Hernandez Vale in Jaime Babilonia’s Farmacia in the Plaza, the heart of Barrio Pueblo, Moca.  Ada was carrying her chihuahua, Trompito, and in Spanish asked me if I was looking…

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Ubiles: AfroIndigenous Families of Northeast Puerto Rico

Who are the ancestors with the Ubides surname in 17th century Puerto Rico? A look at some early San Juan records.

View from the fortifications of San Juan, 1824. Library of Congress.  What are the origins of the Ubiles families of Barrio Mabu, Humacao?  This post is part of a larger project that explores the lives of ancestors who lived centuries before in Northeast Puerto Rico. As a genealogist, this was an opportunity to delve into the ancestry of Marie Ubides, and share more about what documents hold…

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Friendly Village: a second grade trip

Remembering the dissonance of a second grade reader in the Bronx

PS 25 in 1905.  I attended some 55 years later. The school is still there, on 811 E 149th St. NYC.gov That diasporic feeling  There is no one place or time when diaspora occurs…it is a perpetual space of change and displacement. An awareness. It’s a process I share with many, whether by blood, place or experience, with locations linked by oceans and shaped by the relentless squeeze for money…

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People & Property: Enslaved Ancestors sold by Rafael del Valle to Jose Genaro del Valle, Barrio Malezas, Aguadilla, 1854

In 1854, the terms of a deed reveals the names of 19 enslaved ancestors included in a sale between cousins in mid-nineteenth century Aguadilla.

View of Aguadilla, 1898, from Murat Halstead, Full Official HIstory of the War with Spain: The True Inwardness of the War. [HL Barber, 1898] Slavery was a Family Business Right now i’m looking over this entry for a property sale Aguadilla from February 1854⁠1. It’s a lock, stock and barrel sale between first cousins, and the order of importance for the details enumerated is very telling. It…

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Gente 1868-1872: Enslaved persons held by Felipe Yturrino y Arzua

New post! Saying the names of enslaved ancestors in Anasco, 1868-1872.

Events on the way to freedom In my recent blog post Yturrino: A collateral line, I had questions about what kind of business Felipe Iturrino Arzua (1811 -1894) of Anasco was in. While I was able to follow some notary documents that described a  string of land purchases in different municipalities, it really wasn’t clear what he had invested in.  These land purchases now make more sense after…

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Allen Acevedo (1955-2022)

Losing a cousin is never easy...

Our cousin Allen passed this Monday 17 October, leaving us shocked that he is gone. Allen was funny, kind and generous, someone with a big heart.  His funeral will be held next Monday, 24 October at Blount & Curry Funeral Home at Garden of Memories, 4207 E Lake Ave in Tampa, FL 33610. Visitation 1-2PM, Funeral Service 2-3PM. Born in the Bronx to Vivian Fernandez and Manuel Acevedo, Allen was…

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The Vote of 1960: Context, Challenge, NGS & James Dent Walker

The Vote of 1960: Context, Challenge, NGS & James Dent Walker

Before I start: The view from here, some context In trying to assemble a history of an organization from fragments, I’m grappling with slippage, the way that things unsaid haunt every space, how the unsaid is supposed to be gracious, but hides a different cruelty. It’s working with systems that require violence for its completion, a continuation of the machine of settler logics that seek to…

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Yturrino: Looking at a collateral line

New post! Taking a long view on a collateral line...

Mutriku (Motrico) From”El atlas del rey planeta: La descripción de España y de las costas y puertos de sus reinos”, de Pedro Texeira (1634) Wikimedia Finding additional details can make working with documents fascinating. Often it can help us understand relationships that structured the lives of persons further back in time.   Some collateral lines have ancestors who came from sites in Spain,…

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Finding Juan Jose Carrillo: An African Ancestor

New post on finding an African ancestor in Puerto Rico!

A New Map of That Part of Africa Called the Coast of Guinea. William Snellgrave, 1734. British Library, https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/carviews/a/022zzz000279e26u00mapi00.html Juan Jose Carrillo & Antonia Maria Figueredo Santana: 6th GGPs I’m still reeling. This was a momentous week in more ways than one. Recently I was compiling a list of African ancestors from the 1870 cedulas, and…

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