Hola Primos,

In the past two years I’ve learned how to search, I mean really search for my family. I usually start with Ancestry.com because I’m always hoping to find a “Primo” who has searched for our ancestors, who has a DNA connection, and has documentation. What usually happens is that someone “claims” to have information but is only copying what someone else has said and doesn’t have proper documentation. It doesn’t mean the information isn’t correct but don’t you want to see the documents yourself? I do! I want to see the name of the person giving the information for the document. I want to see written names of the parents, the grandparents, and the godparents, if it’s a baptism. I want to see the name of the church, and the name of the town where they are living. Is that asking too much? Finding your Ancestors in Puerto Rico isn’t about how many people you have on your tree. It’s about learning about them, learning about the persons whom they would trust their child if something were to happen to them and seeing the relationships grow.

The free Family Search website, familysearch.org can be easy if you know how to search. I usually start my search with the name of the person I’m looking for, the approximate date of birth, and the possible town where they may have lived. If I get thousands of hints, then I narrow it down. I add the name of the mother. Yes I said the mother! The reason I add the mother’s first and last name is because, if you notice on Puerto Rico baptisms documents the mother’s name appears in full whereas only the father’s first name appears. If I still have too many hints then I add the father’s first name. Always keep in mind that you want to filter your results to Puerto Rico Civil and Church records. You don’t want to look for your family in Chile or Texas if your family lived in Puerto Rico.

By the way many companies are using artificial intelligence to read the documents. If it isn’t clear to read it may not catch it. So you may just want to look via another person who is related such as the grandmother or grandfather.

Going back to Ancestry please make sure you download the document, and attach it to your gallery and if it’s possible your weblink, and then if you can translate the document. This is important because your Primo will appreciate that you took the time to translate the document for them and make connections so much easier. And PLEASE make your trees public, share your research, it doesn’t help anybody if you keep it hidden on your laptop. After all we are all family and we all make mistakes but together we can help each other.

ADIOS,

Lilly Resto Gunderman

aka Lillian Resto Y Marin