Another important find, although it was horrifying, was the U.S. National Archives' court records on my ancestor Juan Cohen's attempt in 1822 to claim ownership of a captured French slave ship, La Pensée, and its 220 enslaved African passengers. Similarly, I was shocked to find the 1831 will of my 4th-great-grandmother, Josefa Bravo de Vásquez, in the Slave Societies Digital Archive, and then appalled to learn about her owning and bequeathing slaves.
These two discoveries compelled me to write an article for NBC Latino on Latinos who have traced their families back to slave owners and enslaved people. After all, of the estimated 10.5 million enslaved Africans who landed in the Americas between 1501 and 1866, about 96% came to Latin America and the Caribbean.
To learn more about frequently overlooked Afro Latino history, I set up an interview with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who said eight Latino guests on "Finding Your Roots" could trace their ancestry back to slave owners, and that slave-owning is a common trait among Latin American ancestors. While Gates does not believe people should feel responsible or guilty over their ancestors' actions, he does want reparations for slavery in the form of nationwide social programs that help all the disadvantaged. After my article appeared, AncestryDNA gave the valuable hint that my DNA matches the Tiv people of Nigeria! Perhaps my own West African ancestry will not remain anonymous.
A fascinating scoundrel on my Jewish side, my Great-Great-Great-Uncle Joe Davis, led me to discover some amazing stories via digitized newspapers. Slowly, disparate clues are fitting together and painting a greater picture of Joe Davis's life: He likely immigrated from Russia to Winnipeg, Canada in 1882, and was a bigamist who abandoned one wife in Canada and another wife in Montana. He gave accusations in a trial concerning prostitution in 1891, and it's likely that his long-lost daughter tried to find him in 1913.
Digitized newspapers also surfaced letters from two Davis brothers who fought in World War I and the 1910 obituary of my Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Esther Davis, complete with a picture! It's amazing to view the face of the Davis family matriarch, who was born in Russia when Alexander Pushkin was still living.
Other major family history discoveries from this year include:
- Lara family: Finding on Facebook the photo of my great-great-great grandfather Pedro A. Lara! I also used FamilySearch Labs’ automatically indexed U.S. records to learn more about the Georgia ancestors of my step-great-great-grandfather, Wolvert Ecker.
- Karasov family: Finding records on Avishai Tarnarutsky, a previously unknown 3rd-great-uncle who settled in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada. I also found an adorable childhood photo of my great-great-aunts Rosa and Anna Karasov that was published in an English Jewish newspaper, and learned the Karasov Y-DNA haplogroup is E-L791.
- Rueda family: I've located a strange lawsuit involving Cristóbal de Rueda, my 16th-century immigrant ancestor who migrated from Spain to Colombia, and frankly I still need help interpreting the documents. I am also appreciative to genealogist Rocío Sánchez for clarifying the origins of my de la Plata ancestors, and locating the astounding 16th-century hidalguía lawsuit of my ancestor Andrés Márquez de Omaña Rivadeneira, which was digitized by a library in Missouri.
The Season 5 episodes are:
- Spain
- Film: "Problemista" by Julio Torres
- Book: "The Cemetery of Untold Stories" by Julia Alvarez
- Spooky Latin American legends, with Jonathan Perez Galvan from "Latinos Against Spooky Shit"
- ¡Wepa para Puerto Rico!, with my friend Lisa Reyes (my favorite episode of Season 5)
- Latino Horror Films, with drag performer Coma White
- El Día de los Muertos
- Latinx Parenting, with Leslie Priscilla
- Latino veterans, with my Dad!
- True Crime: Lorena Gallo Bobbitt
- Disabilities
- La virgen de Guadalupe
- Scrubbing lines from your family tree
- Navidad & Nochebuena
Season 6 will be released from February to May 2025. Given the current tense political climate, we will cover immigration and citizenship records and the history of U.S. immigration policies, including mass deportations.
I wish you all a happy and healthy 2025, and here's to what we discover in the new year!
Update, December 28: I snuck in one more big discovery before the end of the year, searching Cartagena notarial records and finding an early medical professional on my Colombian side, the pharmacist Manuel Joaquín Vásquez, worked with an early Cartagena pharmacist, Dr. Vicente A. García, in the 1870s!
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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