Traces of one's own,
San Juan STAR Article

This article introducing the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Genealogical Society, was published in the San Juan (Puerto Rico) Star on May 24,1996. Permission to reprint the article has been given by the newspaper and the writer.

"Traces of one's own--the genealogical Web" By NATALIA DE CUBA of THE SAN JUAN STAR staff

It used to be that tracing one's family tree was a long, frustrating, expensive and dusty procedure, conducted in far off church basements, under the supervision of a nun. Now, even if you're in New York, looking for your roots in Puerto Rico, you might not have to get your hands dirty or even leave your house.

A case in point:

Philip Ramos Martinez, born in The Bronx, living in Brentwood, Long Island, and Patricia Lynam Montalvo, who has only passed through Puerto Rico on her way to a cruise, know more about their Puerto Rican ancestors than many of us who live here.

Ramos is vice president and Lynam president of the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Genealogical Society, based in Brentwood, a heavily Hispanic suburban New York town. Last year, Ramos was digging through Mormon church records for birth certificates of his family, when he heard Patricia Lynam asking about Puerto Rico. They met, joined forces, and since January have been running the PRHGS, which even has its own home page on the World Wide Web.

"We joined forces because we realized there was a need," says Ramos, whose roots are from Adjuntas, Aguadilla and Mayaguez. "We realized how different we were because we had no organization. Most other ethnic groups, like the Irish, have established organizations that can tell you where to look for birth certificates or what kind of information is available."

Ramos and Lynam say their organization is the first on the mainland to be Puerto Rico-specific. The 50 or so members are mostly from the Tri State area, but some are in California and Arizona. For A $20 annual fee they get a "tool kit" which tells them how to obtain church records and gives them a list of all the churches in Puerto Rico, as well as lists and addresses of other resources. There is a newsletter which includes historical information and asks for assistance in locating specific ancestors.

The research has shown that people were apparently more interested in keeping their accounts clean with God than with the government. Church records were kept conscientiously and, Ramos says, they are more likely to be accurate than civil birth certificates and death records, which were often filled out incorrectly, well after the fact. "The baptismal certificate is more accurate," he says. "The priest probably knew the family, so he would know when the child was born and exactly who the parents were."

He adds, "When I started, I thought that Puerto Rico was remote. I was wondering how far back I could really go. It was a surprise that it was actually easier in Puerto Rico than for other ethnic groups. Columbus came with the church. The first thing they built was the church and then they kept records." He also says that our custom of listing parents and grandparents is unusual and makes life a lot easier for the amateur genealogist.

If that weren't enough, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, or- the Mormon Church, has church records of a multitude of denominations from all over the United States on microfilm, obtainable for a minimal fee. A microfilm of 100 years of Aguadilla church documents, for example, could yield piles of information, especially when we consider that many families stayed in the same town, getting christened, marrying and dying there for generations.

Ramos also digs into Social Security records, voter registration and census information, and the newspapers that were published in virtually every town and even recorded trips made by residents to San Juan and the arrival of visitors.

The newspapers can be a key to the difficult task of tracing the history of slaves, whose life events are documented in churches, but only by first name. "The newspapers would publish accounts of runaway slaves," says Ramos. "They brokered the returns, so that if a slave they publicized was caught, the newspaper would get some money."

The aim of the PRHGS is to help people access those records to recreate their personal history.

Ramos explains one of his reasons. "With discovering your ancestors you have a stronger sense of identity," he says. My children might know the history of Puerto Rico but not their own personal history. That's what genealogy does." His three children take an active interest, particularly his 13-year-old stepson, Phillip Cabrera.

"I just like to learn about all of my family members he says. "My father was working on genealogy and I wanted to learn, so he taught me."

Cabrera says he is just starting out, but he has already gone back to the 1880s. His family roots are in Cayey and Barranquitas.

They do the investigation from the comfort of their own home 1,600 miles away from Puerto Rico. Ramos says that, with only a few hours a week, he has been able to trace part of his family to their arrival in Puerto Rico from Venezuela in the early 1800s as well as locating his beloved grandfathers birth certificate from 1892. Of course, he has an advantage over the rest of us.. His real job is as a Police department detective. But, he says, by using the data base and information developed by Lynam and himself, you can avoid a lot of the pitfalls and get right into the game.

Lynam got interested because when her father died when she was 15, his earlier family life was a mystery to everyone. "As I got older, I got curious," she says. Through her research she found that her father had six brothers that she hadn't known existed and who didn't know she existed either. She also found half-sisters from her father's first marriage, who live fairly close to her in Queens. "It's been a very big adventure" she says.


Puerto Rican/Hispanic Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 260118
Bellerose, NY 11426-0118
(516) 834-2511

Miguel J. Hernández - President
Email: prhgs@yahoo.com

Homepage: http://www.rootsweb.com/~prhgs/

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