Year Two in the Books

College move-out is underway. A mostly rainy drive north today, with the time on the road aided by some fascinating podcast episodes to keep the drive interesting. I highly recommend the One Song podcast (available on Spotify and YouTube). Now I need to read the new memoir from Fab 5 Freddy called Everybody's Fly. Freddy's host duties on Yo! MTV Raps were hugely influential, especially as the show overlapped with my own years as a high school student. I know his show, and his efforts overall opened up a lot of minds to hip hop beyond the roots of the genre.

Crista Cowan's Stories That Live In Us podcast series (available on Spotify, also YouTube) covering the family history stories connected to the states ahead of the America 250 anniversary has also been good and I listened to a few of those as well on the drive.

This week Spotify also released a 20 Year Anniversary feature, covering a personalized recap of my (or your) own Spotify listening history based on their annual Wrapped recap. I was a little surprised to see my Spotify history goes back to 2011. While I think I have an eclectic mix of most streamed songs on my 20 year playlist, I was also impressed to see the number one most streamed by me since 2011 was Blind Melon's Change. 

Released in 1992, the song still holds up strong - ignore the video if you look it up on YouTube, listen to the music. The band's lead singer Shannon Hoon, born in Lafayette, Indiana (also the stomping grounds of Guns N' Roses legend Axl Rose), died in 1995 during my senior year of college. The band had a brief life but continuing legacy, and is underrated as an important band of the 90s.

Tomorrow is a day of packing, cleaning out the dorm and preparing for the drive home.

RootsTech 2027 Call for Presentations

 

RootsTech 2027.

The call for presentations for RootsTech 2027 is open. As seen in the screen capture above, the submission deadline is 29 June 2026. Last year I submitted a proposal for a 20 minute online topic, knowing I would be following remotely while in India for my March 2026 meetings. RootsTech 2027 aligns with my planned travel later in the month so I can attend in person in Salt Lake City and then continue on to Europe for meetings.

I think I have a better concept for a talk this year and have already started to build the format along with relevant sources and images.

Quiet

Posts have been slow for the past few days with the Mothers Day weekend, preparations for college move-out for our student, and AP exams for our other student. In the background there have been a lot of other moving parts - an expert consultation, more chromosome mapping, and reaching out to cousins who may have the missing key (DNA) to unlock some mysteries on the Mexican side of the tree.

There are some new discoveries and cool stories coming to the blog soon enough, but there are a few more loose ends. 

Vicente's Two Families

 

Vicente Antonio Campuzano's first family.

While trying to untangle the relationships and DNA connections descending from my 3rd-great-grandfather Vicente Campuzano and his two families, it is helpful to step back, draw some pictures and look at what we have. An illustration of Vicente's first family with Benancia Gutierrez is above. On Ancestry's Thrulines tool, my Mom and her two sisters have differing numbers of DNA matches descending from the children of Vicente and Benancia Gutierrez, ranging between 54 and 74. Some of these may be half relationships descending from Vicente only, and others very likely are also multiple relationships connecting to branches on our side through Vicente's second family or other currently unknown relationships.

I'm currently working through the self-paced Endogamy and DNA course through YourDNAGuide. It is timely and helpful, as I can now more easily see the problem of multiple relationships and DNA inheritance on this side of the tree. Previously I wrote about Maria Antonia Campuzano, who married Juan Bautista Calles. If my research is correct, Juan's father was Joseph Manuel Calles, and Juan's sister was Maria Manuela Calles (grandmother of my 2nd-great-grandfather Manuel Portillo). Maria Antonia's sister, Maria Teresa de Jesus Campuzano, married Francisco Calles, who is probably connected into Juan Bautista Calles' family. So we have multiple relationships there with sisters marrying men from a likely connected Calles line, and the Calles men also connecting into my Portillo side.

We also have Ygnacio Campuzano, who had a family with Mariana Portillo. Francisco Calles and Maria Teresa de Jesus served at witnesses to the wedding of Ygnacio and Mariana in 1866.

Vicente Antonio Campuzano's second family.

Our line runs from the second family with Maria Concepcion Amado through son Vicente Plutarco Campuzano. Vicente Plutarco's son, my great-grandfather Plutarco, married Manuela Portillo in Tucson in 1923.

DNA in the news: Franklin Expedition sailors identified with DNA

 

Google Arts & Culture. Cresswell, 1854.

A new study has identified four skeletons from the 1845 Franklin Expedition to the Northwest Passage. The English sailors were part of the crew on the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The identifications were made using DNA analysis. Two of the men were identified through mtDNA connections to donor matches, and another through YDNA (see study in ScienceDirect, 6 May 2026).