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| Theatre Bijou program. 1906/1907. |
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| Le Canada. Montreal. 13 Jan 1906. |
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| Agnes performing in 1890. Made in Ideogram. |
In honor of the new Taylor Swift album Life of a Showgirl releasing today, I have another post on a performer in our family and regular recurring topic on the blog. Agnes Atherton O'Brien was a sister of my 2nd-great-grandfather John J. O'Brien. Agnes was featured in my proposed RootsTech 2026 talk. While I'm still rethinking how to use the bones of that talk for something else, I'm sharing some of the likenesses generated in Ideogram depicting Agnes during a snapshot of her career on the stage and life on the road.
In November 1890, Agnes performed at Huber and Gebhardt's Casino in Brooklyn, New York. Her appearance was part of her fall tour from Philadelphia to Brooklyn to Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo and Brooklyn again between September and November 1890. The article below from the Brooklyn Citizen describes Agnes as dancing "with and without skirts."
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| Brooklyn Citizen. 11 Nov 1890. |
Agnes' performances over the years in Brooklyn and New York City reinforce a family link to the area. We have deep family connections and recurring visits to the Big Apple throughout hundreds of years going back to the founding of New Amsterdam in 1624 (although on the maternal-maternal-paternal-maternal line, so not direct) As with my diverse family connections to Los Angeles, New York is a place that appears regularly in the travels for members of the family tree.
Agnes enjoyed a 30+ year career, singing, dancing, producing, and more. She was well known as a "queen of burlesque". Swift's album release for Life of a Showgirl was written for a different time, but I think there may be parallels to Agnes' life on the stage.
I've posted a number of times that I'm using Ideogram to generate imagined scenes involving different ancestors, extended family, or just to add color and creativity to the blog. There's a lot of controversy this week around Tilly Norwood, an AI generated character and potential Hollywood threat, not too different from the Spanish AI-generated influencer Aitana Lopez who debuted in 2023. I try to be clear when I'm using images made with AI tools. I think these tools are going to get better, and be more prominent for a number of uses, including family history. MyHeritage introduced AI-generated videos in its Ancient Origins tools earlier in the year, and there were many talks on AI & genealogy at RootsTech 2025. This isn't going away.
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| Agnes in New York, 1890. Made in Ideogram. |
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| After the show. Made in Ideogram. |
The second of the month brings another update on the progress for my DNA research questions. There's been some major developments since the last update.
Paternal side research
1 - Identifying the parents of Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother. Not much new here, but I am hopeful the new AncestryDNA update launching on 9 October will show more information that may pinpoint family links back to Ireland. We have some strong hints back to County Longford, Ireland and it would be great to find a breakthrough here.
2 - Generation of connection for the Pennsylvania O'Briens. Again, not much new here either.
3 - Determining the mtDNA haplogroup for the maternal line descending from Elizabeth Thornhill Jones [Updated]. Huge thanks to distant cousin Lynn who has ordered the mtDNA test from FamilyTreeDNA. Maybe we'll get some Thanksgiving news on the mtDNA result. This will be pretty huge, as her maternal ancestor Catherine Jones, shares the same mtDNA haplogroup with my 3rd-great-grandfather Joseph Jones, and this will give us the haplogroup for their grandmother, my 5th-great-grandmother Sarah Westall. Our knowledge of her line ends there, so perhaps having the mtDNA haplogroup will open up a path backward in time on her maternal line.
4 - McIntosh side of the tree and McIntosh DNA matches. I may change this question, based on the approach with the new #6 below.
5 - Finding Jones cousins for YDNA testing. I've reached out to one cousin through Ancestry's Messages tool, and I am hoping this cousin will log in & reply with the new AncestryDNA update coming next week. Perhaps that will spur some renewed interest from matches.
6 [New] - Through managing my Dad's DNA results on FamilyTreeDNA, I've added his autosomal kit to the Guthrie DNA project, and I've been exchanging messages with Ann from the GuthrieGenealogy blog. I'm now trying to expand out the tree descending from Susan Ann Guthrie and Isaac Smith. We're looking for a direct maternal line descendant from Susan who might take a mtDNA test. This would give us a mtDNA haplogroup for Susan and her siblings, her mother Priscilla and might possibly help determine more information about Priscilla's maternal line.
7 [New] - Looking at other branches on my Dad's side of the tree for potential YDNA and mtDNA participants.
Maternal side research
1 - Identify possible siblings of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez. Nothing new since last month.
2 - Working with DNA matches on the Amado side of the tree. While I don't have a direct update on the Amado side, I do have another set of matches to work with on FTDNA using cousin Catherine's results, as she's also a descendant of Maria Concepcion Amado. Her FTDNA kit also provides us with the other big update of the month in #3.
3 [Update] - mtDNA haplogroup for the maternal line path of Maria Jesus Vasquez. As I wrote about late last week, Catherine received her mtDNA results. With this new information, there's a lot more analysis to do with her mtDNA matches. We also have another mtDNA kit soon in progress for another descendant of Maria Jesus.
4 - Identifying the connection to the Guerrero-Leyva mystery matches. I did dive back into the Portillo line, and I have a feeling these people are connected somewhere here.
5 - Resolving descendancy from the daughters of John Carter (1715-1783) using mtDNA. I've now heard back from the President of the Carter Society. This is a big research question, and would likely involve an effort similar to the research study titled Identification of the Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroup of Elizabeth Martiau (Jeffrey A. Wright, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, Spring 2024).
6 [New] - Identifying a direct maternal descendant from Mary Alice Cain Read to encourage to take a mtDNA test. I see a few possibilities already, but this may take some time.
I do not yet know exactly how my Amado family line connects into a larger Sephardic lineage, but the signs are there. Tomorrow, schools in our locality are closed in observance of Yom Kippur. I am not Jewish but I feel a connection, even if I also feel for Palestinian friends and colleagues, whose families are still there, dealing with the current issues on the ground.
Earlier yesterday I watched an episode on YouTube featuring an older episode from a season of the UK version of Who Do You Think You Are featuring comedian and former Great British Bake Off host Matt Lucas. This seems new to YouTube but very timely given the date and issues of the day. Without too many spoilers, Matt follows his grandmother's family back to Berlin and Amsterdam, and learns what happened to them prior to and leading through World War II. It is a heartbreaking episode, with many historical connections, but timely and important viewing.
I don't have much else to say, but I'm trying to learn.
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| Made in Ideogram. |
With the month closing out, in a few days I'll have a recap on my research question progress. The success of learning the mtDNA haplogroup descending from Maria Jesus Vasquez and the pending test result for the mtDNA haplogroup for Elizabeth Thornhill Jones and her mother Sarah Westall has me looking into other potential target testers for using mtDNA and YDNA to resolve some additional research questions.
I'd love to see if mtDNA could help sort out descendants of the wives of John Carter (1715-1783). I wrote about this question in August and am currently reaching out to the Carter Society. Perhaps this is something they have already started to research.
In the meantime, to help sort out potential descendants for a YDNA or mtDNA test, I have added custom tags in my Ancestry tree to mark "End of line" for those people who mark a spot where there is no known possible descendant to follow for a test. I also have added a custom tag for "mtDNA known" for those people who have a mtDNA haplogroup confirmed based on a downstream tester.
While looking for Jones descendants who might be able to take a YDNA test, I've found some descendants of Mary Catherine Green Jones. If one of them took the mtDNA test, this would give a haplogroup for the maternal line path, including her mother Sarah Sally Hickey, and her mother Rachel Cannon. As an example of how this mtDNA information can be useful, see this post from Diana of FamilyLocket (May 2024).
On the Armstrong-Martin line, there may be some descendants who could take the mtDNA test. This would also provide the mtDNA haplogroup for Deborah McLaughlin, putting us into Ireland for this 5th-great-grandmother.
I'm in the process of adding to my tree, following these extended branches to see if there might be potential connections. Something I had not considered last year, but may now be possible, would be to identify a direct maternal descendant of Nancy Jane Flatt who might be able to take a mtDNA test. This would give a haplogroup for Nancy Jane and Mary Alice Cain. Lots more to do.
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| Rembrandt. The Night Watch. 1642. |
One of the premier paintings on display (and currently being restored) at the amazing Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is Rembrandt's The Night Watch. I was able to take in the museum and the painting during a layover in October 2013. The painting was in the news this week (read this article in the New York Times if you have access or this version on CNN). It is really hard to see the dog in the painting (bottom right in the shadows), but maybe it will be clearer once restoration is complete.
It is a cool bit of art history, and it involves a dog. The Amsterdam Night Watch served as the foundation for the New Amsterdam Rattle Watch and that involved my 10th-great-grandfather Lodewyck Post.
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| Inspiration for the dog in The Night Watch. Adriaen van de Venne. 1619. |
One more pitch for the Rijksmuseum. It is one of the best art museums in the world and it is located near the Museumplein park, the Van Gogh Museum, and the super cool modern Moco Museum. I've been to the Rijksmuseum a few times, and I want to go again sometime on a future visit to Amsterdam. It's really great.
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| Photo by L. Campuzano. Saguaro National Park. |
A glaring spot on the Mexican side of the tree involves the branch of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Manuel Portillo. I have looked into his parents and have some information, but more questions than answers. We have even bigger gaps stepping back a generation. In November 2013, I shared a death record for Manuel found in the Sonora, Mexico Civil Registration files. I also have a possible record for a Manuel Portillo in the 1899 Tucson City Directory as an employee at the Legal Tender Saloon. Unlike other branches, there's been a definite lack of records. Please FamilySearch, add Sonora, Mexico to Full-text search!
Manuel appears in the baptism record for my great-grandmother Manuela Portillo in Hermosillo, Sonora in 1905. According to his death record in March 1906, Manuel was 48 years old, putting his birth date around 1858 or 1859. That document also names him as the son of Manuel Portillo and Maria Bernal.
A marriage record for Manuel and Maria appears in the Sonora, Mexico Catholic Church records from San Miguel de Horcasitas on 25 February 1859. That record also listed Jesus Bernal as a testigo (witness). I do not yet know how or if Jesus Bernal was related to Maria Bernal.
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| Source: Ancestry. San Miguel de Horcasitas, 1859. |
Manuel Portillo Sr died in Ures, Sonora on 30 August 1880. That record also names his spouse Maria Bernal as of Hermosillo.
It also looks like Manuel Portillo may have had a second family. A baptism record in Hermosillo from November 1866 names Teodoro Alejandro Portillo, "h l" or "hijo legitimato" of Manuel Portillo and Maria Lopez. In April 2020 I looked into this branch, and there's definitely a lot of Portillo DNA connections. I'll pick this up in another post.
Some additional complications - I have Maria Bernal's mother listed as Maria Manuela Calles. If this is accurate, Maria Manuela's brother was Juan Bautista Calles. He married Maria Antonia Campuzano, and adopted his nephew Plutarco Elias Calles after the death of his mother (Maria Antonia's sister, Maria Teresa de Jesus Campuzano) in 1881. On Ancestry we have DNA connections directly descending from both Maria Antonia Campuzano and Maria Teresa de Jesus Campuzano, including a descendant of Plutarco Elias Calles.
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| Hermosillo, Sonora. 18 Apr 1903. |
I would like to confirm whether I have the mother correct for Maria Bernal, or there are other mystery connections in Sonora (and possibly a lot of endogamy too). I think this line could also be the link to the Guerrero-Leyva group of matches. There's definitely more work to do.
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| Eileen Monahan Whitaker. Two Navajo Maidens. 1967. |
Yesterday's post on the discovery of the mtDNA haplogroup for the maternal line working backward from Maria Jesus Vasquez opens the door to further connections for A2a5. Catherine's Mitotree mtDNA haplogroup is still processing, and we expect some additional detail will be available soon.
We now have another big set of DNA matches to work with using FTDNA's tools. I am hoping this might uncover some previously hidden autosomal matches on our shared Campuzano-Amado and Vasquez sides of the tree.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Venice, CA. 7 Mar 2022. |
In July I asked my cousin Catherine on my Mom's Campuzano side of the tree if I sent her a mtDNA kit from FamilyTreeDNA, could she take it to help us identify the mitochondrial haplogroup for our shared maternal line descending backward from Maria Jesus Vasquez (for a color enhanced photo, see this post from 2022). She agreed, and a little over two months later, we now have an answer.
In March, I received my own mtDNA haplogroup update, with some very cool ancient connections to the Indigenous people of Southern California. Since I started seriously diving into DNA about a year ago, one of my research goals on my maternal side has been to try to identify the mtDNA haplogroup for the women in the line descending backward from Maria Jesus Vasquez.
Photo at the top of the post shows a mural from Venice Beach of an Indigenous woman, with the words From Diné to the Tongva, Still Here. The Diné ("the People" in the language of the Navajo) and Tongva (the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles basin) are among the many Indigenous groups populating the Pacific Coast and Southwest.
Catherine's result was A2a5, not too far off my own A2d2a within the larger family of A2 people who came across the Beringia land bridge from Siberia into Alaska thousands of years ago. This means everyone in the descendancy chart above (but not necessarily all their descendants not shown) would have also carried the A2a5 mtDNA haplogroup, and further back a maternal ancestor of Reyes Valdes would have been an Indigenous woman.
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| FTDNA. A2a5 Discover Report. |
About 2900 years ago, when A2a5 was formed, the Athabaskan speaking people this woman came from may have been in the Pacific Northwest or Alaska (we do not know for certain).
I'm grateful to know the haplogroup on this branch and now I'm even more curious to see if we can identify another mtDNA line on the Mexican side of the tree. While a lot of my research has identified professions for some of the men on these particular branches, mtDNA puts the focus on the maternal side. mtDNA discoveries are really cool and I encourage anyone to take a test and add to the growing MitoTree of Humankind.
Registration for RootsTech 2026, the world's largest family history conference, is now available. Online registration is free, and in-person registration has two levels for early bird pricing depending on whether one chooses a 1 day or 3 day pass. With other travels I have during the same week as RootsTech, I've opted for online registration. I hope to attend in person again in 2027.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Brooklyn, 16 Aug 2017. |
A child jumping over a fire hydrant in Brooklyn, taken during the summer of 2017 as I took a street art walk after meetings at the United Nations. This was the same day I enjoyed a stroll over the Brooklyn Bridge and a wood fired pizza from Roberta's in Bushwick. The mural above of Christopher Wallace (also known as the Notorious B.I.G. and Biggie Smalls) was located near the Bushwick Collective (see here for some examples of murals in the area). I was lucky to capture a whole set of murals that afternoon.
Yesterday's post reminded me to look at what events might have been happening in Charleston, South Carolina when Agnes Atherton was producing her ten week run at the Star Theatre in the Spring of 1902. Between December 1901 and late June 1902, Charleston was host to the Interstate and West Indian Exposition, which was a World's Fair style event to stimulate business and trade through Charleston's port. This would have been similar to the Trans-Mississippi International Exhibition in Omaha, Nebraska in 1898, an event that Agnes definitely performed in.
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| Charleston, SC. 1902. |
Agnes very likely attended the exposition in Charleston, and certainly would have entertained audiences who might also have been in the city for that event. The grounds became Hampton Park and the new campus for The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. A guest registry book of attendees from the exposition is available on The Citadel Archives, including one page with this great doodle of a cadet among the many signatures in April 1902.
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| Guest registry, Interstate and West Indian Exposition. |
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| Season pass. Citadel Archives. |
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| Ideogram. Agnes in Tampa, 1902. |
One hundred twenty-three years ago, Agnes Atherton was performing and producing a vaudeville show at the Imperial Theatre in Tampa, Florida. An imagined scene above shows Agnes in Ybor City, a historic neighborhood in Tampa that would have been thriving during her stay.
A timely article from the BBC describing examples of UK residents learning about their heritage through DNA results, and then using that information to see citizenship in their ancestral countries.
Back in April I shared a few posts on the connection from my Dad's side of the tree to the Guthrie family (see here, here and here). Jesse Guthrie was a 5th-great-grandfather, descending from his daughter Susan Ann Guthrie Smith. In prior posts I had listed her as a Martin in error.
Ann Guthrie manages the excellent Guthrie Genealogy blog, and recently shared some milestones on the Guthrie genealogy project. I've added my Dad's autosomal DNA results to the project on FamilyTreeDNA, and am interested to learn more about DNA finds on this branch of our tree.
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| Campuzano siblings. Tucson. |
Hispanic Heritage Month runs from 15 September to 15 October each year. I've shared this photo previously, showing my Granny (standing over a younger sister on the right side of the photo) and her siblings in Tucson, Arizona sometime in the 1930s. A link to last year's post is here.
Update - a link to Ancestry's Hispanic Heritage Month blog entry.
Back in June, I submitted a proposal for a 20 minute pre-recorded talk for RootsTech 2026. I knew in mid-May that it was a longshot because I'm supposed to be in India during RootsTech next March and that it might be better for me to target RootsTech 2027 for a session. Earlier in the week I received a formal response to the proposal. It was a nice note, and I'm not sharing all of it above. The organizers receive a lot of proposals and it was a competitive process.
I am still thinking about whether I'll turn the proposed talk into something else, position it for a different genealogy event, or save the topic for a later time.
Big thanks to Sophia who assisted with research over the summer, organizing a timeline and some slides for the potential talk. I still have the source material and some concepts that maybe we'll put to use in another format.
Registration opens for the 2026 conference (both in-person and online) on 24 September at Rootstech.org.
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| Source: Ancestry Blog, 11 Sep 2025. |
Ancestry's annual update to its AncestryDNA origins feature is coming soon, according to yesterday's blog (see link above). Last year's update arrived in October. The 2025 update promises more precise regions and new macro-regions. An expanded reference panel (up to 185,000 samples) will allow for in-country breakdowns, such as specific parts of Ireland. I'm very interested to see what the new update uncovers for my Dad's results.
From the last line of the blog post, it looks like Ancestry will release the update in October again.
According to Lorine McGinnis Schulze's book on Lodewyck Post and Agnietje Bonen, and the Mapping Early New York encyclopedia, Lodewyck was appointed as Captain of the Rattle Watch by the burgomasters of New Amsterdam in 1658. This became the first paid police force of the colony. Lodewyck was to oversee eight night watchmen, who would patrol New Amsterdam from dusk to dawn with loud rattles and green glass lanterns.
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| Made in Ideogram. The rattle watch, 1658. |
Post was to receive fifteen stivers per month from every family in New Amsterdam to support the funds for the rattle watch. He appears in several court cases in the Mapping Early New York archives, some of which have not yet been translated from Dutch. A document from December 1658 shows Post being directed by the New Amsterdam burgomasters to collect contributions for the rattle watch.
An order for Lodewyck's oversight of the rattle watch in May 1661 is available, and a portion of the record is available below:
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| Mapping Early New York, 1661. |
Also in May 1661, Post came before the burgomasters to address concerns about fighting at the Blue Dove Tavern (see also house of de Blauwe Duijff).
A case from August 1662 shows Post was a defendant over debt (he appears in many debt cases), and the plaintiff tried to sue for Lodewyck's rattle watch money. The case was declined.
A directive from the burgomasters from January 1662 instructed Lodewyck to tell his men to be less noisy on their patrols and not urinate on the steps of City Hall. He was still captain of the rattle watch through May 1663.
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| New Amsterdam History Center. |
The New Amsterdam History Center has an amazing interactive feature called Mapping Early New York, allowing visitors to click on various locations of early Manhattan and see imagined video scenes recreating life in the colony (see the map overlay above on the historic Castello Plan for New Amsterdam). The Castello Plan is the earliest known map of what became New York City.
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| View of Broadway. New Amsterdam History Center. |
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| Source: Mapping Early New York. |
Lodewyck's entry reveals a fascinating story I'll pick up in an upcoming post, on his service as captain of the rattle watch. Philippe's entry includes images of his 1640 land patent on Manhattan (see also here: https://encyclopedia.nahc-mapping.org/lots/originalgrantsandfarmsphilip-de-truy-1640-05-22). It is incredible we still have these documents available today.
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| Source: HathiTrust. Documents relating to New Netherland. |
The page above is a transcription and translation from the Documents relating to New Netherland, 1624-1626, in the Henry E. Huntington Library, translated and edited by A. K. F. van Laer. The original provisional regulations would have been read to the colonists who embarked on the ship Nieuw Nederland on 30 March 1624. Our 10th-great-grandparents Philippe du Trieux, Susanna Du Chesne, their children, and other Walloon immigrants were on that first ship from Amsterdam to settle the New Netherland colony for the Dutch West India Company.
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| Source: HathiTrust. Original Dutch text, 1624. |
The transcription of the original text and letters from the Dutch West India Company provide a fascinating light into the early years of the colony.
I've now joined the Association of Philippe du Trieux Descendants, and am still reading Russell Shorto's The Island at the Center of the World.
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| David Teniers the Younger. Tavern Scene. 1658. |
A painting of a tavern scene by Flemish artist David Teniers the Younger. This scene and the images below depict experiences that Philippe du Trieux or Lodewyck Post may have enjoyed in Amsterdam or Dutch New Netherland. From Lorine McGinnis Schulze's book on Lodewyck and Agnietje Post, Lodewyck was granted permission to operate as a tavern keeper "to sell wine and beer by the small measure" in February 1656 in New Amsterdam.
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| Adriaen van Ostade. A Woman with a Beer Jug. 1670s. |
Perhaps Agnietje assisted in Lodewyck's tavern, pouring beer and wine for customers in the last days of Dutch New Amsterdam and after 1664, the early days of New York.
One more note - I tried to get Ideogram to generate a scene from a tavern in Dutch New Amsterdam in 1656, but the images did not quite match up as well as paintings from the Dutch and Flemish masters of the day.
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| Adriaen van Ostade. Three Peasants at an Inn. 1647. |
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| Amsterdam Archives. 11 Nov 1640. |
The image above comes from the wonderful Archief Amsterdam website, showing the marriage record between my 10th-great-grandparents Lodewyck Cornelius Post and Agniet Bonen (sometimes spelled Agnietje). Lodewyck and Agniet later made their way to New Amsterdam, and their daughter Lysbeth Post married Jacob Du Trieux in 1674. I'm descended from Lysbeth and Jacob.
In 2016, genealogist and author Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy published a book on Lodewyck and Agniet, and a copy arrived yesterday as I was returning from LA. The book is short, but contains a lot of great detail from available Dutch records and early New Netherland records. According to Lorine's translation, Lodewyck was a chest maker from Naarden in North Holland, and Agniet was from Meurs (Moers, a German town on the west bank of the Rhine River, across from Duisburg, and not far from southern Holland).
There's more to dive into on the records for Lodewyck and Agniet, and a timely companion to read in parallel with Russell Shorto's The Island at the Center of the World. I am reading this now, updated as a 20th anniversary edition for 2025.
It's timely I am in Los Angeles for its official (or unofficial) birthday, 244 years ago on 4 September 1781. I've marked this date on special posts in the past (see 2019, 2017, and 2014). Strangely when I was here two years ago I didn't comment on the date.
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| Fireworks over LA. LACity.gov from its 2021 post. |
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Venice Beach. 4 Sep 2023. |
Here's a progress check since last month. There's been good movement on the maternal side of the tree, but I'll start my recap from the paternal side.
Paternal side research
1 - Identifying the Irish parents of Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother. I'm revisiting the Shared Matches of Matches course on YourDNAGuide. There are still strong hints to County Longford, Ireland. I am hoping to make more discoveries ahead of my meetings in Dublin later in October.
2 - Generation of connection for the Pennsylvania O'Briens. Not much movement since I started testing out a theory using Irish naming conventions.
3 - Identifying potential matches descending from the Thornhill/Westall side of the tree to do a mtDNA test.
4 - McIntosh side of the tree and mtDNA matches.
5 - Finding Jones cousins for YDNA testing. I have identified several potentials to ask to test, and need to take the next step to reach out. There are at least some options on various branches descending from my Jones line in Jefferson County, Tennessee.
6 - Trying tools to isolate matches from Ireland on MyHeritage.
Maternal side research
1 - Identify possible siblings of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez.
2 - Working with DNA matches on the Amado side of the tree.
3 - Campuzano mtDNA results! This one is about to have a major breakthrough, as any day now my cousin Catherine's mtDNA kit will be processed at FamilyTreeDNA. This will give us a place on the MitoTree for her, and also a mtDNA haplogroup for my 2nd-great-grandmother Maria Jesus Vasquez, her mother Maria Jesus Suastegui, her mother Ana Maria Orosco, and her mother (my 5th-great-grandmother) Reyes Valdes. Another cousin descending from Vicente Campuzano and Maria Jesus Vasquez, has also agreed to take the mtDNA test. Once we have both sets of results, it will be interesting to see how we can use these mtDNA matches and autosomal matches on FTDNA's FamilyFinder to triangulate for Campuzano-Amado and Vasquez-Suastegui connections.
4 - Identifying the connection with the mystery Guerrero-Leyva matches. I've used the DNAPainter matrix tool on this group of people, and am trying to build out a larger understanding of the connection to these people through a floating tree. I have a feeling these people are connected to the Portillo line, but no breakthroughs yet.
5 (new) - Resolving descendancy from the wives of John Carter using mtDNA.
Numbers update:
In early May I wrote about numbers of matches across AncestryDNA, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA. Four months later, here's a look at the numbers:
On FTDNA: My Mom's results show 6813 matches, my Dad's have 7116 matches, and I have 7167. On MyHeritage, my Mom's results have 16,767 matches, my Dad's have 20,965 matches, and I have 19,449. on AncestryDNA, my Mom has 63,450 matches, my Dad has 51,481 and I'm at 79,317. It's really a lot, and shows the challenge in boiling down that many matches to useful DNA connections.
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| Manhattan, 1660 by L.F. Tantillo. |
Last year into 2025 marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of the City of New York. My 10th great-grandfather Philippe Du Trieux and his family were among the first settlers of Dutch New Amsterdam, arriving in 1624.
Over the long weekend I finished Russell Shorto's book Taking Manhattan, about the English takeover of New Amsterdam and the formation of New York. I've ordered a copy of his earlier book, The Island at the Center of the World.
There are records from the New Netherland Institute and probably from the Dutch West India Company archives on the Du Trieux family that I may have overlooked when I last researched the family. Part of the month I'll be looking into these records.
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Belfast. 27 June 2025. |
The mural above, by Australian artist SMUG, was noted as Belfast's most Instagrammed mural in 2021. This piece was painted in 2016, and still looks pretty sharp. This chef and lobster watches above an alley drinking spot at High Street Court.
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| DNAPainter Matrix. |
DNAPainter has a new shared DNA matrix tool (launched in May 2025). You can read more about it on their blog. I tried it out using a group of mystery matches on my Mom's side of the tree. These people likely connect into our Portillo branch, but I have not quite worked out how. Some of them are very closely related to each other (parent-child, siblings, first cousins, etc). It is somewhat useful, but given how much time it takes to enter the data, maybe just sticking with the Shared Matches of Matches tool on Ancestry's DNA ProTools is enough.
Update: There's a new blog entry I missed describing some updates to the matrix tool (see DNAPainter Blog, 28 Aug 2025).
Data nerds or others interested in the computing details of how Ancestry manages its massive data sets will be interested in reading this blog published yesterday by AWS (Amazon Web Services). They describe "how Ancestry optimizes a 100-billion-row Iceberg table".
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Berlin. 7 June 2025. |
The painting above is from the Alte Nationalgalerie of the State Museum of Berlin, by French artist Narcisse Virgillo Diaz de la Peña. The painting is "Oriental Woman with her daughter" from 1865. This probably depicts a scene from Ottoman Türkiye, and reminds me of the painting of the Ottoman woman I shared in 2015 from the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum.
Newspapers.com has added new content this summer, from 482 newspapers across the US, Canada, England and Scotland. There's a subscription required, but if you have Ancestry's All Access or a Newspapers.com subscription, you can now search in these sources.
Several Spanish language newspapers have been added from California. A quick look in some of these papers for "Campuzano" revealed an entry for Jose Maria Campuzano, who I wrote about previously as a tailor in Los Angeles in 1875.
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| Las Dos Republicas. 27 Feb 1875. |
Another entry shows Jose Maria Campuzano was in Los Angeles from October 1873, as there was a letter sent through Wells Fargo express for him. An earlier entry in the newspaper was dated from 6 September 1873, for another letter sent through Wells Fargo. Jose Maria also contributed funds for a Cinco de Mayo event in Los Angeles in May 1873.
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| Las Dos Republicas. 4 Oct 1873. |
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| Photo by Patrick Jones. Tompkins County, NY. 16 Aug 2025. |
According to the calendar it is the last week of August, which means it is a short week as we head into Labor Day weekend. This marks the traditional end of summer, although we expect it will remain summer-like in temperatures for a bit longer here on the East Coast. This is the time of the year where the calendar picks up speed. Shorter days, lots of activity.
