Sláinte

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Belfast. 27 June 2025.

Cheers to 2025, bring on 2026. Sláinte is health in Irish, used as "cheers". Many cheers for New Years Eve.

Another path on the mitotree

Some errors on my part pushed the timing on this post on Allison's maternal line for the Schwarzlose family back to 3 December 2025 instead of next week. With Sophia taking the mtDNA test before returning to campus, this result will give a maternal line path for her, Allison, Allison's Mom, and Memaw all the way back to Dorothea Sophia Gagelmann, who was born about 1807 in Saxony, Germany.

I am hoping this result will be as interesting for them as learning about some of the mtDNA results on my side of the tree has been this year. Her result will not arrive until likely Spring 2026.

Between Rayón and Ures

 

Google Maps. The road between Rayón and Ures, Sonora.

Maria Concepcion Amado was born in the village of Rayón, Sonora around 1823. At some point she likely made her way to the town of Ures, which was the capital of Sonora in 1823. Ures became a city in 1838 and reclaimed its spot as the capital of Sonora between 1838 and 1842, and again from 1847 to 1879. I know Vicente Campuzano was living in Ures with his first family in 1847, as his daughter Jesus Campuzano was born there.

Concepcion, 1848. Made in Ideogram.

Travel between the two towns during this time was most likely on horseback, by mule or on foot with pack animals carrying goods. Rayón was a municipality in the district of Ures, so trade between the two locations would have been common.

Maria Concepcion

Maria Concepcion Amado, 1852. Made in Ideogram.

On the 10th April 1852, Maria Concepcion Amado brought her month old daughter Maria Concepcion Gabina Campuzano to be baptized at Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Altar, Sonora, Mexico. As with yesterday's post on her husband Vicente Antonio Campuzano, I used Ideogram to visualize Concepcion and child during this same time period. We do not currently have a surviving image of her.

Ancestry. Altar, Sonora baptisms, 1852.

1852 would have been a year of significant change for Concepcion. She had a daughter Dolores in 1851, followed by Gabina in March 1852. 

Sadly, Dolores died in November 1853. Another daughter, Maria Emilia, arrived in 1855. A fourth daughter, Maria del Carmel Campuzano, joined the growing family in 1857. Compounding the loss of Dolores, Concepcion lost her remaining three daughters within a week in July 1858 as Gabina, Emilia and Maria del Carmel all died between 21-29 July 1858. This was a devastating loss for the family.

Ancestry. Altar Defunciones 1858.

A son, Jose Jesus Campuzano, was born less than a year later on 12 May 1859 in Altar. Two other sons followed - my 2nd-great-grandfather Vicente Plutarco Campuzano in May 1862, and Cirilo Campuzano in 1868.

Her husband died on 20 January 1873 in nearby Pitiquito, Sonora. Concepcion lived long enough to see her three sons marry and start families of their own. Jose Jesus married Elvira Felix in 1883. Vicente and Maria Jesus Vasquez were married in 1890, and Cirilo married Micaela Ortega in 1893. Concepcion likely met ten of her grandchildren before she died on 6 May 1898 in Altar.

Ancestry. Pitiquito Civil Registration. 1893.

I cannot comprehend the amount of strength it must have taken for Concepcion to persevere from those days in Altar. She lived a long life through a tumultuous period of Mexican history.

A reminder to backup your photos

This BBC article from earlier in the month is a good reminder to backup old photos - see Why your early 2000s photos are probably lost forever (16 Dec 2025). We have an aging iMac with a lot of photos that need to be copied over to a hard drive or saved to our cloud storage. We also have a basement closet with boxes of other photos that need to be scanned and saved.

A shoemaker in Altar

 

Made in Ideogram. Vicente Campuzano, 1852.

In 1852, my 3rd-great-grandfather Vicente Antonio Campuzano was working as a zapatero (a shoemaker) in Altar, Sonora, Mexico. He had recently started a second family with Maria Concepcion Amado, who would have just delivered their first daughter Dolores in the previous year. The imagined scene above shows Vicente mending a boot in his open air adobe workshop.

I picked 1852 for this scene as that was the year of the Pimeria Alta census, which I misspelled and misdated as 1851 in my 2012 post on Vicente's origins. Now I would like to see a digital copy of the original 1852 census of the district of Altar, as I think there's more than just Vicente in that record. There should be a reference to Pedro Suastegui, his wife Ana Maria Orosco and her mother Reyes Valdes in Altar.

Two of Vicente's sons from his first family became tailors. Jose Maria Campuzano moved to Los Angeles, while older son Francisco moved to Tubac in the Arizona Territory.

Paddington and Liverpool Street Station

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Paddington. 6 Dec 2025.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Liverpool Street Station. 6 Dec 2025.

The Grinch Meal

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Shoreditch, London. 6 Dec 2025.

Apparently what I thought was funny street art is actually an advertisement by McDonalds UK for its holiday "Grinch Meal". The Grinch salt will turn your fries into a pickle-flavored "treat" and the meal includes oddly matched Grinch socks. I did not eat this during my stopover.

Where the stories may go in 2026

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tree of Life, Frane Delalle. Accra. 10 Dec 2025.

The mural above from the entrance of the Accra International Conference Centre in Ghana is massive. My photo shows the central panel, and there are two other large panels on either side. The murals were painted by Croatian artist Frane Delalle in 1990-1991, with the title The Tree of Life. As I look ahead to the new year, I hope to fill out some of the missing branches on our own tree of life and add to the leaves of stories in our history.

Last year I set some ambitious goals and shared monthly progress posts on my DNA research questions. These are going to evolve for January. While I'll continue to pursue some of these questions in the new year, some of the focus will shift to include open questions on Allison's side of the tree. I am curious to apply learning that may come from watching the sessions at RootsTech 2026 in March, as the event always provides new ideas and techniques for sharing family stories.

I am still interested in trying again for a session at RootsTech 2027. Although the dates have not yet been officially announced by FamilySearch, VisitSaltLake says the event may be at the Salt Palace 4-6 March 2027. This is conveniently the week before I'm supposed to be in Europe that March.

In the new year we'll receive updated Big Y results for our cousin Greg and the Campuzano line. Hopefully these results will give a more recent timeline for our Spanish connection.

I would like to figure out the connection to the mystery matches descending from Trinidad Leyva, and fill in the gaps on our Portillo side of the tree.

On the mtDNA front, we have results pending for another cousin in the maternal line path of Maria Jesus Vasquez. I'm looking forward to what we can learn from the shared mtDNA matches. I am also still very interested to see if mtDNA can help sort out the lines descending from John Carter (1715-1783).

In family history TV, a new season of Finding Your Roots begins on 6 January, and I expect more episodes of Who Do You Think You Are may be available on YouTube. I was able to catch quite a few episodes while in the UK earlier in the month. The episodes from Season 22 with Andrew Garfield, Mishal Husain and Diane Morgan were really good.

There's always the unexpected and new stories that come available as sources are scanned and added to the various sites. Many of the major family history platforms add new material and features leading up to RootsTech (and throughout the year).

Research Reflections on 2025

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. RootsTech, SLC. 5 Mar 2025.

As with last year, I'm using this post to look back on the research discoveries from 2025 and see how I did with the priorities I set for myself at the end of 2024. Continuing education was a big theme of 2025, as I attended RootsTech in person in March, watched a lot of family history YouTube and YourDNAGuide sessions. I participated in the DNA Study Group, the YDG member community on Circle, and online courses on YDNA, mtDNA and Shared Matches of Matches. I am looking forward to maintaining this ongoing education trend in the near year.

Setting research questions and tracking them each month was useful to maintain some focus, although I continue to use a "bounce around" approach to following different research subjects on the blog. Overall I think the monthly research recaps do keep me on target and accountable to follow-through on a particular question as the year progresses.

Looking back, in January I received my mtDNA results through FamilyTreeDNA. In February my Big Y results arrived. While there's more to do with both, receiving these results gave me a much deeper understanding of the maternal and paternal paths of my side of tree.

During the year I was also able to work with cousins Catherine and Lynn on their mtDNA kits, and their results have added to the incredible stories for two maternal branches in our tree (see this post from September, and this one from November). Thanks to our cousin Greg, a few weeks ago we received his initial YDNA haplogroup for the Campuzano line. Seeing the Big Y results in 2026 will be an upcoming highlight for next year.

With 324 posts (and counting), I've surpassed last year blog post total and am approaching 2012's top spot. While I don't set out to publish something every day, I did try to publish more frequently in 2025. Many of these were new discoveries on different branches of our shared family tree. In January I learned about a surprising Algerian connection on Allison's side with her 5th-great-grandfather Jean Pierre Halter. A branch of this family continued with their epic journey from France to Algeria to Brazil, and this made for a fascinating discovery.

We also learned that Allison and I share a common ancestor in our 8th-great-grandfather Philip Truax. This also means we both have a common ancestor in our Dutch New Amsterdam founders Philippe du Trieux and Lodewyck Post.

This year I put AI tools to the test, such as Claude, Ideogram, Perplexity, Runway, and MyHeritage's photo editing. By summer, other tools such as Suno arrived. I created some imagined scenes from the life of ancestors, such as my 3xgreats Marianna Haiss Oyler and Samuel Oyler at the Buck Tavern in 1850s Ohio, and 2xgreat-aunt Agnes Atherton O'Brien performing in 1890.

As for genealogy tools, I tested BanyanDNA on the generation of connection with the mystery O'Brien matches and learned about XDNA inheritance patterns. I hope to put both methods to further use in 2026.

Reflecting back before moving ahead, I generally stayed on focus with the topics I wanted to explore this year, and I learned a lot. Next week before the calendar turns to 2026, I'll share my updated areas of focus for the new year. Continued growth with DNA research and genetic genealogy will remain a big topic.

Merry Christmas

 

Made in Ideogram.

Trinidad's A-File

 

Source: NARA Kansas City. A-files.

On Monday a digital copy of the Alien Registration File for Trinidad Leyva arrived in my inbox from the National Archives in Kansas City. Unlike other copies I have received, this one was strikingly limited in new information. This record confirmed her birthdate and location in Sinaloa, identifying features, and some of her previous border crossing dates. In the record Trinidad also noted that she was widowed and had five children (it looks like she actually had six children).

This record doesn't help clear up how she may be connected to our Mexican side of the tree. It looks like I need to go back another generation on either side of her parents Escolastico and Flora.

Christmas Eve

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Dublin, 23 Oct 2025.

We're back from a quick visit to Blacksburg to see the overtime win by the Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball team on Saturday followed by a family visit and college tour at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. It feels a bit crazy to think that by this time next year, we'll be waiting to hear on acceptance letters.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Columbia, SC. 22 Dec 2025.

A marriage bond for Thomas and Nancy

 

Jefferson County Archives. 30 June 1798.

Courtesy of DAR researcher Mary, above is a scan of the marriage bond for my 5th-great-grandparents Thomas Jones and Nancy Tucker. This shows Thomas Jones and James Tucker entered into a bond with Tennessee Governor John Sevier for $500.

Jefferson County Archives.

2025 in my photos

 

Instagram. Photos by Patrick Jones.

Each year I share a recap of photos and travels. Next week I'll have a companion piece on research reflections as I close out 2025 and look ahead to research in 2026. In the snapshot above from my Instagram feed, the bottom middle photo is from February in Los Angeles. The bottom left photo is from Rootstech (shared previously here). The left lower middle and middle middle are from our visit to Lake Murray, SC at the end of March. The left shot above the paddleboarding photo is from our June meeting in Prague, with the middle photo from the Urban Nation Street Art Museum in Berlin. The top row is from Belfast (left corner and top middle) and Dublin this June.

My January began with a visit to Los Angeles, with the city on fire as a I flew into LAX. I visited Campuzano cousins in Anaheim and avoided the smoke covering West LA.

In February I returned to LA, and Allison and I took time to go back to the then-Michelin 3-star Inn at Little Washington. Although it lost a star this year, it's still an incredible experience.

Allison at Inn at Little Washington. 7 Feb 2025.

In March I went to Rootstech on my way to my own meeting in Seattle, Washington. We closed out the month with a family visit to South Carolina.

In April I did a Spring time hike through Bath and the Cotswolds. This was an incredible trip and a highly recommended visit to the beautiful English countryside.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Near Bath, UK. 24 Apr 2025.

For May, we moved Sophia home for the summer and enjoyed some paddleboarding on the Potomac.

In June, I had a meeting in Prague and a bonus visit to Berlin prior to the meeting. The train from Berlin to Prague is also highly recommended. Sophia joined me in Prague and we had a really great time in Central Europe. I think we both agreed one of our favorite stops was the Mucha Museum in Prague.

Sophia & I. Prague. 12 Jun 2025.

At the end of June, I joined Allison and her choir on an epic tour of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I think Belfast is underrated as a city and is a surprisingly cool spot for street art, food and museums. The Titanic Museum is definitely worth visiting as it gives a solid understanding of the city's importance with the linen trade and ship building. We rode the ferry from Belfast to Scotland and then continued on to Edinburgh. I had some bonus time to visit the University of Edinburgh Archives and complete a hike of Arthur's Seat. Edinburgh was really great.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Choir at St. Giles, Edinburgh. 30 Jun 2025.

In August, we returned to NY. I visited the office in LA in September. October brought on our end of the year meeting in Dublin. For November I caught the train to Culpeper to reset the keys to the Internet.

Earlier in the month I had a stopover in London and a quick trip to Ghana.

Tomorrow we're heading down to Blacksburg, VA to catch some college basketball before visiting the family in South Carolina before Christmas. Virginia Tech is 10-2 and we hope to see some exciting basketball to kick off the holiday weekend.

This definitely doesn't capture all my best photos and recollections of the year, but it's a decent overview.

DNA in the news: Beachy Head Woman from Roman Britain

A new article in the Journal of Archaeological Science (17 December 2025) details new DNA findings on skeleton from Southern England that has been dated to 129-311 CE. It's an interesting publication showing how new DNA analysis techniques can challenge and change previous determinations. 

The skeleton was found in the collection of the Eastbourne Town Hall in 2012 (possibly moved there in 1959), and initially believed to be sub-Saharan African in origin. In 2024 an updated DNA method was used, and the researchers also used Unreal Engine (the same computer technology behind popular online games such as Fortnite) to generate a new digital likeness for the woman. Based on the new information, the researchers have determined that Beachy Head Woman came from Roman-era southern Britain.

Wrapped Season

 

Spotify. 2025 Wrapped logo.

Users of Spotify will notice an increase in copycat end of the year "wrapped" updates rolling out from various platforms. Everything from Duolingo to Uber Eats to even Ancestry is providing a Spotify Wrapped-style recap. (Ancestry's green also recalls Spotify's own Wrapped green).

Source: Ancestry.

As with prior years, I will soon have a year in photos and travel post and a review of my research progress, along with a look ahead to 2026. It is natural and quite useful to have these reflective posts in the last two weeks of the year. This month is racing forward and it's really hard to believe next week is Christmas.

A-File Request Received

I've received a reply from the National Archives at Kansas City in response to my request for a copy of the A-file for Trinidad Leyva. I should receive additional information in the next week or so, and I am really curious to see if the file includes some hints of a connection to a branch on our Sonoran or Arizona side of the tree.

London Christmas

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. London. 6 Dec 2025.

Mariana

 

FamilySearch. Hermosillo Baptisms. 31 Jul 1848.

Something tells me Mariana Portillo might have a link to my 3rd-great-grandfather Manuel Portillo, and to the mystery Guerrero-Leyva matches. Mariana was the first wife of Ygnacio Campuzano. Above is a snapshot of her baptism record from Hermosillo, Sonora. This lists her parents as Jose de la Luz Portillo and Juana Vidal. Jose was born about 1828, which could make him a brother of Manuel.

On Ancestry, using Shared Matches of Matches, I can see the matches in common with Eddie Campuzano, a great-grandson of Mariana Portillo. He's also a match to CH (164 cM), and several others who are part of the Guerrero-Leyva group.

Mariana married Ygnacio Campuzano in Hermosillo on 23 November 1866. Interestingly, witnesses were Francisco Calles and Maria Jesus Campuzano (she was the mother of Plutarco Elias Calles, future President of Mexico).

FamilySearch. Hermosillo Marriages, 1866.

They had at least eight children together, before Ygnacio started a second family with Dolores Preciado. Mariana appears in the 1910 US Census in Silverbell, Pima County, Arizona living with her daughter Maria Ysabel.

The trail points to Spain

 

Made in Ideogram. A pilgrim on the Camino.

Back in June 2015, I wrote about the two families of Vicente Antonio Campuzano (1810-1873). Thanks to cousin Greg, we now have an initial YDNA haplogroup for his line to Vicente through Ygnacio Campuzano. Below is a photo of Ygnacio with second wife Dolores Preciado, and two children (likely Jose, born March 1896 and sister Dolores born in 1897). Ygnacio was a half-brother of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Vicente Plutarco Campuzano.

Source: P. Rosas. Ygnacio, Dolores and children. 

The initial YDNA haplogroup is R-S3530. According to FamilyTreeDNA, the man who was the most recent common ancestor for this line was born about 1 BCE. Because this is so far back in time, I've upgraded the kit to Big Y700, in the hopes that this will provide a more recent haplogroup. The Big Y results probably won't be available for a while, likely into early 2026.

FTDNA Discover report for R-S3530.

There's more analysis to do. Thankfully there are some Y matches and very interesting autosomal matches to review.

A Visit to Spitalfields Market

 

Selfie at Old Spitalfields Market. 6 Dec 2025.

Last week's stopover in London provided an opportunity to visit the historic Spitalfields Market. Our Oyler side of the tree has a long connection to the market. Spitalfields is currently decorated for the holidays, and it has a happy, festive atmosphere. As I was staying in Shoreditch, I ended up visiting the market several times for food, browsing the vendors, and immersing myself in the surroundings that would have been the stomping grounds for the Potter Oyler Ltd fruit and produce vendors.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Spitalfields Market.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Spitalfields. 6 Dec 2025.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Festive decorations.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Old Spitalfields. 6 Dec 2025.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Spitalfields.

Happy Friday

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Shoreditch, London. 6 Dec 2025.

Greetings, I'm back from my week in London and Accra, Ghana, and catching up on a lot that came through while I was on work travel. Our cousin Greg received his initial YDNA haplogroup through FTDNA. This deserves its own post. Another cousin's mtDNA kit has been received by FTDNA, which will give us a second tester on the maternal line for Maria Jesus Vasquez. There's more to cover, and writing will return to a more regular pace as the month picks up to the holiday break.

Ghana week

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Accra, Ghana. 24 July 2023.

I'm back in Accra, Ghana for a series of events this week. Above is a painting that was in our hotel in the last Ghana meeting from 2023.

Art in the city

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Edinburgh, 28 June 2025.

A painting in the lobby at the Old Town Chambers hotel in Edinburgh. We didn't stay at the hotel this summer but had dinner in their restaurant.

Christmas Decorations, 2014

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. The White House, 12 Dec 2014.

A throwback to a different time, showing some of the decorations at the now demolished East Wing of the White House in Washington DC. I have more photos from my visit on that day in 2014, which really feels like a moment in time now that the historic wing is no longer there.

Escolastico and Flora

FamilySearch. 19 Aug 1881. Mazatlan, Sinaloa, MX.

Last week I wrote about Trinidad Leyva, the mother of our mystery match CH. Her parents were Escolastico Leyva and Flora Escovar. They were married in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico on 7 September 1881. The image above comes from their marriage intention document (Informacion Matrimonial) on 19 August 1881. This is a great record, as it states Escolastico was a twenty-six year old shoemaker (zapatero) from Culiacan, Sinaloa, and names his parents Juan Leyva and Carlota Rodriguez (both deceased). 

Flora was fourteen, from San Javier, Sinaloa, not far from the Sinaloa-Sonora border in the northern part of the state. She had been living in Mazatlan for twelve years, with her mother Maria Hernandez. Flora's father, Valentin Escovar, was deceased by the time this marriage intention was made in 1881.

Escolastico and Flora had at least the following children:

• Antonio Leyva (June 1882-1883)
• Ysabel Leyva (1887-1904)
• Enriqueta Leyva (1889-1889)
• Trinidad Leyva (1892-?)
• Juan Leyva (1897-1947)

Escolastico died in 1902 in Sinaloa. Flora lived until 1934 and moved from Sinaloa to Nogales, Sonora.

There's more in the Mexican records on FamilySearch. Somewhere on either Escolastico or Flora's line is our connection to this group of mystery matches. I'm parking this here for now, and will pick up this path later next week.

Revisiting the Schwarzlose family

 

Daily Republican-Register. 25 Jul 1939.

Back in 2016, I wrote about the family of Allison's 4th-great-grandparents, John William Schwarzlose and Maria Elizabeth Hesse. As Maria is on the maternal line path working backward from Allison, her Mom and her Memaw, and our daughter is taking a mtDNA test to verify the mtDNA haplogroup for this line, I thought it would be timely to revisit the available records on the family while we await the results of the test.

Allison's line descends from Mary Elizabeth Schwartzlose Koehler. A Genealogy of John William and Maria Elizabeth Schwarzlose was published in 1989 by Judy L. Schwarzlose, and a digital version is available on FamilySearch. I'm hoping new records have become available since this family history was published, which will allow us to push the maternal line back into Germany.

FamilySearch. Edwards, IL. 17 Jan 1877.

John William and Maria Elizabeth were married on 14 November 1852 in the village of Roxförde, located south of Gardelegen in the present-day state of Sachsen-Anhalt. At the time this would have been part of Saxony in the Kingdom of Prussia.

New look to Ancestry's ThruLines tool

 

Ancestry's ThruLines for KDJ. Dec 2025.

Over the weekend, Ancestry rolled out a new interface for ThruLines, integrating DNA matches into a family tree view. You can then click on any person in the tree, expand backward on a line and see how many DNA matches Ancestry thinks are descending from a person. As an example below, when I am in my Dad's results and click on Robert Thomas Jones Sr, the image shows his children and the path for the DNA matches connected to them.

Ancestry's ThruLines.

The old ThruLines view is still an option, and I think both are useful. I also haven't tested this yet with my iPad, but I think the tree graphics might work better on a screen that I can pinch and expand easily. The new tree graphic is pretty small.

Another cool feature is if you click on an ancestor, you see a right-side profile pop-up which shows how many DNA matches you have and pulls some detail from your tree such as facts from their timeline.

Ancestry. ThruLines profile.

As others I follow have shared, it is good to see Ancestry continuing to innovate and evolve these tools, and I am looking forward to using these to make more connections.