Wade in the Water

 

Shawn Pridgen. "Wade in the Water" 2020.

A photo from the Reflecting Pool, facing the Lincoln Memorial by photographer Shawn Pridgen.

Triple Digits

We've hit 102 in Northern Virginia. Dangerously hot outside, and definitely too hot for dog paws to be walking around. I have Spain vs Austria on one screen while working.

Some reading ahead of the weekend - a fascinating New York Times interactive article How a Nation of Immigrants Traces its Roots (1 July 2026, subscription may be required to read). See also the very cool census data map accompanying the article.

Historic Hinkle to Host 2026 NBA Cup

 

Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis. NBA.com.

The NBA announced Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis will host the championship game of the 2026 NBA Cup on 11 December. The venue is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a real "basketball cathedral". I've posted about Hinkle Fieldhouse previously. The building was an inspiration to the current home of the Indiana Pacers, now called Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

It's very cool to see Indy and Hinkle Fieldhouse will host the NBA Cup, and we'll certainly be watching (streaming on Amazon Prime).

Research Progress July 2026

This is my monthly post to recap progress on DNA research questions. The month of June heavily featured work travel and primary obligations, and less time for family history research. I'll take this as an opportunity to look back to previous questions from May for this update.

RootsTech 2027 presentations

The call for RootsTech 2027 presentations has now closed, and I'm awaiting news. I submitted two proposals before departing to Spain. I also booked my flights and the same Airbnb I used for RootsTech 2025, so either way I'm planning to attend in person.

My Paternal Side

It's been a while since the May update, and there's been some progress on the questions related to Irish immigrants Bridget and John O'Brien. Mainly this is an update on progress with chromosome mapping. Using the tools on DNAPainter, I'm now up to 119 segments mapped (24%) for my Dad, and 183 segments mapped (30%) for me. 16 of those segments on my Dad's side are "Unknown O'Brien", as these are segments from known matches who are either from the Pennsylvania O'Briens group or a growing mystery group of likely O'Briens who left Ireland for Australia. 

I'm hoping to spend some more time in July on this mystery new Australia group.

My Maternal Side

Very little progress since the previous month's update on my maternal side research questions. I hope to pick these up again this month.

New Tools

I am continuing to use Gedminer to identify errors in my tree on Ancestry, duplicates, and stray people who were added long ago without proper references or sources. There's much more to do here.

National Archives plans to close records locations

Sharing this article from KQED, The Bay Area's National Archives office is closing, researchers are worried (26 June 2026). 

An article from 25 June 2026 in Federal News Network states that NARA plans to close three records centers - Chicago, San Francisco/San Bruno, and Seattle.

Closing out June

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Mercado San Miguel, Madrid. 12 June 2026.

We've reached the end of the month. It's been active with travel, planning for upcoming trips, World Cup soccer, and the return of summer heat to our corner of Northern VA. Family history blogging has slowed quite a bit, and I'm not sure things will pick up in July.

We have a family reunion in a couple weeks. I think July is going to sail by, even with the extra day in the month.

Josephine

 

New Orleans Times-Picayune. 29 Apr 1917.

Picking up from my previous post, a death notice in the New Orleans Times-Picayune announced the funeral of Josephine Carrera Debucceres at St. Roch Cemetery. Working backward, Josephine appears in the 1900 US Census, running an oyster and fruit store on Royal Street, living with her children and brother Vincent.

Ancestry. 1900 US Census. New Orleans, LA.

By 1910, Josephine was listed in the census under the name of her late husband "Nicolas Debucceres" at Elysian Fields Avenue, although Nicolas had died in 1895. On the next page, Josephine's brother Vincent is still living in the household and working as a fisherman. Josephine appears in various city directories, including in 1901 and 1911, running an oyster shop.

Going back further, in April 1879, a French language newspaper announced the marriage of Nicolo DeBuchery and Guiseppa Guereria. Their marriage record is found in the New Orleans marriages on FamilySearch, from 10 April 1879, with a slightly different spelling of her last name, Guereira.

L'abeille de La Nouvelle-Orléans. 13 Apr 1879.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 10 Apr 1879.

FamilySearch. New Orleans, 1879.

Maybe the marriage records for the children of Josephine and Nicolo will point to the connection between the Ciofalo/Huber family. The city directory entries haven't uncovered a link. 

A mystery in St Roch's

 

Ancestry. St. Rochs Cemetery, New Orleans.

A researcher reached out over Ancestry's Messages, asking about how her 2x-great-grandmother was listed in the tomb of Filippo Ciofalo, Magdalene Huber and Charles Huber in St. Roch's Cemetery of New Orleans. In 2021, I wrote about Magdalene, a daughter of Antoinette Halter, younger sister of my wife's 4th-great-grandfather Francois Halter.

This query prompted some digging through the records, on Ancestry, FamilySearch and Newspapers.com. I wonder if the connection is through Magdalene's Sicilian first husband, Filippo Ciofalo. He was born on Sicily's northern coast, 21 February 1834, at Termini Imerese, part of the metropolitan city of Palermo. It is unclear to me when he immigrated to New Orleans, but may have served in the Civil War as part of a European Brigade in the city.

Ciofalo married Magdalene Vollrath on 18 November 1874. He died without children in 1888, and left his estate to Magdalene.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 1874.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 1874.

Ancestry. Louisiana Wills.

Josephine

Giuseppa (Josephine) Carrera (or Curreri) Germana DeBucceres was born in Sicily in 1852. She died in New Orleans in April 1917, and is supposed to be buried in the Ciofalo/Huber crypt at St. Roch's Cemetery. I don't yet understand the connection between Josephine and this family. Was she a cousin of Filippo Ciofalo? Certainly she was a fellow Sicilian immigrant to New Orleans. Was she a friend of Magdalene or did they attend the same church? Was her connection through Charles Huber, Magdalene's second husband?

I'll follow the trail of records on Josephine in the next post.

23&Me Updates Ancestry Composition

 

23&Me Ancestry Composition. 25 June 2026.

23&Me is rolling out updated Country Match information in its Ancestry Composition report (for comparison, here's the earlier version) *Note - this version may not be new, but it's new to me as my results were initially published with their v6 composition. There are some fascinating additions in the country reports, showing specific regions in England and Ireland where my matches report ancestors. Greater London isn't a surprise, but it's cool to see how this granularity compares with the AncestryDNA regions update from last October. It's also cool to see 23&Me focusing on Longford & Roscommon in North Central Ireland.

England regions for my matches.

Region concentration in Ireland.

It's very interesting to see 23&Me focus in on Abruzzo and Calabria for my 3.1% Southern Italian.

As with Ancestry's reports, Nigeria still shows up for me at .8%. My Mexican ancestry shows a regional concentration for Sonoran Desert, which again is as expected.

Clicking into the migrations tab shows more suggestions on historical migrations in my ancestry. This is very similar to AncestryDNA's Ancestral Journeys.

The suggestion for Venango County Early British/Irish Americans is worth exploring further, although the report says the connection is distant.

DNA in the news: Revolutionary War soldier identified

A story on NPR about DNA links identifying a previously unknown Revolutionary War soldier (23 June 2026)

Fathers Day

 

Dad. Mothers Beach, LA. 30 Aug 2008.

A Return to the Real Alcazar

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 5 June 2026.

Earlier in the month I had the opportunity to revisit the amazing grounds of the Real Alcazar in Sevilla. We visited this place in August 2019 during our Spain & Portugal trip. I was able to grab a ticket for the last hour of the day at the palace, which contributed to great lighting for photos.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Domed ceiling.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Alcazar cat in motion.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tile work.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Inscriptions.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tapestry showing Spain, with North Africa on top. 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tiles.

Llegadas/Salidas

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 11 June 2026.

The shot above from Sevilla Santa Justa station reminds me of other photos from departures boards I've taken over the years (see this black and white shot from LAX in 2020). Another example is this shot from the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport in 2024.

I took a similar photo from Atocha Station in Madrid back in 2017 (sized for Instagram below).

Photo by Patrick Jones. Madrid. 13 May 2017.

More observations on Gedminer

 

Gedminer. 17 June 2026.

Earlier in the week I wrote about testing out the new tool Gedminer. When I first ran the tool using the GEDCOM I downloaded from Ancestry, I had 11,462 people in my tree (this includes groups of people from floating trees that I have built off my main tree to identify DNA matches). I followed some of the suggestions to fix errors, and am now down to 10,826 people after pruning some additional branches.

My tree consistency score has improved from 99.4 to 99.58% and the sourcing score has improved from 74.24 to 75.29%. 

I began building out my tree on Ancestry in 2005, and over the years a lot of questionable additions to the tree have stacked up. Gedminer is really useful to identify these errors, people without data, or branches that don't belong.

A Canadian Connection

 

Ancestry. Maine Marriages. 14 Nov 1898.

While looking at the tree for Canadian DNA match DG, I see Mary O'Brien of St. John's, Newfoundland. She married Garrett Coady in Torbay, Newfoundland in 1859. I emailed the Provincial Archives in St. John's (therooms.ca), and received a reply that a true copy shows the marriage as between "Garret Cody and Mary Brine" as written by the priest in the ledger at the Holy Trinity Parish in Torbay.

Garrett and Mary had at least the following children:

• Mary Coady, 1859
• William Coady, 1861
• Timothy Coady, 1871
• James Joseph Coady, 1874
• Bridget Coady, 1877
• Mary Coady, 1879
• Denis Coady, 1882

The record above comes from the marriage entry for their son Timothy Coady, in Penobscot, Maine. It's interesting to see Garrett listed as a sailor. I am still looking for other records for Mary O'Brien in Torbay, potentially for her parents so that I can see if she connects into my own O'Brien line in Newfoundland or if these records point back to Ireland.

Another source for information is in the Mannion Collection for Irish Migration and Settlement in Newfoundland. This is a next step.

Overlapping centimorgans

 

DNAPainter. Chromosome 12 for KDJ.

Last October I dove down the rabbit hole on the story of Mary Frances O'Brien, who worked as a governess for the child of Alberto Yoacham, Minister of Chile to Mexico in 1918. At the time I wasn't sure how this ancestor of DNA match JJ O'Brien might connect, if at all, to our O'Brien line. After spending some time on chromosome mapping using the tools at DNAPainter, I decided to look again at the segments in common with other known O'Brien DNA matches. JJ's segment, the dark green piece at the bottom of my Dad's chromosome 12, overlaps with another dark green segment belonging to a verified O'Brien match.

JJ's segment is small, 10.3 cM, but the segment is entirely within a 20 cM segment from EM, who is a descendant of James O'Brien from the Pennsylvania O'Brien branch.

Another potential O'Brien DNA match to my Dad, DG, shares 38.8 cM. This match is on MyHeritage and comes from Canada. When I map the segments in common, she has a 12.2 cM segment (dark green, at bottom) that overlaps with a longer segment in common with Mike O'Brien on chromosome 11. Interestingly EM also has a segment overlapping with Mike on this same chromosome (dark green directly below Mike's lighter green). DG has a smaller 8 cM piece on chromosome 17.

DNAPainter. Chromosome 11 for KDJ.

Now I need to look closer at DG's Canadian ancestor and see if it's possible to directly link her to my O'Brien line.

Testing Gedminer

 

Gedminer. June 2026.

On Jarrett Ross' Friday YouTube livestream, he demonstrated a new tool called Gedminer. It is browser-based, and currently free to use (although you can donate to the developer to support the project). Gedminer works with a GEDCOM (a structured file for storing family tree data) and provides a detailed analysis with suggestions for further exploration. Some screenshots below capture what Gedminer can do.

You can download a copy of your GEDCOM from Ancestry or MyHeritage, and upload it to Gedminer. The process was fairly easy, although it did take me a little bit of time to find the right place to generate the GEDCOM file on Ancestry.

Under the heading "Discovery", Gedminer has tabs for deep dives into your GEDCOM data, including Migration Analysis, a Census Toolbox, Gap Detector, Incomplete Families, a DNA Planner, and Plan Generator. The Migration Analysis is very cool.

The Plan Generator analyzes the GEDCOM and suggests highest impact research tasks.

I am going to try some tree cleanup on Ancestry and fixing of suggested errors, and then reload the updated GEDCOM. Gedminer can show progress improvements and recalculate scores. This looks like a very powerful tool.

Beckoning Cat

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Madrid, 12 June 2026.

Walking around in the Mercado Anton Martín on Friday in Madrid, a square image of a beckoning cat next to the kitchen of Asian Army restaurant caught my eye. The swirling red script caused me to give the place a closer look. I thought it might be Khmer script, which I recognized from visiting Angkor Wat in 2016. I snapped a photo for later, and enjoyed some delicious dinner.

Upon my return home, I uploaded the image to Google Gemini and asked a simple prompt, "what language and script is in this image, and what does it say." According to Gemini, this is a modern yantra, "a type of sacred talisman in Thai spiritual culture...featuring a stylized beckoning cat wearing traditional Thai royal attire. Shopkeepers and business owners in Thailand place talisman papers like this at their storefronts or registers to magnetically attract customers, boost sales and invite good fortune into the establishment."

The text is written in a variant of the Khmer script (Khom Thai) historically used in Thailand for religious, magical or sacred texts. The language is Pali (Phasa Bali in Khom script), the traditional language of Theravada Buddhism. This is a Buddhist mantra for good luck, attracting loving kindness, customers, and popularity (paraphrasing).

The image got my attention, and I stuck around for Singapore-style chicken rice. Very tasty.

I also recommend Cutzamala, around the corner from Asian Army on the same level of the mercado. I ate there before the Mexico-South Africa game on Thursday night.

Return from Sevilla

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 4 June 2026.

I'm now back from the Spain trip, and will be catching up on the family history items I've missed while away. There are some cool new tools, and new matches to explore.

Resurfacing

Meetings in Sevilla have ended and I’m stopping in Madrid for the moment. Madrid is on my top cities list, and it’s been really great returning to a favorite neighborhood and seeing familiar places. This is definitely a place I could spend quality time in a future life chapter. Blogging and family history research have been on pause while I’ve focused on my primary duties for the event in Spain.

Things are shifting from here to our Asia Pacific region, and another familiar location or two returns to the travel itinerary. Spain will be back in January and will feature heavily in my travel plans for 2027.

Plaza de España

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 27 Aug 2019.

Up up and away

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. TWA Hotel, 2 Nov 2024.

Immigrant Heritage Month

June is Immigrant Heritage Month. As with previous years this is a reminder for donations to groups supporting immigration causes, and a reminder to look back at some of the previous immigration stories in my own family. MyHeritage has free access to its US immigration collection this week.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Echo Park, LA. 19 May 2018.

Research Progress June 2026

It's been a month, and once again time to share research progress since the previous update for May. The most significant developments have all been on my maternal side questions, so this month's post will feature that activity. The discoveries from this month show my three previous questions blending together. Some of the bigger discoveries are still being worked through with cousins, and I'm holding off documenting this case study on the blog until hearing back from everyone for now.

1 - Working with Portillo DNA matches. I have been able to use chromosome mapping from matches on FTDNA, MyHeritage, Gedmatch and 23andme to identify segments most likely connected to the Portillo family. There's a lot here to still work through, but these matches are starting to identify specific segments most likely inherited from the Portillo family, and the segments in common are providing a likely generation of connection between Mariana Portillo and my 3rd-great-grandfather Manuel Portillo.

2 - Analyzing mtDNA matches in the maternal line path of Maria Jesus Vasquez. Now with an additional cousin we have some fascinating results and I'm working through them. This mitotree haplogroup is now A2a5b'd'e.

3 - Campuzano YDNA. This has been the biggest result of the month. I've been using a mix of tools, such as Diagrams.net, DNAPainter, and the various DNA testing platforms, to work through the matches and document the issues with this family line. The testers on both branches of the family are now aware, and I have a full recap of the research so far in the works.

[New] 4 - Identifying living descendants of Jose Jesus Amado for YDNA. This is an old research question that has come back after finding two Amado testers on 23andme, and connecting with the manager of an Amado kit on Ancestry. Using chromosome mapping I can see the segments of these Amado testers overlapping with a Campuzano cousin who descended from Maria Concepcion Amado. My hope is the tester on 23andme might be interested in a YDNA kit from FamilyTreeDNA.

Future RootsTech Talk. I submitted two session proposals for RootsTech 2027. Now I wait. Last year I heard back by mid-September that my 2026 proposal had been declined. Either way I'm looking forward to attending in person.

RootsTech 2027 proposal

 

RootsTech 2027. 

My RootsTech 2027 talk proposal is in. The deadline runs to 29 June, but with travel coming up next week, I went ahead and finished the entry. I might send in a second topic, and have the outline already finished.

Santa Monica mountain lion captured

 

SMDP. Mountain lion in Santa Monica. 29 May 2026.

A mountain lion was safely captured yesterday after hanging out in a Santa Monica backyard, right around the corner from our old home. The story reminded me of P-22, the famous mountain lion of Griffith Park. Hopefully the safe capture and relocation of the mountain lion will also drive attention to the Save LA Cougars campaign and the soon to open Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101.

A Family Secret No More

This is a fascinating long form story in the NY Times (published 15 May 2026), about the families from two brothers originally from New Orleans who were placed in an orphanage. One brother went north to Chicago, passing as white; the other brother stayed in New Orleans. The families later reunited through the journalist who was a former national correspondent with the Times. Well written, and the story weaves in old photos and documents to the present.

A Complicated Map

 

Diagrams.net family map.

Earlier in the month I shared a screenshot from a family relationship map I've been building using the free version from diagrams dot net. The map has now progressed quite far and I've placed 28 DNA testers on the map (there are many more known matches), covering representatives from the two Campuzano families of my 3rd-great-grandfather Vicente Antonio Campuzano. I've also been able to use this map with the multiple relationships from the Portillo family connections.

The map has also proven useful connecting 23andme matches to the tree, and placing them in the appropriate place. On top of this, I am doing chromosome mapping and identifying segments in common with the different testers (except for Ancestry, which does not yet provide this).

A third layer to this exercise has been to query the same prompts of Claude (Sonnet 4.6) and Google Gemini, asking the models to analyze the map given the complicated YDNA case that we now have. After a fascinating back and forth questioning with the models and DNA segments, I have a good idea of how to present the results, and where we need to go next. YDNA testers welcomed.

A new life for a historic home

 

Bar Crisol. Tucson, Arizona.

In 2022 I shared a story on Exo Roast Co in the Barrio Viejo neighborhood of Tucson. The shop is now Cafe/Bar Crisol, located in the former home of my great-grandparents Plutarco Campuzano and Manuela Portillo, at 196 W. Simpson Street.

Ancestry. 1940 US Census. Tucson, Arizona.

Roadrunner

 

Print by Keith D. Jones.

An undated print by my grandfather, Keith D. Jones. I've previously shared some of his artwork and stories on the blog (see California or Bust from 2024).