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.