On top of the Leaning Tower

 

Photo by K. Jones. Me on the Leaning Tower. Oct 1985.

Here's another set of photos from our October 1985 tour of Italy. The shots above and below were taken in Pisa, in the Piazza del Duomo. For a while visitors were not able to climb the 251 steps to the top of the Leaning Tower, but visits are currently open again. I made the climb during our tour, as seen in the photo above.

Photo by K. Jones. Pisa, Oct 1985.

Photo by K. Jones. Tower of Pisa. Oct 1985.

Pompeii

 

Photo by K. Jones. Pompeii, 8 Oct 1985.

In October 1985, while our family was living in Germany, my parents took my sister and I on a trip to Italy. One of the highlights of that trip was a walk through the ruins of Pompeii, a city destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. This was a formative visit for 11 year old me, capturing my imagination for history and travel. I later minored in History and Classics in college. This week National Geographic released a three part docu-drama, Pompeii Out of Time, with Tom Hiddleston (see trailer on YouTube).

The Nat Geo program focuses on the story of three Romans during the disaster, interwoven with Tom consulting various experts to understand how these people might have reacted and survived. I like that it tries to tell the stories of these people and the locations of Pompeii and Herculaneum in an interesting way. Yes, there's some cheesy bits with Tom freezing and rewinding time, but just watch.

Me & my sister in Pompeii. Oct 1985.

"History gives us facts - names, dates, places - and while all of this evidence is critical, it will never give us the full picture. How people felt, how people lived, how people loved...I hope that by combining these two things - evidence and empathy, history and story...I hope I've told their historia." Tom Hiddleston, episode 3.

NewspaperFinder

 

NewspaperFinder.com. July 2026.

In April 2026, a small team launched NewspaperFinder, a database for every digitized newspaper available online. At the beginning of July, they kicked off a catalog feature. You still search across newspapers by year and location, but new features are being added. It would be really cool to search by topic across all of these newspaper databases.

I'm partly adding this as a reminder to myself to check NewspaperFinder on a regular schedule.

Nostalgia

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Turoni's Pizza, Evansville. 19 July 2026.

We're now all back from reunion weekend, after picking up the family from a series of flights. Part of this trip in addition to seeing family was returning to old familiar places in the town my wife grew up in. "It's about the nostalgia" she said.

One of the locations was the country club house (now renovated and completely changed) for lunch with her uncle and aunt on her Dad's side. This is where we had our wedding reception back in 1999, and it is a place we haven't seen since.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Oak Meadow. 19 July 2026.

On this visit we stayed in a new part of town, one that was very unfamiliar from the memories of her youth. This is an observation as it is really her story to tell, but places change and evolve. I could sense her frustration not remembering the town in the same way. I probably could not drive around southside or Downtown Indy without navigation helping me get there now. It was that way on this trip, needing navigation to cross town. Some of the roads we recognized, some were completely new.

We played in the family softball game, put up some shots on the barn basketball hoop and enjoyed the time with cousins, aunts, uncles, grands and greats. We held some puppies, surveyed the corn, and generated some new memories among our four.

Travel delays

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. SDF, Louisville. 21 July 2026.

Yesterday's storms forced a overnight stay next to Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport, rerouting me on a very early flight this morning back home. I have a lot to catch up on, with further posts from the reunion weekend to follow.

Reunions

This weekend we have a family reunion on Allison's side. It's been a few years since we've been back to the farm, and we're looking forward to seeing cousins, nieces, grands and greats. We have some catching up to do. 

Roberta

In both recollections on the "California or Bust" 1937 road trip story, told from the perspective of my Gumpy, and then by his brother Bob, they mention the kindness of Roberta Elliott during their stop in San Francisco. Roberta was from Thorntown, Indiana, and was an older classmate of Bob's from Sugar Plains school. When my Gumpy, Bob, and cousins Tom and Guy stopped in San Francisco, Roberta put them up at her apartment with her first husband Archie Monson. She cooked them a shrimp dinner from Fishermans Wharf and guided them on a tour through the city. This memory stood out in both their stories and they remembered her fondly.

When I shared Bob's version of the road trip in 2024 (self-published in his book in 1994), I had intended to follow-up with more information about Roberta. Unfortunately I forgot to come back to her story, so I'm doing that with this post.

Roberta lived to be 102, and died in August 2016. Her obituary captures a fascinating set of achievements, including a medical school now named for her at California Pacific Medical Center.

San Francisco Chronicle, 7 Aug 2016.

Indianapolis News. 22 Apr 1937.

It looks like Roberta did not have children of her own. In 1959, Roberta traveled with second husband Newt Neustadter on a trip to South America, visiting Rio de Janeiro, Brasil and Lima, Peru. An interview with Roberta published after her 100th birthday includes further recollections of her time in Thorntown and journey to California.

Casa Dos Amados

Photo by Patrick Jones. Casa Dos Amados.

Yesterday before the Norway v England World Cup match, I went to our neighborhood wine shop to pick up something for a game viewing party at a friends' house. The local wine shop was tasting a quartet of wines from Casa Dos Amados in Portugal. The label caught my attention as I'm pursuing our Amado line back to Portugal. My Aunt Linda has 5% Portugal in her Ancestral Regions on Ancestry, and 23&Me's latest update shows me as 6.7% Portuguese and Galician.

A portion of my composition from 23&Me.

Back to Casa Dos Amados, they are located in Saima, between Lisbon and Porto. The wines were tasty. Now this place is on my list for a future visit.

Google Maps. Saima, PT.

Workers on Strike in Vizcaya

Museo del Prado. Painting by Cutanda y Toraya, 1892.

This large scale work titled Workers on Strike in Vizcaya by Vicente Cutanda y Toraya is on display at the amazing Museo del Prado in Madrid. I've visited many times and was able to walk through the museum before connecting home last month. The painting is 9 feet tall by over 17 feet wide, so the scale of the painting draws you into the scene of the Basque workers going on strike in 1890. The part of the painting that really caught my attention is in the lower left corner, showing a girl, holding back possibly a little brother, while carrying a basket and a bottle of wine.

Chromosome mapping update

 

DNAPainter.

Since starting with chromosome mapping tools on DNAPainter in March, I've made a good bit of progress identifying segments. I shared some stats in my 1 July Research Progress update, and I thought it might be useful to provide some additional detail on how this is working.

Currently segment data can be viewed for DNA matches on FamilyTreeDNA, 23&Me, MyHeritage and Gedmatch. This is where testing (or uploading DNA kits) across multiple platforms can be useful. Because Ancestry does not provide a chromosome browser, you can't view individual segments in common with matches on AncestryDNA. But it is possible shared matches of matches with Ancestry's ProTools might help identify matches in common who tested or uploaded to these other platforms, and that can be used to map segments to DNAPainter.

I'm now up to 191 segments mapped (32%) for me, 122 segments (24%) for my Dad's results, and 137 segments (28%) for my Mom's results. This is good steady progress since I made a chromosome mapping post in May.

Combining chromosome mapping with clustering has also been really useful, and Ancestry does provide clustering in ProTools. I've been able to find some matches in common from Ancestry who also tested on 23&Me, and that's helped with the segment mapping.

Revisiting the World Cup teams based on family history

 

Ancestry on Facebook. 7 Jul 2026.

Ancestry's Facebook post on DNA origins and the World Cup is a good reminder to revisit the last eight countries who might lift the trophy on 19 July. In May I shared a post on the 2026 World Cup teams based on family history. Ancestry's had the same idea to use the World Cup to generate interest in AncestryDNA and its ancestral origins tool.

Tomorrow France and Morocco are set for an epic quarterfinal clash. France has been amazing throughout the tournament, but I'm pulling for Morocco to make the last four. On Friday, Spain and Belgium play. Belgium knocked out the US, and has never won (they finished in 3rd place in 2018). I'm cheering for Spain to make the semi-final, and if Morocco is out, then for Spain to make the final.

On Saturday, the fun Norwegian squad plays England, followed by Argentina and Switzerland. I think Argentina and Messi are destined for a few more games in this tournament after their miracle comeback against Egypt (they really deserved more and it's too bad their run has ended).

Using 23&Me's Compare Tools

 

23&Me DNA Compare.

I'm looking again at segments in common across DNA matches. Above are three members of a mystery cluster of Beltran matches, with a verified Portillo connection in turquoise and a Bernal match in green. They all overlap on chromosome 3, with a segment about 20 cM.

I found the Beltran matches by first sorting on 23&Me by mtDNA haplogroup, for all of matches in common who were A2d. I thought this might pull in people who had tested on 23&Me and might have some connection to the branches with surnames Portillo, Diaz, Calles, Bernal, Flores, Quijada, Preciado, Grijalva, Lopez, Acuña, or Gradias. Because I do not know my Portillo branch of my 3rd-great-grandfather Manuel Portillo very well, I thought maybe using 23&Me's DNA compare tools might help identify some matches who shared my mtDNA haplogroup and appear to be potentially connected to this branch of the tree.

23&Me has some useful tools for filtering matches, as shown below by haplogroup.

There's more to do, and I am trying to see if these Beltran or Bernal matches appear on other platforms such as FTDNA, Gedmatch, MyHeritage or Ancestry.

4th of July

 

Made in Ideogram. America 250.

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.