It is said that he also fought with the Spanish during the Spanish-American War of 1898. An educated and highly religious man (prayed three times a day, and the local priest gave mass in his country home), he donated the lands to establish a school in the Rocha neighborhood.

He was a son of:Ģnd Great-Grandfather - Don Alberto 'Tito/Papá Soto' Sotomayor (c.1843-1935): Born in Moca, Puerto Rico, he was a landowner in Rocha, Moca. Yldefonsa was a descendent of the Méndez family from Moca, one of the foundig families of the town in 1772. He married doña Yldefonsa Méndez Cortés and had 13 children: Carla, Rogelia, Ismael, Antonio, Florermina, Tomás, Esther, Clara, Ana, Reinaldo, Juan, María, and Genoveva. Great-Grandfather - Don Alberto 'Tito' Sotomayor (1879-1967): Born in Moca, Puerto Rico, he was a landowner in Moca and merchant with businesses in Moca and Aguadilla. Esperanza Mora Vidal was descendant of Juan Mora y Romero, from San Juan del Puerto, Huelva. He married doña Esperanza Mora Vidal and had two children, my father Antonio and Carla. A self taught certified pharmacist, he owned a pharmacy in Santurce, becoming later an entrepreneur in the business of photographic equipment. Grandfather - Don Antonio 'Toño' Soto Méndez (1913-1989): Born in Moca, Puerto Rico, but moved to San Juan in the 1930s. The following genealogy contains brief information of each individual with links for further information.įor more information on the research process that supports this genealogy, see my Publications section of this website, particularly the articles, 'Genetic Genealogy.' and 'Blood and Paper.' My maternal ancestry, Carlo, is of Italian background, particularly from Genoa, in the Liguria region. Though most of my ancestry is of European background, autosomal genetic and documented data show that I have some 13% Native American ( Taíno ) and some 5% West African (Togo/Benin/Mali/Senegal) ancestry. Being true to my Caribbean heritage, my ancestral background is very diverse. Like in many other societies, it is rather difficult to document genealogies past the 19th and 18th centuries. While the following genealogy traces only my paternal ancestry, I have tracked most of my four grandparents' ancestors, with more or less success, back to the 18th century and beyond. My ancestors have been in the island of Puerto Rico since early in the European colonization in the 16th century, my indigenous ancestors well before that. I have been involved in the deep study of genealogy since 2003, and with the complicated but very useful field of genetic genealogy since 2013. In this section, I outline my direct ( agnatic) paternal genealogy, which is composed of three main lineages: Sotomayor, Lugo, and Pereira. My passion for genealogy splinters into other diverse fields such as history of the early modern and colonial Caribbean and Latin America, onomastics, anthroponymy, genetics, heraldry, and medieval history among many others. To me, as an historian, genealogy is a fascinating intellectual puzzle that combines the search for distant ancestors and my urge to learn as much as I can from their lives and time periods they lived in.

Noting this Galician heritage, my father as a child gained the nickname 'Gallego' (the Galician). My grandfather, Antonio 'Toño' Soto(mayor) Méndez while visiting family in Spain during the 1980s did an ancestral pilgrimage to Pontevedra, Galicia where our distant Sotomayor ancestors come from. My great-aunt Rogelia 'Yeya' Soto(mayor) Méndez was an avid genealogist who traveled to multiple parishes in Puerto Rico in search of records of distant ancestors. My maternal Carlo family, I was told, participated in the founding of the town of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico in 1771, while my paternal Sotomayors also enjoyed prestige in Moca, Puerto Rico. My parents, especially my mother, always told me stories about our ancestors and how we descended from prominent lineages. It is a passion passed down to me by my family.

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