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How an Ancestry DNA Kit Led to a Road Trip Through the Mountains of Spain
It was a trip that will last for generations.
Several years ago, I started my genealogy research. I come from an immigrant family, and much of our roots is lost. I had no paper trail or database to trace my story. Despite those challenges, I was determined. This journey would lead to a family heritage trip that would change my life. AARP referenced my trip, along with AFAR. Today, I want to tell the whole story.
As a Cuban American, I face an uphill climb with family research. My paternal and maternal grandparents left the island with their infant children to escape the Revolution. They left a lot of paperwork, relationships, and history behind them.
It’s very hard to do family research in Cuba from abroad. You have to physically go there. You visit a local cathedral and flip through a paper trail of records. Whatever you can get is what you get. You have to plan another trip for more. Or you could hire someone to do it from a word-of-mouth contact.
I had to do something different.
I had little information so it didn’t make sense to invest in a trip or contact. I knew my paternal and maternal grandparents had a parent or grandparent who came from Spain.
Spain would offer an easier source of information and clues about my family. I thought if I could skip Cuba, establish the Spain connection, I would be able to work backward and fill in the gap.
My search ran dry. I realized I wouldn’t be able to find anything new with the resources I had. I had to do something different.
It was my college graduation at the time. My parents asked me what I wanted for a gift. I asked for a DNA kit. Now that I was beginning to establish myself as an adult, I wanted to know my history and what brought me here. A week later, it came in the mail. I spit in the tube, sent it off, and didn’t think much about it afterward.
One day, I connected with a relative that matched my DNA. We tried to establish our connection but we couldn’t figure it out. It died out for about a year until she contacted me again in 2017. She forgot we had already communicated before. She told me she…
