Welcome to our family website which is primarily for family members so that we may  learn more about our family history, about each other and about our own selves. It is  hoped that this will allow us to keep track of each other’s families as well as the  new members of our expanding family and hopefully bring us closer together.  I  dedicate this to all those persons in our families who were, are and will be.

My ancestors and family comes from the beautiful Island of Puerto Rico.  Some never  left the Island and others immigrated to the USA in the early 50’s mostly to Yonkers,  New York, looking for a better life.

Our families include men and women from different social and educational backgrounds,  from uneducated coffee plantation and sugar cane plantation workers, farmers,  soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, entrepreneurs, to public servants such as  teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers and pastors.  I am proud of every one of  them and all the contributions each made our families' history and to the world.

Genealogy has been a hobby of mine since 2001, the interest in my family history started in my early teens when I learned that my maternal grandmother was orphaned at the age of 9,and her sister Elisa were separated from her family and given to be raised to two different non family members.  This motivated me to learn as much as I could about my  Paternal and Maternal family.  As I learned about my ancestors, they became alive to me, and I am honored to bring them to life in these pages. Perhaps in viewing my labor of love,  others will feel inspired to learn about their own roots...  And it is also very important to leave my mark after I am gone.

In my quest for the family history, I make great use of many of the internet  transcripts, and record offices like the LDS centers around San Antonio, Texas and  the Archives in Ponce, PR. I like to reference all my sources of information, but  as this is an ongoing project, you may find some people have unreferenced dates of  events. I also have met beautiful people here on the internet that were more than  willing to help me with the research, I am very grateful to Marina Giron from Ponce, PR., and Annie Irrizary from Trujillo Alto, PR. for all the help and dedication to  genealogy and all who have helped me in locating the information, as without their  help, the task would have been so much harder.

As well as my own quest for information on our ancestors, and the lives they led, I  also now try to help others in their search as well.

This is a very tedious and very consuming hobby, so please be patient with me and if  you have anything to contribute I will be more than happy to add it!  There is a way  to add stories to this site and I would LOVE to gather stories from family about  family.  Maybe a Christmas memory you have about your grandparents, or a day in the  kitchen with your grandmother - whatever it is, I would love to hear it and add it  here!  It can be in English or Spanish it doesn’t matter.

New names will be added as I get new information.  I try to verify all of my  information but that can be difficult due to the expense of purchasing certificates  etc.   There can also be typos so if anyone spots an obvious error please let me know.

As many of you know I have sent out letters asking for help on retrieving information  about the family as well as pictures if anyone would take the time to help out then  it would be GREATLY appreciated. I'm working hard to build this site to the best of  my ability it’s not just for me to know who my family is but for all of us to be able  to find our relatives and if someone has been out of contact with someone for any  number of reasons maybe this will help them to find them again.

The aim of my research is to trace my ancestors as far back as I possibly can.  So  far the furthest ancestors I have found and confirmed is from my mothers’ maternal  side, this is the result of several years of part-time genealogical research.  A good  portion of the ARROYO family branch was compiled from research performed by other  genealogists dating back to the 1600's.  I have traced the SANTIAGO lineage back to  the early 1800's.  My paternal great grandfather was Pascual Santiago  Echavarria/Chavarria born about 1840 possibly in Peñuelas or Adjuntas, Puerto Rico.

A secondary aim of my research is to trace my children’s paternal lineage. This is  not the same as the paternal surname, the surname given to their father was Ramos.  His true surname was kept a secret at the time of his birth registration in New York.  It is believed that their paternal grandfather was Jose Luis DeSoria possibly from  Peru. Therefore, their paternal surname is DeSORIA which I don’t have any information.

I may be the owner of this site and many hours have been spent researching this tree  over the last decade but I will tell you right now for sure that I can NOT take all  of the credit for building it I have had the help from several people. I also like to  thank my mother for letting me go through her stack of old photo albums and for the  family stories, BOY what a memory!!!  She’s been the biggest help of all, I really  don't think that I could have ever had this much information entered on this site  without her help.  And to all of those who have contributed photographs.  I'm sure  you'll agree that they help bring things to life.  Unfortunately, we don't realize what we have, until it's too late, but by researching this tree, those who have previously gone before us, will never be forgotten.

I started this journey in 2000 and as anyone who does this it is just too hard to walk away from and be done.  As with most Family Trees, this one is being edited and added to all the time; so check back often.  I hope the information and photos contained within these pages will bring back memories of your own and help piece together your family history.

You will find branches in our families that extend throughout the towns of Peñuelas,  Adjuntas, and towns like Rio Chiquito, Tibes, Magueyes, and Corral Viejo in the city  of Ponce, and other towns in the Island of Puerto Rico.  Some family members branched  to the United States, going to different places like Florida, Texas, California,  South Carolina, Virginia, and some were able to live shortly in countries like Japan,  The Netherlands, and who knows where else.

I know we have all these social networking websites to keep in touch like Facebook and I have reconnected with family members that I had not been in touch with for many years and have found cousins I did not know I have, and most important, now, I have the sense that we are all related one way or another.  I know that my great great grandfather is the great great grandfather of someone else, somewhere in the world.  I am very grateful to all who have contributed to this database. I would like to have this website available for charting purposes. Pictures are welcome, especially of our ancestors.  Let’s be proud of them, they made us what we are today.  Also, send me your current mailing addresses as well as e-mail address.  I hope that this is a good home for the information that I want to share with you…

And while the internet makes it easy and convenient to share information, trace and  interact with one another in spite of the great physical distances between and among  family members, the same technology allows exploitation of the available information  about an individual. This site respects and supports the right of individuals to  privacy. Hence, this site has suppressed the personal details of all living family  members. If you find any information here that you feel violates your right to  privacy, please notify the webmaster by e-mail.

As I want this to be an accurate history of my family, credible sources and  interesting additions are extremely important to me. Anyone who has birth  certificates, tombstone pictures, photos with names written on the back or anything  along those lines is encouraged to contact me. I will of course share anything I have  with you, also.

Notes: 
 A quick lesson before going on is to keep in mind that is traditional in Latin  American countries for women to keep their maiden name when they marry or adding the  husband's last name at the end (like: Nancy Santiago Montes de Ramos).  So in order  to have a clearer picture of a person's ancestral lineage both paternal and maternal  last names appear for every name recorded.  The first last name is always paternal;  the second is maternal.  (Nancy Santiago Montes, Santiago is the paternal surname,  Montes is the maternal surname, here in the US we would have to add a hyphen between  the names otherwise they think that Santiago is your middle name or you are married  to a Montes).

Dates:  When a complete date is shown (month/day/year) it is because I have  documentation confirming the date.  When I am not sure of a date I list an "about"  date (you'll see the abbreviation "abt.") meaning that I calculated it from the  information that I have gathered.

Please, please, please!!! 
 DO NOT take offence and I apologize for any errors by your own records or omissions  that you may note - these are accidental and I invite you to contact me for any  corrections, questions and feedback.  I welcome any photographs, additional  information or details you would like me to add on your behalf for any individual or  families in this tree.  The names of the living are blocked for security reasons. The  password option is only to see those names. If you are a family member contact the  administrator of this site for an invitation.   Please contact me at:  nsantiagomontes@yahoo.com or leave a message in the guestbook.

So make yourself at home feel free to browse and if you happen to find a name that  matches one you are researching, or you think may be a relation, feel free to contact  me.  Who knows, we might be cousins after all.  Good luck in your searches and may  God Bless all our families! I am updating this site as often as possible, so please  check back as I will be adding more names and photos as they become available to  me.   I hope you find some information on our family tree that is helpful to you.

THANK YOU FOR VISITING; PLEASE SIGN THE GUEST BOOK.