Looking For My Roots

Have you ever wondered what unknown stories lie in your family’s Puerto Rican roots? The pride, the memories, and the connections are closer than you think. During a recent visit with family in Puerto Rico, I found new motivation to keep working on http://www.puertoricangenealogy.org in the evenings.
Both my mainland and island cousins asked me how to begin researching their family history and where to find records.
It made me feel my “little” website was on the right track—which means you, too, can start discovering your abuelos’ stories tonight.

Below are the highlights of the website changes. Enjoy!

New Course: Navigating Puerto Rico’s Civil Records (Unlock post-1885 family records with confidence)

The site’s first intermediate-level course is now live and fully bilingual in English and Spanish. Navigating Puerto Rico’s Civil Records (1885 to Present) is a five-module guide that helps researchers go beyond basic name searches. Walk away able to trace three generations of your family in a single evening. Topics include:

• Why 1885 is the key threshold date and what to do when records don’t exist before it
• How to extract three generations of data from a single birth, marriage, or death record
• How to browse the FamilySearch Catalog by municipality to avoid incomplete indexes
• Reading early 20th-century Spanish handwriting with vocabulary and practice exercises using original Rincón records
• How to order certified copies today through VitalChek, in person, or by mail, and how to use civil records for Spanish dual citizenship applications
  The course uses real documents from Rincón, Puerto Rico, as hands-on teaching examples throughout.

New Tool: Family Group Sheet

A free, printable Family Group Sheet is now available in English and Spanish. You can fill out the husband/father, wife/mother, marriage details, and children’s fields directly in your browser, then print it or save it as a PDF.

• No account is needed, and no data is saved.
• The sheet follows Puerto Rican research conventions.

New Tool: Research Log (with CSV Import/Export)

The online Research Log tool has been significantly upgraded:

• Export to CSV to download your entries as a well formatted spreadsheet file
• Import CSV to reload a previously saved log, with options to merge or replace entries
• Copy for Google Sheets lets you copy your log as tab-separated data with one click, so you can paste it directly into a spreadsheet (Excel or Google Sheets).
• Google Sheets’ how-to guide is built into the tool.
• Bilingual: Every update and tool you see here is fully available in Spanish at the same URL pattern. Both the English and Spanish versions offer the same depth and resources side by side, so you never have to wait or settle for a shortened version.

New Research Guide: Genealogical Spanish Glossary

This searchable reference guide includes over 100 Spanish terms organized into five categories: Vital Records, Relationships, Occupations, Locations/Administrative, and Archive/Record Terms.

• It also has an abbreviation table and search tips.
• The guide is available as a PDF download and as a web page in both languages.

New Research Guide: Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)

This guide explains the GPS in plain language. The GPS is a five-element standard that defines what makes a genealogical conclusion reliable, with Puerto Rican examples throughout. It also covers the Three-Layer Analysis Framework (Sources / Information / Evidence) that supports thorough research. The guide is available in English and Spanish.

Census Records Section

The Census Records section now has actual content: a full write-up on Spanish colonial padrones (including the 1887 census PDF and scholarly resources), plus a section on the 1899 transitional census, which bridges the Spanish and U.S. periods.

Site-Wide Improvements

• Status badges now appear on all guide and tool cards (Available, Coming Soon, or Overview Available) so visitors can easily see what’s ready.
• Accessibility has been improved with a skip-to-content link, better heading hierarchy, and easier navigation on mobile devices.