{"id":46575,"date":"2016-04-12T01:29:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T01:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46575"},"modified":"2016-04-12T01:29:08","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T01:29:08","slug":"sacramentos-mexican-genealogists-trace-their-roots-to-aztec-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=46575","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento\u2019s Mexican genealogists trace their roots to Aztec empire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/article71081497.html\" target=\"_blank\">Sacramento\u2019s Mexican genealogists trace their roots to Aztec empire<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Sacramento Bee<\/a><br \/>\nSacramento, California<br \/>\n2016-04-10<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"mailto:smagagnini@sacbee.com\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Magagnini<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Mexican Americans use Catholic Church records, other documents to map family roots<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Some trace family history to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aztec\" target=\"_blank\">Aztecs<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/New_Spain\" target=\"_blank\">colonial Mexico<\/a><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Interest in Mexican family histories is growing as Latinos become biggest group in California<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Maria Cortez dug deep into Catholic Church records and family histories and struck gold.<\/p>\n<p>The retired state-worker-turned-genealogist managed to trace her roots back to two of the most famous figures in Mexican history: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Miguel_Hidalgo_y_Costilla\" target=\"_blank\">Miguel Hidalgo<\/a>, who declared independence from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spain\" target=\"_blank\">Spain<\/a> in 1810 with \u201cel grito de Dolores,\u201d and the Aztec emperor <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Moctezuma_II\" target=\"_blank\">Moctezuma II<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019d be amazed; I think everyone has fascinating stories to be discovered,\u201d said the 55-year-old, who co-founded the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sacramento,_California\" target=\"_blank\">Sacramento<\/a>-based <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nuevagalicia.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nueva Galicia Genealogical Society<\/a>, thought to be the oldest Mexican genealogical club in California.<\/p>\n<p>Cortez and 20 other Mexican Americans with roots in the states of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jalisco\" target=\"_blank\">Jalisco<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zacatecas\" target=\"_blank\">Zacatecas<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aguascalientes\" target=\"_blank\">Aguascalientes<\/a> gathered Saturday at the Sacramento Family History Center for the club\u2019s quarterly meeting, scanning church records, Mexican census data and border-crossing information to excavate secrets of the past. Interest in exploring Mexican roots is surging, now that Latinos are the state\u2019s largest ethnic group, genealogy TV shows are hot and DNA research is becoming more exact, Cortez said.<\/p>\n<p>Mexican Americans can trace their DNA to as many as five continents, said Cortez, who was born in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Guadalajara\" target=\"_blank\">Guadalajara, Jalisco<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As thrilled as she was to learn that Hidalgo was her seventh cousin four times removed, and that evidence shows Moctezuma was her 12th-great-grandfather, Cortez was shocked to learn the blood of a dozen nations flows through her veins. She said DNA tests show she\u2019s not only 41 percent Native American and 30 percent Iberian, but also 2 percent North African, a little less than 1 percent Bantu from southeastern Africa, 4 percent west Asian, 3 percent Middle Eastern, 1 percent European Jewish, 9 percent Greek and Italian, 5 percent Irish, another 5 percent from Great Britain, along with some roots in southern and central Asia and northwestern Russia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re the most mixed race in the world, and I\u2019m a child of the world,\u201d said Cortez, noting that other club members have made similar discoveries after researching their DNA. \u201cIn <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mexico\" target=\"_blank\">Mexico<\/a>, you\u2019re not taught about slavery, but slavery existed there. &#8230; They didn\u2019t disappear. They married and mixed in with the rest of the population, so a lot of us have African ancestry.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/article71081497.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sacramento\u2019s Mexican genealogists trace their roots to Aztec empire The Sacramento Bee Sacramento, California 2016-04-10 Stephen Magagnini Highlights Mexican Americans use Catholic Church records, other documents to map family roots Some trace family history to Aztecs, colonial Mexico Interest in Mexican family histories is growing as Latinos become biggest group in California Maria Cortez dug [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,21,459,14646,8,103,20],"tags":[23521,23522,2108,2105,23520],"class_list":["post-46575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-history","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-mexico","category-usa","tag-maria-cortez","tag-nueva-galicia-genealogical-society","tag-sacramento-bee","tag-stephen-magagnini","tag-the-sacramento-bee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46576,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46575\/revisions\/46576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}