I wanted to say hello to all my fellow geneaologists on this fine website.

My name is Ernie Alderete and I live in Monterey Park in suburban Los Angeles, California.

My GEDCOM will be uploaded shortly. I am working to corroborate it as far as possible, and to expand my knowledge of my ancestry and ancestors.

I have already learned many new things in just half an hour on this site. That I have Basque ancestry, for instance, through my ancestor Lope Ruiz de Esparza in Aguascalientes, Mexico and his family in Pamplona, Navarra.

I am equally proud of my Spanish and Mexica heritage.

My late father always told me we were descended from Emperor Moctezuma himself. I remember laughing at my father. I thought it was a fairytale. I wish he was alive today so I could apologize to him and share with him the incredible discoveries I've made over the last year, or two.

When my genealogical backtracking lead me to PETRONILA MOCTEZUMA who was born in 1550 in Aguascalientes I just about fell out of my chair. My father was right!

I have started a Moctezuma DNA Project to try and verify all of our Montezuma background genetically, as well as by the paper trail.

I also have an Alderete DNA Project with similar goals. To corroborate and expand my research in that field.

I am the administartor of the Alderete and Moctezuma surname lists on RootsWeb.

I look forward to hearing from many of you, and meeting someday.

I arrive in Chihuahua, Chihuahua in October to work on my family tree and collect DNA samples as well as visit family and friends.

I hope to visit Aguascalientes in person sometime after that.

Hablo castellano, pero mi primera lengua es ingles.

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/moctezuma

http://www.familytreedna.com/(hcojjivgekjvu155hef2gy55)/public/alderete