I have seen numerous timelines on Maria Diaz de Eguinoa that don't make sense now that I have more information on the relationship. I believe that one reason that people have not been able to find more information on her is because they have been looking in the wrong places and wrong dates for her. Unfortunately, the records that should have more information on her are not digitized so a trip to Spain would be necessary to see these records.

A lawsuit from Pedro Ruiz de Esparza against his father clearly identified Lope el menor as his half brother. He files a lawsuit claiming that his father gave Lope el menor assets that had already been given to Pedro. This lawsuit does not mention Andres.

The brother, Andres, that came to the Americas before Lope is not a son of Maria Diaz de Eguinoa. Lope el menor does have a younger full brother that works for their half brother Pedro Ruiz de Esparza. So Lope Ruiz de Esparza "el viejo" had at least four sons.

Source: mygenes2000, Rick A. Ricci

The changes in time line include Lope Ruiz de Esparza el viejo's date of birth who we now now was born in 1519 as he is fifteen years old going on 16 in 1535.

We now know Sancho Ruiz de Esparzas grandfather but do not have Sancho's father's name, but because of his education and career path we can state that he has a much higher probability of being the son of a certain brother. Sancho has a brother named Johan de Esparza.

Sancho Ruiz de Esparza. b Abt 1355 died before 1440 his wife dies in 1440 and she identified as a widow in her death record.
1.1) Sister Cathalina Ruiz de Esparza y Zariquiegu b. circa 1395 m. 18/April/1413 (daughter of Sancho, ancestor of St Francis Xavier aka San Francisco Javier de Jasso. The 1413 marriage date is the correct date.

1.2). Sister Juana Ruiz de Esparza (daughter of Sancho)

1.3). Ximon (Simon) Ruiz de Esparza y Zariquiegui born circa 1415 d. Before March1490 (son of Sancho)

1.2.1) Martin Ruiz de Esparza y Huici b. Abt 1467 (son of Simon) (two marriages at least)
Martin is still alive in 1547, writes his will (Testament) in 1543) and dies before 1560

1.2.1.1) Lope Ruiz de Esparza y Espinosa "El viejo" B. Abt 1519 , still alive in 1597 (son of Martin)(at least two relationships)
Six children from a marriage of el viejo
Andres Ruiz de Esparza b. 1541. I believe Andres is a half brother of Lope Ruiz de Esparza el menor, Mariano Gonzalez Leal has them as both having the same mother but there is 27 years between their births)

Son Lope Ruiz de Esparza b. 1569 "el menor"
A daughter named Maria Ruiz de Esparza y Diez de Eguino
Lope has a "full" younger brother, so el viejo has at least four sons.

From a marriage:
The son born after the four months of marriage is Pedro Ruiz de Esparza, attorney,(legitimate heir)
Lope had at least six children from his marriage. The eldest was the aforementioned Pedro Ruiz de Esparza. A daughter by the name of Maria Ruiz de Esparza y Capparosa had three marriages.

Note:
(Before making this family tree, the older ages of the men having their sons had me consider that there are two Martin Ruiz de Esparzas and not one Martin Ruiz de Esparza with two marriages. Sometimes a double surname is carried over, so I thought that there was a possibility of two Martin Ruiz de Esparzas Huici, one the son of the other. This would help alleviate the concerns over so many men having their sons in an older age, mid to late 50's. But further research confirms the men and the dates assigned to them so there is only one Martin Ruiz de Esparza y Huici.

Rick A ricci

Lope Ruiz de Esparza (el mayor or el viejo) abogado de las Audiencias Reales, señor de los palacios de Esparza (Galar) y Zariquiegui vecino de Pamplona tuvo por lo menos tres hijos y una hija. Tambien tuvo por lo menos tres mujeres (creo que por lo menos dos de las relatiónes resultaron en matrimonios). El todavia estaba vivo en Diciembre de 1597. No se si cada hijo tuvo diferente madre. Todavia no he leido la Prueba de Hidaguia, pero creo que este documento alamejor tiene mas informacíon que nos dira si Andres y Lope tuvieron diferentes
madres. Pedro si es hijo de diferente madre.

Lope Ruiz de Esparza (el mayor or el viejo) abogado de las Audiencias Reales, señor de los palacios de Esparza (Galar) y Zariquiegui vecino de Pamplona born circa 1513 had at least three sons and one daughter. He also had at least three relationships/marriages as three woman have been identified as his "mujer". There is a strong possibly that at least two of the relationships ended in marriage. Lope is still alive in December of 1597. I am not sure if each child had a different mother. I have not read all the pages of the hidalguia yet, but I hope it has information telling us whether Andres and Lope had the same mother. Pedro had a different mother.

The Ruiz de Esparza family for two hundred years were known as legal experts and successful businessman. Sancho was an specialist in certain types of documents. Many of his descendants became attorneys. They loved to litigate, even amongst family.

I will have more information in the book that I am writing. I thought that I should disclose that Lope had multiple "wives", and that all the other men in the timeline that I presented have only one wife in the records that I have seen.

Thanks,
R.A.Ricci

I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to this research. You never know when the little piece that doesn't seem very important ends up being a vital piece.

Thanks again,
Rick A. Ricci

Dear Chris,

I don't want to post a timeline until we check on some information, and am able to provide proof of Sancho Ruiz de Esparza's father, I know that you anxiously await a timeline that makes sense. So am I. We are not wedded to the date 1403 given by a relatively recent article as the date of Cathalinas wedding.

Although the article discovered by George Fulton solved the conundrum of the multiple relationships by establishing that there are two Cathalina Ruiz de Esparzas, with different sets of parents, the article made three colossal errors in the conclusions it makes. I say three colossal mistakes because those are the ones that I found in the first reading. I identified these errors immediately to George.

Multiple readings and closer inspection will undoubtedly uncover more mistakes. So that is why, even though we found some valuable information, we may discard some of their information if it doesn't fit the facts that we have from PRIMARY SOURCES. Through Guillermina's testament we have the family tree from Sancho to Simon to Martin Ruiz de Esparza, that is INDISPUTABLE. Then we have in ascending order, again from PRIMARY SOURCES, the lineage of Lope Ruiz de Esparza el menor, to Lope Ruiz de Esparza el viejo, continuing on to Martin Ruiz de Esparza. We also have the evidence that show that the men in this lineage had their sons in this lineage at what we would call a much older age than average.

I will explain the three colossal errors that I found on the first reading in a much longer post later. One of the colossal mistakes was how he was dating the person I believe has a possibility of being Sancho's father.

Rick A. Ricci

I forgot to add a GIGANTIC THANK YOU for the St. Francis College Library for deciding to toss out an antique book of theirs because no one had ever checked it out. I have the original library cards still inside showing that no one had ever bothered to check it out. You can also tell from the pages that the book most probably hasn't been opened in 94 years, the age of the book. The pages are very delicate and I will not open the spine all the way to make copies. But the book already has provided valuable information to the Ruiz de Esparza family tree.

I paid peanuts for this book. If it hadn't been available for purchase, I would of had to travel far to see if they could find the book in the few libraries that list it.

So let's hear for St. Francis Colege, Hooray Hooray!!!!

Rick

Dear Chris,
You stated that you could see the timeline working out if Simon, Martin, and Lope el viejo all had their son when they were older. You forgot to add Sancho to that conversation. When I first tried to make a connection between Simon, Cathalina , and Sancho, I did not find Simon in the mix. Sancho was identified as Cathalina's father with no mention of Simon. But Simon then is positively identified in later records as being the brother of Cathalina and son of Sancho. This implies that Sancho was much older when Simon was born.

Here is the evidence:

First evidence). We have the documentation from Guillermina stating that Simon is the brother of Cathalina and that Martin is the son of Simon. She directs her ownership share to be transferred to Martin (her cousin). Simon is not mentioned in records that I first found when researching Catalina which points to Simon being much younger than her so Sancho was much older when Simon was born.

Second evidence). The transaction is identified as a transaction between a nephew and an uncle. Secondary sources flip who is who when they read this because Martin, the uncle, is much younger than the nephew, the saints father (Guillerminas son) who is following his mother's wishes.

Third evidence). Lope el menor's birthdate is well documented. His brother Andres's birthdate is also documented, and it is documented that they have the same father. This means that Lope el viejo was "viejo", (old) when Lope "el menor" was born.

All three pieces of evidence explain the time line.

I am sorry but I don't want to add dates yet, I just want to provide the evidence for the men in this family to be much older than average when having the men in this line.

While this timeline proves that it there is very good reason to accept the father's as older fathers, it brings up the question of the ages of the mothers. Did the men marry, or have relationships, with women much younger than them? It would seem so, since the mothers are identified. Graciana Huici is identified as a mother of Martin Ruiz de Esparza y Huici, and Maria de Espinosa is identified as the mother of Lope Ruiz de Esparza el viejo/ el mayor, Lope Ruiz de Esparza el menor's mother is identified but there are twenty-seven years between Captain Andres Ruiz de Esparza's birthdate and Lope el menor's birthdate, and while possible, this is the second wife that has a large gap between the births of her sons. The first wife that has a large gap between the births of two of her children is Juana Zariquegui, Sancho's wife. I don't know how long a gap there is between Cathalina who obviously is much older than Simon. I believe that Cathalina was very young, early teens, when she married. We know that Juana is the mother of Simon as the surname becomes attached to his descendants properties.

Thanks,
Rick A. Ricci

Dear Chris,
I am sorry if I contributed to the confusion about the dates. I just saw how I posted before 1495. What I meant was that I was disagreeing with the post that George had directed me to. George was the first to mention that he did not find the information on that post to be reliable. After we had come up with our tree, I asked him to direct me to the post in order to compare our information to what had been posted.That post had a birthdate as 1495 which is ridiculous so I wrote before 1495 as a statement that I was disagreeing with that posted date. I have not committed myself as to dates yet, though I have found evidence that the men were indeed much older when they were siring our line than the average man. And there is evidence, it's not just my calculations to make it work.

Sorry for the poor communication,
Rick A. Ricci

I do want to point out a difference between what I am reporting and what Mariano Gonzalez Leal writes. He writes that the surname for Graciana is Vici, while I have her surname as Huici. Very small difference, and I include both spellings in my post.

Thanks,
Rick

I made a little mistake in one of my posts. I said that many genealogists mistakenly called the transfer of land between an uncle and nephew. In reality they got that part right. I had mistakenly called it a transfer between second cousins. The mistake is made by the genealogists as to which one is the uncle and which one is the nephew because Martin Ruiz de Esparza is the first cousin to the saints grandmother, Guillermina, making Martin the uncle even though he was the one that was much younger. The saints father is the nephew, again, even though he is the older person.

This helps explain the timeline that I will post later.

Thanks,
Rick A. Ricci