Hello Rafael,

I have found this forum to be a great place to get help in reading records. It is ok “to pester this forum with questions about helping me read the documents”. But if you are a serious researcher you need to work on learning how to decipher documents since relying all the time for someone else to do it for you will place a big limitation on how much research you can get done. Genealogy research takes a lot of time and much patience. I have gone months without finding any information, and then suddenly, I find a thread that leads to a treasure trove. Sometimes it takes a long time to unravel the thread. It is often easy to overlook a thread and that is why we researchers need to go back and review documents, looking for the smallest clues. These threads or clues may be missed if you don’t pick up strategies and practice in finding them. And you aren’t wasting another researcher’s time in asking for help. I have gained much knowledge and practice by helping others decipher records. In fact, the lessons learned by helping others has rewarded me immensely, both personally and in my research.

Even with my many decades of researching, I occasionally ask for help from nuestrosranchos members in deciphering records. I am extremely grateful for this help as it has contributed greatly towards my research. About a decade ago I put together a family tree that extended from Nueva España to Spain and the rest of Europe over a nine hundred years. The problem was that I had discovered a family tree that another famous European researcher had also discovered, except his family tree had a couple major differences as the other researcher named different maternal grandparents than my research had uncovered. For a few of years I couldn’t understand why our research and conclusions differed. But it was from help that I received by nuestrosranchos members Manny Hermosillo and Steven F. Hernandez Lopez, and others, in discovering how researchers sometimes mistakenly interpret information that I was able to understand why the other researcher had differences in the family tree that he published.

If it hadn’t been for Manny Hermosillo and Steven F. Hernandez I might never of published my book with the correct family tree since I did not want to publish while there was doubt as to which line was correct. With their help I was able to see clearly where, and how, the other researcher was led down the wrong path. I know Manny and Steven were not happy when with all of their immense experience in researching they made a mistake in concluding a family line, but it was precisely the fact that here were two genealogists, that are hard working, and have had much practice, and they still were led to a mistaken conclusion that I was able to see that the situation that brought about the erroneous conclusion was the same situation that the Famous European genealogists had used to come up with his mistaken family tree. Of course Both Manny and Steven were not overjoyed with this learning experience when it concerned their work, but it was this learning experience that showed how/why the European genealogists had come up with his different family tree. Both Manny Hermosillo and Steven Hernandez have helped me tremendously in other parts of my research, and not just in this family tree. I am tremendously grateful for their tremendous help and they both deserve to be acknowledged for this in my book. The book isn’t yet published as it is in the process of being revised and edited.

Good luck in your research,
Rick A. Ricci