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On my father's side I have been able todocument backto about 1700 on his
maternal side in Zaragoza, Coahuila, Mexico to Manuel (?Pedro) de Luna and
Josefa Flores de Valdez, who married circa 1735.
I have also documented back to Juan de la Vara who married Josepha de Ozuna on
5-2-1729 in Saltillo.
On his paternal side I have been able to go back only to mid 1800s with the
Rey, Alanis, Perez and Ovalle names in Guerrero, Coahuila.
My mother's side is another story. If you believe what is on the net I have
traced her maternal ancestry
back through the European Kings, some of the earlier Caesars (including Marc
Antony, minus Cleopatra) and
then back to the parents of all mankind, Adam and Eve.
More recently though, I have traced her paternal side from the heart of Tx and
San Antonio to Jimenez
(asfour of the original founders) and the hacienda de San Matias in Coahuila,
which her great-grandfather,
Matias Herrera,owned and of which part is still in the family. Prior to that
the Herreras were in Atascosa County next to Bexar.
The Herreras had been from Candela and Valladares, Coahuilawhere an hacienda
was owned near the Nuevo Leon
border by the oldest known Herrera ancestor, Domingo and his wife, Maria del Refugio Herrera in the early 1800s.
It is believed that from Candela Matias Herrera moved to Pleasanton, TX where
he married Santos Cadena Valdez in 1873
and where several children were born prior to emigrating to Jimenez, Coahuila
(perhaps for the second time?).
The Laings had come from Muzquiz, Coahuilato Melvin, just outside of Brady in
the early 1900s
as did some Herreras, but from the Jimenez/San Matias area.
The Valdez and Cadenas had been in Texas history since about 1720-mostly in
the San Antonio and Adaes
(now Louisiana)area. Our earliest known Texan was an Antonio Guerra who
married
Catalina Ximenes y Menchaca circa 1730. Antonioand Catalina appeared on the
1735 Military Roster
ofthe Presidio de San Antonio de Bexar and Antonio appears on the list of the
Company of the Presidio of Texas, 1718.
Their son-in-law, Lazaro de Ayala, was killed in the infamous 1759 San Saba
Massacre (in Texas) when as a soldier
he tried to defend the church and its inhabitants from hundreds of Indians.
On my mother's maternal side the Laings have an interesting history which is
too much to discuss here but Hugh
(christianed Julio) Laing came from Plainfield, New Jersey in the 1800s.
He descended from many of the First Settlers in the colonial era (early 1600s
onward) of New England and
from one of the Pilgrims from Plymouth.
Her hispanic maternal side I have documented from the Muzquiz area, back to
Mina and Salinas Victoria,
Nuevo Leon and then on back to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Some of her ancestry
descended from the early
Crypto-Jews who fled Spain in the 1500s and who later founded Saltillo and
Monterrey as a way to
escape detection from the Inquisition, while others were descended from
conquistadores.
One ancestry couple ended up with the Oñate Expedition to New Mexico.
Upon the husband requesting to return his family to Nuevo Leonand being
granted permission,
he wassubsequently ambushed and killed upon direct orders from Oñate,
himself.
His wife remarried, as she had a few children to support, and returned to
Nuevo Leon.
Other ancestry descended from Alonso de Estrada, who was born as a result of
the teen
romance of King Ferdinand and whowas recognized by the Kingas his
illegitimate and first-born sonand thus served as royal treasurer, lieutenant
governor,
and governor in New Spain. De Estrada was probably the only son of a
king of Spain who ever lived in México (arriving in 1523) and left a
large number of descendants.
Alonso de Estrada was thought to be a converso becauseKing Ferdinand's
grandmother was Jewish.
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