The Ancestry DNA test told me that our Mexican lineage could be traced back to Spain, so I decided to read the Mexican baptism and marriage records until I found the connection.

Just when I was about to give up, I discover there’s a common DNA match for relatives of my 4th great grandmother: Guadalupe García Moraga.

And her father was Alejo García Conde born 1751 in Cueta, Spain (across the Gibraltar!) and his family was from Barcelona. He was a political and military leader in Sonora (where nearly all of my family migrated from) and the 19th century governor of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

Because of the liberal revolt in Spain, the Royalists in the Americas sought Mexican independence to preserve monarchial allegiance.

My 5th great grandfather Alejo García Conde swore allegiance to the Suprema Junta Central—the resistance government in Spain—and to Ferdinand VII, their king in exile.

He joined with Agustín de Iturbide, emperor of Mexico, to promote the “Plan de Iguala” with its three guarantees—immediate and total Mexican independence, equality of criollo and peninsular, and defense of the one, true, and Catholic faith.

I’m adding this book to my reading list for fun:

Friars, Soldiers, and Reformers: Hispanic Arizona and the Sonora Mission Frontier, 1767-1856 by John L. Kessell

http://npshistory.com/publications/kessell/friars-soldiers-reformers/contents.htm