Tools for Finding your roots

GENETICS/DNA:

23andme: Priced @ $100 the most comprehensive DNA test for its price, gives you information on your Maternal line, Paternal Line and the mixture of all your lines. Has a great system to match you up with relatives who are also on the site.
AncestryDNA: Priced $100 I highly commend this one if you want to get a more specific breakdown of your African ancestry. Lacks a direct maternal/paternal lineage test (Mtdna/ydna) However like 23andme has a great system to match you up with relatives.
FTDNA: Price varies I only recommend FTDNA for folks who have done 23andme and or Ancestry but want to find specifics on their Paternal and or Maternal lineage ancestor.

GENEALOGY:

FamilySearch: The best and largest database compiled by the mormons of our Catholic and Civil records, this is the MACHETE for anyone looking to find their ancestors via records. Most of the records are online, but not all are searchable via the 'search'.
Instituto de Genealogia Dominicana: Has great posts on some genealogies, if you are lucky some of your ancestors may be in one of these and much of your work may be cut out for you.
Archivo General de la Nacion: Dominican general archives, many books and archives online as well as tools that may come in handy for the genealogist such as Entrada de Imigrantes and Fondos Documentales

Other Genetics/Genealogy Blogs:

Genealogia Nuestra: Blog on Dominican/Puertorican/Carribean Genealogy
Radiants Roots Boricua: Blog focusing on Puertorican/Afro-american Genetics and Genealogy
Tracing African Roots: Blog solely focused on African genetics in the African-diaspora
Roots & Recombinant DNA: Blog focused on Afro-american Genetics and Genealogy

Comments

Freedom in the Colony of Santo Domingo

Early society in the colony of Santo Domingo started out very similarly to other colonies in the Americas with a very high rate of enslaved natives, pillaging, murdering from the Spanish followed by a mass importation of Africans of a multitude of ethnicity ranging from inhabitants of the Jollof empire to inhabitants of the Kongo empire. Santo Domingo which was later to become the Dominican Republic had a majority of enslaved peoples up until the early 1600s, after which time period, a combination of events such sugar cane economy crashing in 1606 and plagues such as measles in 1666, created an environment where free people began to outnumber the enslaved. With an ever-decreasing white-population this also meant that the free population of the island also had less and less vigilance and had more access to social climbing. This of course does not erase the fact that we are not truly free until we are all free , and it was not until Feb. 1822 during Boyer's occupation that we gaine

Moren@: Language of Resistance

It is often that Dominicans come to mind when it comes to self-hate or anti-blackness. "Dominican's don't like to be called black"- is a common term. I remember back close to a decade ago I watched one of my first afro-dominican documentaries "Congo-Pa-Ti" which featured the community of Villa Mella in North-Santo Domingo and although one part featured the outstanding traditions of the people, the other almost in mockery asked residents of villa mella what they considered themselves as far as "race", some respondents said yellow, cinnamon and where quite precise with their color. The ones that said "moren@" where translated in the subtitles as "mixed black" or "light skin black". In the end it seemed to illustrate for the English speaker that Dominican's don't use the term "negro" "black" and therefore use other terms to avoid it. Growing up as a person who gets called "moreno"

Myth of extermination of Quisqueyas Native-Americans

First of all the native's in Quisqueya, present day Dominican Republic and Haiti where not one people, or a single cultural group. There was a complex set of people who had arrived in different waves from South-America, Central-america and likely even St. Augustine Florida. Per Anthropology the island has been inhabited for the last 10,000 years . One of the biggest misconceptions is that the Taino died off in the 1500s, there are old books that quote things like "By 1548, the Taíno population had declined to fewer than 500" - Wikipedia . This is in fact false, there where pockets of native's throughout the island until relatively recent times. Historical In Boya, Monteplata around 1656 it was reported that this was an 'Indian' town with about 6 houses, and it states the reason for the few # of total people is that most of these natives had gone to neighboring towns for employment. [villa que es de indios descendientes de los de esa isla; tendrá

Sambumbia - Dominican-Caribbean Genetics and Genealogy

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