From Atanasio Gutierrez de Lizaurzabal to Santiago Ruiz Brelsford

Dreams becoming more vivid, images and sensations to come. To have and to hold and to love.  A few nights ago the dream was so vivid that I scared myself, and in a bit of relief thought that we had already gone through the birthing process.   Not yet, but tides swing inevitable. 

In class today we finished covering human evolution, leading to our recent out-of-African origin of around 90,000-200,000 years ago.  Based on our current genetic diversity, population geneticists have been able to estimate that we probably came from a small founding population of around 10,000 individuals.  If we trace our ancestry back through our mitochondrial DNA, we all find a common ancestor back somewhere in South-Eastern Africa.

Later, at lunch with Tita, I ask her where her parents were born.  Then her grandparents, and up the ladder of ancestry.   We trace her paternal lineage to Guatemala back a few centuries. Presidents here, and first ladies there.  We talk about Tito’s side too: our country’s last minister of War, Pompilio Ruiz Fernandez, my great paternal grandfather. 

After lunch, we go into the study, where Tito’s big desk is, a small statue of a bull on there as always.  His encyclopedias to my back, Tita brings out genealogical documents.  One of her cousins (or nephews, or someone) has done a decent job tracing some of our genealogy.  I find my name too on a branch.

As I digest the meatballs, rice, salad, picadillo, I travel back in time.  Let’s go. 

Tita (my paternal grandmother), daughter of Segismundo Gutierrez Villalobos and Graciela Barrantes.  

Segismundo, born on December 20^th, 1893.  Segismundo, son of Rodolfo Gutierrez Guzman and Maria Aurora Villalobos, Maria being born on December 10 1862.  Rodolfo (couldn’t find his birthdate), son of Rafael Gutierrez Garcia born 1822, and Maria Marcelina Guzman-Saldos, born in 1826.

Costa Rica becomes an independent nation September 15, 1821.

Maria Marcelina, daughter of three-time president of El Salvador, Joaquin Eufracio Guzman Portacarrero.  

Joaquin lived from 1801, being born in Cartago, Costa Rica, and dying in El Salvador in 1875.

Rafael Gutierrez Garcia, son of Atanasio Gutierrez de Lizaurzabal and Maria Josefa del Pilar Garcia.  Atanasio was born on May 2, 1766 in Guatemala, and died in San Jose Costa Rica in 1854.  It is said that he was a man “rich in poetry”.  He served as the president of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court of Justice from 1832-1833, being the only non-lawyer to ever serve.

Kate and I are so excited to meet our little guy.  I think the same goes for everyone we care about and who cares about us.  Given my intellectual pursuits these days and the soon arrival of our monkey, it makes me happy to learn about my ancestry, both in recent history, as in macro-evolutionary terms.

Stay bipedal people.