Her Roots Best the Mayflower by 22 Years

Pauline Chavez-Bent first started documenting her family tree in a baby book when her oldest child was born 35 years ago.

“My mother was with me while I filled it out, and off the top of her head she gave me five generations on my father’s side and six on her side,” she said. “I eventually went back eight generations while I was raising my three kids. I thought, ‘Great, that’s enough.’ ”

Three years ago, however, Chavez-Bent’s interest in tracing her family roots was sparked again when she joined the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research. The nonprofit, Orange County-based organization conducts research and workshops in assisting Latinos in their genealogical searches throughout the world’s Spanish-speaking countries.

Since then, she has traced her roots back 17 generations in the United States, to the 1598 expedition led by Juan de Onnate. The conquistadors, who included 14 of Chavez-Bent’s ancestors from Spain’s Andalusia and Castile regions, the Canary Islands and Greece, went to the “province” of New Mexico in search of the New World’s mythical riches.

“Our people came before the Mayflower--22 years before. By that time, Santa Fe was already established,” she explained. “My ancestors who came with Onnate founded Santa Fe in 1610.”

“When I started adding more names to my chart, I realized you can’t separate the history from the genealogy,” said Chavez-Bent, 63, of Huntington Beach. “I found out that my family settled the Southwest. They developed the Southwest. Those are things you don’t find in regular history books.”

Motivating Latinos to investigate their genealogy and learn about their place in U.S. history is part of the mission of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, which has more than 100 full members and 500 associate members in several states.

Chavez-Bent travels on behalf of the group to lecture on genealogy, researching family roots and exchanging information with other Latinos. “We want to encourage and help people do their research and we want them to share what they have found,” she said.

The group’s motto is somos primos --we are cousins--alluding to the intertwining of family lines among Latinos. “You can’t separate your family history from general history, because every single person creates history and just as you’re part of a family, you’re part of a community at large,” she said.

She has compiled information for a book on genealogical searches in New Mexico using her personal journey and her native village of Atarque (which no longer exists) as an example. A newsletter published by the Catholic Archdiocese in Gallup, N.M., has featured five excerpts from the yet-unpublished book about the religious and cultural systems of the village.

“The way I look at it, we are born into certain families and we cannot deny our families or our heritage. In order to be a whole person, we need to respect that heritage no matter if we marry into other cultures,” she said.

“We must take the best of each culture and respect it to become a whole person. And with respect comes pride of the culture.”