Manuel Fernandez de Flores is Not the Father

I have been reading Luis Burset Flores’ book, Las Familias Flores de la Region Centro Oriental de Puerto Rico, as I am very interested in Manuel Fernandez de Flores as I directly descend from him. Unfortunately, females cannot inherit the Y Chromosome, and if I were male, it would not matter since the Bayala descendants come from a female Flores, Gregoria Flores Fontanez.

I had skipped around the book since I bought it but picked it up this weekend when I noticed a reference to DNA in the Table of Contents after skimming through some of the hypotheses in the book. I have one individual floating on my tree, Eusebio or Eusevio Flores, who is not attached to anyone and like everyone else, wanted to know if he was indeed the son of Manuel Fernandez de Flores.

While a considerable portion of the book is dedicated to Eusevio’s descendants, I was blown away in what Burset Flores uncovered on pages 247 and 248. On page 247, he reveals that haplogroup J2 or J-M172 is assigned to Eusevio. The table on 248 gave me pause, and I had to go back and reread page 247 to ensure I did not misread; I didn’t.

One apparent glaring error is J-M172 (J2), which is mentioned on page 247 as being Eusevio’s YDNA but I-M253 listed on 248; these haplogroups are not closely related, so there is an error between both pages. In addition, multiple Flores males have taken the YDNA test on FamilyTree DNA with each identifying who their oldest direct male ancestor is, which led to many different results; all identifying Flores as being the male line.

While Eusevio’s age estimation fits perfectly to be the son of Manuel, that is where the similarities end until science says otherwise. Burset lists out how 3 descendants trace their line back to Eusevio de Flores (I-M 253), two for J-M267, and one for R-M269, both numbers connected to Manuel Fernandez de Flores. Also, R-M269 is connected to Juan Flores, Edward Manuel Flores, and Pedro Flores. The table below provides a better visual of the breakdown.

I-M253	J-M267	R-M269
Eusevio de Flores (3 Kits)	Manuel Fernandez de Flores (2 Kits)	Manuel Fernandez de Flores (1 Kit)
		Juan Flores (1 Kit)
		Edward Manuel Flores (1 Kit)
		Pedro de Flores (2 Kits)

One glaring obvious revelation is that Eusevio is not Manuel’s son. In addition, someone is misidentifying Manuel as he can only be one and not both haplogroup; J-M267 and R-M269. The one listed as R-M269 may be the one with the error in tracing their tree or there was an NPE (Non-Paternal Event). No matter which one Manuel winds up under, he is still not the father of Eusevio as these haplogroups are not connected.

Science refutes the claim that these individuals are related as father and son. Now that being said, we can say that Juan Flores, Edward Manuel Flores, and Pedro Flores look to be related if the trees were traced correctly.  Also, the table reveals that a Gregorio Roldan born around 1832 also belongs within the R-M269 group and is either related closely or distantly; I didn’t list him.  Since we do not have access to the full results to these kits, we cannot tell if the relationship is close or distant or if there are errors during the printing of the book. However, for now, I can now delete Eusevio and his wife from my tree as they do not connect to my Manuel Fernandez de Flores.

Works Cited

Burset Flores, L. R. (2017). Las Familias Flores de la Region Centro Oriental de Puerto Rico. San Juan: Sociedad Puertorriquena de Genealogia Inc.

International Society of Genetic Genealogy. (2019, June 30). Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree 2019. Retrieved from ISOGG: https://isogg.org/tree/