On the Pedraza (Pedrasa)

Although the documentary trail is incomplete, it looks like one of our forebears was a descendant a family that frequently married cousins in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Pedraza. The earliest one we can find is a Lorenzo Pedraza, who died in 1812. His wife, Rafaela de Arroyo, passed away in 1800, in Caguas. We also know that a son of this couple, Hilario Pedrasa de Arroyo, married a Dorotea de Sierra Pedrasa in 1788 (also in Caguas). Since Dorotea's mother was a Juana Pedrasa and Hilario's father also a Pedrasa, we think the two were probably related. 

We believe that Hilario Pedrasa and Dorotea de Sierra were the parents of the Ramona Pedraza we are interested in. According to the parish books of San Lorenzo, a Ramona Pedraza, daughter of Hilario and Dorotea, married Domingo Montanez (son of Juan and Maria Reyes) in 1813. The Montanez and Pedraza have a long history in the 18th and 19th centuries, at least in the area of Caguas and San Lorenzo. We believe the daughter of Domingo Montanez and Ramona Pedraza, married a Montanez who likely descends from the same lineage. 

This daughter, Isabel or Ysabel Montanez Pedraza, married a Guillermo Diaz of Guayama. According to the little we could find in the parish books, Guillermo Diaz was a hijo natural of a Isabel Diaz. We know both were pardos or morenos. Fortunately, a number of documents assert that the parents of Ysabel Montanez Pedraza were Domingo and Ramona Pedraza, pardos libres. Ysabel's death certificate from the late 1800s also identifies her father as a Domingo Montanez. 

To make things even more confusing, a Maria Ramona Pedraza was said to have married a Ramon Benitez in 1821. Get this, Maria Ramona Pedraza's parents were listed by the parish priest in San Lorenzo as Hilario and a Teodora (Dorotea?) Sierra! Perhaps Ramona remarried then or there was a mix-up  on the part of the parish priest.

If our theory is correct, then Domingo Montanez's parents were Juan Montanez and Maria Reyes. Now we need to find out the origins of Isabel Diaz, Guillermo's mother. The Pedraza and Montanez appear to have been related and marrying each other since the second half of the 1700s, but the origins of the Diaz line remains a mystery. Furthermore, we were unable to determine the origins of Lorenzo Pedraza, the father of Hilario.