The genealogy of Maria de Aguilar: evidence of admixture in the early Spanish Colony in Costa Rica

TL;DR

This study combines genealogical reconstruction and mitochondrial DNA analysis to reveal that early Spanish colonial elites in Costa Rica had significant Amerindian ancestry, challenging the belief of exclusive European lineage.

Contribution

It provides the first integrated genealogical and genetic evidence of Amerindian admixture in early Costa Rican colonial elites, contradicting previous assumptions of purely European ancestry.

Findings

Genetic evidence shows Amerindian mitochondrial lineages in descendants.

Genealogical data includes notable Costa Rican figures from the 17th century.

Results suggest interethnic marriages occurred among early colonial elites.

Abstract

During long time, historians and genealogists have interpreted that the elite that emerged during the Spanish Conquest was almost exclusively European. We reconstructed a deep matrilineal genealogy which includes recent Costa Rican ex-presidents and religious authorities back to their ancestors at the early 17th century, and compared their historic ethnic affinities with genetic mitochondrial evidence of some living descendents. The observed DNA lineage has an Amerindian ancestry. Such results point out that an Amerindian gene flow had occurred into the Spanish group during the first generations of colonial society. This conclusion do not support the current idea that the Spanish elite avoided interethnic marriages.