SPEAKERS | GSHA

Dr. Rael-Gálvez is currently a writer, speaker, creative strategist and the founding principal of Creative Strategies 360°, a consulting firm which supports transformative work within communities, governments, educational institutions and cultural-based organizations by inspiring creativity, building community, and raising consciousness. Dedicated to stimulating generative ideas and innovation to propel change in the world, Rael-Gálvez has collaborated with a range of public and private sector entities, including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, for which he produced, "Sensing O’Keeffe," a bold and aspirational vision that charted more meaningful, fully sensory and inspiring experiences for public benefit at the artist’s home and studio in Abiquiu.

For the McCune Charitable Foundation, Rael-Gálvez developed the case for a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Initiative, including a comprehensive analysis of historic trauma in northern New Mexico and in collaboration with others, led transformative efforts ultimately resulting in the retirement of two century-long Fiesta pageants focused on celebrating conquest. He also designed, planned and led the development of the first cultural plan for the city of Santa Fe, Culture Connects Santa Fe - A Cultural Cartography, based on 12-week community-wide dialogue, research and analysis. focusing on the intrinsic value of culture and how it can be leveraged for the vibrancy, health and well-being of the community.

Virginia Sanchez is an independent scholar who has presented her research to the American Society for Ethnohistory, the New Mexico Historical Society, and the genealogical societies in New Mexico and Colorado. She is the author of Forgotten Cucharenos of the Lower Valley, the winner of the 2011 Miles History Award from the Colorado Historical Society and the 2018 Gilberto Espinosa Prize for Best Article in the New Mexico Historical Review.

Her work is published in the New Mexico Historical Review and New Mexico Magazine. Her most recent book which will be released in July 2019 is Pleas and Petitions, Hispano Culture and Legislative Conflict in Territorial Colorado with the forward by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Tony Juarez is a graduate of the University of Denver and holds an Executive Master's degree in Business Administration. He is a retired corporate executive and business owner. He became an active member of the Santa Fe Trail Association and Bent's Fort Chapter to expand his interest and love of Southwest history.

Tony's program will focus on the murder of Don Antonio Jose Chavez on the Santa Trail in 1843, an international incident. The murder of Don Antonio is a very personal and emotional subject for him. Tony is a namesake of his 4th-great grandfather Don Antonio, and first learned of the murder through family oral history. The goal of his presentation is to entertain, inform and motivate participants to learn and share their own family history with others.

Angel de Cervantes was born and raised in Las Vegas, NM and attended Robertson High School. He later moved to Albuquerque, NM and attended the University of New Mexico where he obtained degrees in Political Science, History, and Business Administration. He is an anthropological genetic genealogist and history researcher. Mr. Cervantes has done historical and genealogical research in the Archivos of Baja California, Chihuahua, Colima, Durango, Jalisco and Zacatecas, Mexico. In addition, he has worked at the New Mexico State Archives in Santa Fe, NM in 2001 as an Archivist. Mr. Cervantes has volunteered his time at the Albuquerque Family History Center, where he has assisted people with their family history and their DNA results.

In 2004, he pioneered the study of Anthropological Genetic Genealogy with the creation of the New Mexico DNA Project. He did this because he felt that New Mexico with its rich history and cultural diversity needed its own representation in the realm of DNA and Anthropological Genetic Genealogy. He hopes to help New Mexicans attain a greater and more specific knowledge of their own history and heritage. The New Mexico DNA Project is the second largest Hispanic DNA database on record with more than 3000 DNA samples. In 2006 and 2014, Mr. Cervantes participated in PBS specials that discussed Anthropological Genetic Genealogy through the DNA of the Founding Families of the Spanish New Mexico Colony. He has also been a key lecturer and speaker on the study of Anthropological Genetic Genealogy for various historical and genealogical organizations in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

Mr. Cervantes currently resides in Albuquerque, NM with his lovely wife Anna, which he met in Europe. He is an educator and teaches Advanced Placement History at Albuquerque High School. He is also an instructor at the University of New Mexico Continuing Education program on the subject of Anthropological Genetic History.

Tom J. Martinez is the librarian and membership secretary of the Fray Angelico Chavez Chapter (FACC) of the GSHA in Pueblo, CO. Tom is also a copy editor of the GSHA Journal “Nuestras Raices”. Born in San Francisco, Colorado, 71 years ago, his 3rd Great Grandfather, Jose Gregorio Martin, is one of the earliest settlers in the area of “La Culebra” that is now known variously as San Francisco, La Valley, and El Rito. El Rito was first called El Rito de Jose Gregorio and it was mentioned in the document that Carlos Beaubien drafted to give area residents access to the Commons or La Vega. Tom descends from Hernan Martin Serrano.

Tom worked for Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, as a Steel Rule Die Maker and Photo Lab Technician, raising a family and retired after 37 years. He has been a 41 year member of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City, serving as its president, vice president, and historian. Photography, especially photographing the night sky, has been a lifelong devotion. After retiring in 2006 his passion turned to genealogy. When Tom moved back to his home town of Pueblo in 2015, he joined FACC where he was able to expand his ancestor’s paper trail. Taking his DNA and studying how it can be used to point to possible cousins has expanded his family tree to relatives unknown without the DNA tools.

Rob Martinez is the state historian of New Mexico and a native New Mexican born and raised in Albuquerque. A graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in International Business Management, Rob then went on to pursue his interest in New Mexican culture and history at U.N.M., earning an M.A. in Latin American history, with an emphasis on church, cultural, and social practices of the Spanish Colonial period in New Mexico.

During his tenure as a graduate student, he was a research assistant for four years at the Vargas Project, learning research skills and paleography, abilities that would serve him well as a historian. Upon graduating, Rob pursued a teaching license and also worked for fourteen years as a research historian for the Sephardic Legacy Project, scouring civil and church archives in New Mexico, Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, analyzing documents for a research and publishing project about the Crypto-Jewish phenomenon in New Mexico and the Caribbean. Rob has presented papers and lectures on his research at the University of New Mexico, as well as history conferences throughout the southwestern United States. He has also spoken to historical groups in New Mexico such as the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico, the Albuquerque Historical Society, and the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies about research methodology, unique findings, New Mexico Hispanic culture, and general History of New Mexico.

Rob was a teacher at Rio Rancho High School for ten years, educating young New Mexicans about World History, New Mexico History, and Language Arts.

Rob has published articles on New Mexico genealogy and culture in periodicals as diverse as Herencia: The Quarterly Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center, IMAGEN magazine, Tradicion Revista, and the New Mexico Genealogist.

Finally, Rob is also a folk musician, performing and promoting New Mexican Hispanic musical traditions for the past twenty years with his brother Lorenzo and their father Roberto Martinez in the group Los Reyes de Albuquerque. With his musical family, Rob has performed in all parts of New Mexico, and on multiple occasions has presented music and New Mexican culture at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, D.C., the NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship Awards, and also at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Phyllis Miranda was bitten by the genealogy bug while stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan when she took a class put on by the USO. The last 38 years she has been searching for her family and helping others hone their genealogy skills by teaching beginner’s classes and about the technology we use when researching our family history.

She has served as the secretary and newsletter editor for the Fray Angelico Chavez Chapter of GSHA and as president, vice-president, secretary, and webmaster for the Southeastern Colorado Genealogical Society.

She is currently taking classes online to obtain certification in genealogical research and hopes to get her certificate within this next year.

Greg Liverman, Ph.D., began tracing his family history in the 1990’s with an old Macintosh computer and a copy of Family Tree Maker. At that time, family and career pursuits did not leave much time for genealogy work. He was finally able to return to charting his family history in 2009. Greg quickly realized that he could bring to bear all the analytical and problem-solving skills he had developed in over forty years of working as a journalist, scientist and business manager. He has experience in using various techniques, based on the careful application of reason and logic, to successfully break down “brick walls”.

Greg and his wife Wendy added genetic genealogy or DNA testing to their brick wall demolition toolkit in 2013 and have immersed themselves in the details of DNA tests and evaluation methods.

Marcus Flores, raised in Pecos, New Mexico, a small town outside Santa Fe, is currently a Senior Archivist at the State Archives of New Mexico. He received his Bachelor’s degree in History and Spanish from New Mexico Highlands University. He then pursued a Master’s degree at the University of New Mexico in Spanish with a concentration in Hispanic Southwest Studies. After a short break from academia, Marcus completed another Master’s degree in Public History at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Since the age of 15, Marcus has researched his family history. Much of the research was conducted at the State Archives of New Mexico. He recently completed a genealogy book about his 4th great-grandfather, José Mariano de Jesús Valdés, who settled in Huerfano County in the 1860s

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