Connections to Early California Governors

Recently I have been tracing the ways in which I am related to four 19th-century California governors, Juan Bautista Alvarado (1809-1882), Carlos Antonio Carrillo (1783-1852), Pío Pico (1801-1894), and Andrés Pico (1810-1876), and this post charts out some of that research.  All of these men were governors of California during a volatile time of the state's history, one in which Californians were increasingly split along a north-south divide concerning loyalty to Mexico, and one in which American annexation was a persistently encroaching reality.  Alvarado, for example, based in Monterey, was considered a rebel, while Carrillo, based in Santa Barbara, was considered a loyalist.  Pío Pico fled to Mexico following the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846, but eventually returned to be California's last non-American governor before statehood in 1850.  Pío and Andrés were brothers.  The following summarizes these men's terms in office.

Juan Bautista Alvarado: 1836-1837, 1838-1842
Carlos Antonio Carrillo: 1837-1838
Pío Pico: 1845-1846, 1848
Andrés Pico: 1847

Alvarado, Carrillo, P. Pico, A. Pico

I am related to Alvarado and Carrillo both through my maternal and paternal lines, as both men, and both of my parents, are descendants of Juan Salvador Lugo, who was born in Sinaloa, Mexico circa 1714, and died at Mission San Gabriel in July 1784.  His son Francisco Salvador (~1740-1805), who came to California as part of the Rivera y Moncada Expedition of 1774, is my mother's ancestor; his daughter Serafina (d. 1781) is my father's ancestor.  (So my parents are eighth cousins to one another.)  Francisco, in turn, had three daughters (that are relevant here): Tomasa (b. ~1763), Antonia (b. 1776), and Ignacia (b. 1783).  The middle daughter, Antonia, is the maternal grandmother of Juan Bautista Alvarado.  (She is also the mother of Mariano Vallejo (1808-1890), Alvarado's maternal uncle and a California general and major figure in early California politics.)  But I am not a direct descendant of this line.  Instead, one has to look at the eldest and youngest of Francisco Lugo's three daughters, namely Tomasa and Ignacia, who are both direct ancestors of my mother (see below).  Tomasa's son was Carlos Antonio Carrillo, the second governor we are concerned with here, and Ignacia's daughter was Presentación Ruíz (1806-1840).  The grandchildren of C.A. Carrillo and P. Ruíz -- Charles William Dana (1837-1896) and Blandina Esquer (1845-1913), third cousins to each other -- married in 1866, thus unifying these two lines down to me.  Thus we can see that C.A. Carrillo and Mariano Vallejo were first cousins (through their mothers), and that J.B. Alvarado was Vallejo's nephew and C.A. Carrillo's first cousin once removed.  Relative to me, C.A. Carrillo is my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and J.B. Alvarado is my second cousin six times removed.  But, since everyone is a descendant of Juan Salvador Lugo, we can also count through my father's side, in which case C.A. Carrillo is my second cousin seven times removed, and J.B. Alvarado is my third cousin six times removed!

I am related to the Pico brothers a little more simply, if only because I am only related to them through my mother.  With the Pico brothers I share a common ancestor in Feliciana Arballo (d. 1808), a woman who has become infamous in California history as the "merry widow", referring to her role in the De Anza Expedition, with which she came north to California with two young daughters in 1776.  After successfully crossing the Colorado River, their party wanted to celebrate, much to the chagrin of their accompanying priest, Pedro Font, who wrote that, at the celebration, 'a very bold widow sang some verses that were not at all nice, applauded and cheered by the crowd'.  Feliciana was apparently beaten for her actions.  One of the daughter's present in the De Anza Expedition was Eustaquia, who became the mother of Pío and Andrés Pico.  I am related to Eustaquia through her half-sister, a later daughter of Feliciana and Juan Francisco López (d. 1800), Ignacia (1793-1849), who went on to be the first woman to receive a land grant from the Mexican government in 1841, namely Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa, which surrounds modern-day Santa Rosa.  (She is buried at Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, because, her son-in-law also became Mariano Vallejo!)  Thus Pío and Andrés Pico are my first cousins five times removed.