What have you heard about his job in the Merchant Marines?

I never understood it.

I never really understood what he did.

Well, as you read, he was a fireman in water tender, which means that he was running and maintaining the ship's boilers.

So it was hot and very dirty work.

And when he was on a job, he'd ship out for days or even months at a time.

Can you imagine living and working on a ship like that for months?

Mm-hmm.

He never wanted to go to the beach after they went back to Puerto Rico .

I wanted to go.

He never wanted to see the beach again.

Though he may not have enjoyed being on the water, Pablo stuck with the Merchant Marines, likely because they paid well and brought the stability he'd been seeking for so long.

Even so, the job was very hard on his family.

When he wasn't on his ship, Pablo was rarely able to return to Puerto Rico as his base was in New York City.

The situation became so stressful that Liza's grandmother eventually decided to join him in New York with her children.

Did you know that?

I knew that, yeah, my mom didn't really know her father until she was 11, 'cause he had been away at sea all of those years.

So she was confused as to who this man was telling her what to do and all .

Don't you have a ship to catch?

Yes.

That had to have been hard on your grandmother.

Yeah, she was trying to, you know, just survive as basically a single mom in a country she didn't know the language at all of.

Oh my God.

Can you imagine?

Very strong.

And she kept, you know, so much of it inside.

We now turn to Liza's deeper roots and discovered something surprising in the marriage record of her grandfather's father, A man named Pablo Marrero Adolfo.

Natural son of Juliana.

Natural son of Juliana.

Do you know what that means, natural son?

No.

I assume gave birth to him?

It means his mother was not married at the time of his birth.

There were two categories: legitimate or natural.

And natural means the mother was not married to the father of the child.

Wow.

So your grandfather's father was, as we say, born out of wedlock.

Did you have any idea?

No!

This is a wild ride.

It is.

This is... Wow.

This story was about to take a somber turn.

Pablo's mother, Juliana, was not only unmarried, she was also enslaved.

Records show that she was born into slavery on the island of Guadalupe, and then as a young woman brought to Puerto Rico to work in the household of a sugar planter.

Though Liza knew that slavery had played a significant role in Puerto Rico's past, seeing it connected directly to her family with such specificity was profoundly emotional.

Did you ever think that you would learn the name of an enslaved ancestor?

I thought I might.

I thought I might.

But it breaks my heart and I'm crying, not because it's a total shock to me; it's because now there is a name to this person.

Oh yeah.