Written by Ian Davis. Last updated 25 March 2026.

This question concerns Joseph Ximenes (1840–1880).

Links

• Joseph Ximenes on Ancestry
• Joseph Ximenes on FamilySearch
• Joseph Ximenes on WikiTree

Background

The documentary record for Joseph Ximenes is thin: a marriage registration, four children’s birth registrations, and a death registration.

He married Bridget Palmer née Dineen on 28 Oct 1872 at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Newport, Monmouthshire. His surname appears as Ximanes in the Catholic register, Himenes on the civil marriage registration, and as Hemmings in all subsequent records. His father’s name appears as the genitive Francisci in the church register; the civil registration gives the independent anglicisation “Frank Himenes.” Joseph stated his father’s occupation as mason and that he was deceased. He was illiterate and aged 33 at marriage.

He and Bridget had four children: Frank, Louisa, Rosearia, and Helena. He was killed in the North Risca Colliery explosion on 15 Jul 1880, his age recorded as 40. No record of Joseph has been found in England or Wales before the 1872 marriage entry.

Discussion

Clues from the name records

Joseph was recorded as Joseph Ximanes in the church register and as Joseph Himenes in the civil registration. The name evidence provides several clues, none conclusive on their own:

• Surname origin: Ximenes and its variants are Spanish in origin, and the Ximenes spelling is typically Portuguese. However, the priest’s spelling Ximanes almost certainly reflects his familiarity with “Cardinal Ximenes” (Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros) rather than anything Joseph told him and is not evidence of Portuguese origin specifically.
• Father’s name: Recorded as Francisci (Latin genitive) in the church register and “Frank” in the civil registration. The underlying name could be Francisco, Francesco, Francis, or another cognate: neither source is a reliable guide.
• Civil registrar’s spelling, “Himenes”: The registrar was writing phonetically, recording what he heard Joseph say. In Spanish, J produces an aspirated sound that reaches an English ear as H, making Jimenez the most natural source of “Himenes.” In Portuguese, X is typically pronounced as “sh,” which would have produced a spelling closer to “Shimenes.”
• “Joseph” not “Josephus”: The priest wrote the entire entry in Latin but did not Latinise the groom’s forename, suggesting he wrote what he heard. Joseph had likely already anglicised his name, possibly after time in an English-speaking environment.
• Illiteracy: Joseph could not correct either the priest or the registrar. All spellings reflect what others heard.

Oral tradition

There has long been an oral tradition within our extended family that an ancestor originated from South America or Mexico. The accounts below were collected at different times from different branches of the family. None of the informants knew Joseph personally: these are at best second- or third-hand recollections, and should be treated as a broad cultural memory of foreign origin rather than precise testimony.

• Louisa’s mother or grandmother had a child by a Spaniard or Mexican. (Louisa was Joseph’s daughter.)
• Joseph Hemmings came from South America and married someone named Duneal, who was cut off from her family for marrying such a dark-skinned foreigner. (Duneal is almost certainly a phonetic rendering of Dineen.)
• Another family member said: my grandfather Joseph came from Portugal. I myself am dark-skinned.
• A grandchild of Louisa Hemmings always said he had Mexican blood but could give no further details. His sister said she had been told there was Shoshone heritage.

What “Mexico” meant in the 1840s

The political geography of “Mexico” shifted dramatically across the decades around Joseph’s birth c.1839/40:

• Before 1821: No Mexican nation exists; the entire region is the Viceroyalty of New Spain, covering present-day Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
• 1821: Mexican independence; Texas and New Mexico are both Mexican territories. Anyone born in San Antonio or Santa Fe at this date was born in Mexico.
• 1836: Texas declares independence as a separate republic.
• 1845: Texas annexed by the USA.
• 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; Mexico cedes present-day New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Families in Santa Fe in 1847 were Mexican; in 1849 they were American without having moved.

Joseph was born into this period of flux. If his roots were in the Spanish Southwest, his birthplace was technically Mexico even if that territory was American by the time the family tradition took shape. Equally, “Mexican” may simply have been the label a South Wales community attached to a dark-skinned Hispanic stranger.

The naming of the children

Bridget’s children from her earlier marriages were John and Johanna, names firmly in the Irish Catholic tradition she grew up in. None of the children she had with Joseph follow that pattern. In order of birth they were Frank, Louisa, Rosearia (later known as Rose Helen), and Helena. None of these names appear elsewhere in Bridget’s extended family.

Frank is almost certainly a nod to Joseph’s father, whose name is recorded as Francisco/Frank in the marriage registers. Louisa, Rosearia, and Helena all have a distinctly Spanish or Portuguese flavour, and may reflect Joseph’s own family naming traditions: Louisa in particular may be after his mother. The absence of any Irish names among Joseph’s children, set against Bridget’s earlier choices, suggests the naming was influenced primarily by Joseph.

The pattern persists into the next generation. Helena named her eldest son Francisco, and Louisa named her son William Joseph, after both his grandfathers, preserving Joseph’s name explicitly into the third generation.

DNA ethnicity clues

In the absence of any documentary record of Joseph before 1872, DNA is our principal tool for establishing his origins. We have considerably more DNA evidence than is summarised here, and further analysis is ongoing.

Our two principal testers are myself and my maternal aunt Sheila. Joseph is Sheila’s great-grandfather: her maternal grandmother was Louisa Hemmings, Joseph’s daughter. On average Sheila can be expected to carry around 12.5% of Joseph’s DNA; I carry roughly half that amount.

We know the ancestry of both testers extremely well across all other branches. Sheila’s maternal side is almost entirely from the north-east of England and Scotland, traced back to the mid-1700s. Her paternal side divides between Suffolk and Norfolk for her paternal grandfather’s line, with many branches traced to 1700, and similarly well-documented English lines elsewhere. The only plausible source of non-British DNA on either side is Louisa Hemmings’ parentage. Louisa’s mother Bridget Dineen was of Irish origin, with both parents born in Ireland, and as economically poor labourers there is little reason to expect non-British-Isles ancestry there. We therefore attribute the great majority of non-British-Isles ethnicity in Sheila’s results to Joseph.

Ancestry’s current breakdown of Sheila’s paternal ethnicity, excluding England, is:

• Ireland: 18% — attributable to Bridget Dineen
• Indigenous Americas: Mexico: 7%
• Sweden: 4%
• Portugal: 4%
• France: 2%
• Southern Germanic: 2%
• Spain: 2%
• North Africa: 1%
• Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa: 1%
• Basque: 1%

We treat figures of 2% and below as likely noise, with two exceptions: the North Africa and Sephardic Jews components have remained stable across multiple Ancestry updates and may reflect something real, possibly a Sephardic strand in the Iberian ancestry. Setting aside Ireland (Bridget) and the probable noise, the signal attributable to Joseph centres on 7% Indigenous Americas: Mexico, 4% Portugal, and a residual Iberian presence. The Indigenous figure is the most striking: it substantially exceeds the Spanish and Portuguese figures individually, and is consistent with descent from a mixed Spanish/Indigenous family.

It is tempting to read the relative proportions as a clue to Joseph’s parents: the stronger Indigenous signal over the Iberian might suggest one parent was fully or predominantly Indigenous and the other of Iberian origin. This is consistent with the Ancestry Spain category including mestizo Mexicans, so the Spain and Indigenous figures together may reflect a single mixed line rather than two separate ones. Any such inference is highly speculative given the small percentages involved and should not be given undue weight.

MyHeritage broadly corroborates the Iberian and Indigenous signal but diverges on the geography of the Indigenous element, placing it in Central America and Colombia rather than northern Mexico.

A full discussion of the ethnicity analysis is at this diary entry.

DNA matches

To pursue the DNA evidence systematically we have built the Ximenes Exploratory Tree on Ancestry. Working through our DNA matches, we have selected individuals whose ethnicity estimates include Indigenous Mexican, Portuguese, or Spanish components consistent with what we believe Joseph’s profile to have been. For each match we attempt to trace their family tree backwards, then connect disparate matches together in the hope that shared common ancestors will eventually lead us to an ancestor of Joseph’s own line.

The tree currently contains:

• 418 DNA matches incorporated
• 38,600 people in the tree in total
• 440 individuals identified as common ancestors across various combinations of matches: these are the nodes most likely to be relevant to Joseph’s ancestry
• 36 candidates for Francisco Ximenes, Joseph’s father, selected on the criteria of bearing the surname Jimenez or Ximenes with at least one forename of Francisco; the combination José Francisco is particularly common in the region

So far the tree has not produced any conclusive lead to Joseph’s origins, but the work is ongoing and the common ancestor nodes remain the most promising avenue for further analysis.

To get a broader picture of where our DNA matches’ ancestors were located around 1850, we extracted from the tree all matches carrying at least 5% Indigenous Americas: Mexico in their Ancestry ethnicity estimate and mapped where their traceable ancestors were living around 1850. The results point strongly toward a corridor running from New Mexico down through Nuevo León and Tamaulipas: the three highest-scoring locations, all straddling the old US/Mexico border.

Caveats: (1) The data reflects only branches we could trace to around 1850 and excludes regions with sparser records or harder-to-trace genealogies. (2) There is an inherent bias toward areas where people have been able to take DNA tests, which skews results toward the USA. (3) Our research naturally follows Spanish and Indigenous-sounding surname branches, which may over-represent those regions relative to others.

We ran the same exercise for matches carrying at least 5% Portuguese ethnicity (including Azores) in their Ancestry estimate. As expected, the Azores dominates, followed by mainland Portugal and Cape Verde. What is more striking is that Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and USA New Mexico reappear with strong scores, identical to the top three in the Indigenous Mexico dataset. This overlap suggests a shared ancestry pool in that border region connecting both the Portuguese and Indigenous Mexico match clusters.

The same caveats apply as for the Indigenous Mexico dataset above.

Documentary evidence

Despite the weight of DNA evidence pointing to a Hispanic and Indigenous origin, we should not abandon the search for documents. Joseph was in his early thirties at marriage and almost certainly in England or Wales for at least some time before 1872. Finding him in the 1871 census would be particularly valuable: a census entry would record his age, occupation, address, and crucially his place of birth, potentially resolving the question directly. The North Risca Colliery explosion inquest records and any associated burial register entry are also worth pursuing for any statement of birthplace.

Research Carried Out

• Searched England and Wales civil registration and census records: no trace of Joseph before the 1872 marriage entry.
• Located the Catholic marriage register entry, written in Latin, giving the surname as Ximanes and the father as Francisci Ximanes.
• Collected oral testimony from multiple family members pointing to Mexico, South America, or Portugal as Joseph’s origin.
• Analysed Ancestry and MyHeritage DNA results for Sheila (Joseph’s great-granddaughter), identifying Spanish, Indigenous Americas, and Portuguese components not accounted for by her other seven great-grandparents.
• Identified DNA match clusters in the Nuevo Leon region of Mexico and in Puerto Rico.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: Joseph originated from Mexico or the Spanish Southwest

Evidence in favour

• Surname Ximenes and the father’s name, underlying form uncertain but consistent with Francisco or a cognate, point to Mexican/Hispanic naming.
• Family oral tradition consistently points to Mexico, South America, or a Spanish-speaking origin; one informant specifically described him as looking “just like a Mexican.”
• Sheila’s residual paternal ethnicity shows 7% Indigenous Americas: Mexico against only 2% Spain, with the Indigenous component strongly dominant, consistent with descent from a family with significant native Mexican ancestry.
• Around 30 individuals with the surname Jimenez in the Mexican/New Mexico region have been identified in the Ximenes Exploratory Tree as ancestors of DNA matches.
• The civil registrar’s phonetic rendering “Himenes” is consistent with a Spanish-accented pronunciation and argues against a Portuguese-speaking origin.
• The priest’s use of “Joseph” rather than “Josephus” suggests Joseph had already anglicised his forename. After 1848 the US-controlled Southwest had a substantial English-speaking population, making it a more plausible environment for picking up an anglicised forename than the Portuguese Atlantic territories.
• If Joseph was born c.1839/40 in what is now the southwestern USA, his birthplace would have been Mexican territory at the time, consistent with the family tradition even if the modern border has since moved.

Evidence against / uncertainties

• No direct documentary statement of birthplace found.
• One family informant said Portugal rather than Mexico or South America.
• MyHeritage places the Indigenous signal in Central America and Colombia rather than northern Mexico, introducing uncertainty about the precise region.
• The ethnicity percentages are small and the methodology approximate.
• The family tradition may reflect appearance and perceived ethnicity rather than precise knowledge of birthplace.

Hypothesis 2: Joseph originated from Portugal or a Portuguese territory

Evidence in favour

• One family informant stated Portugal explicitly.
• The Ximenes name is found in Portugal as well as in Spain and Latin America.
• Both Ancestry and MyHeritage show a Portuguese component of around 3-4% in Sheila’s results.
• The Azores and Cape Verde fall within the Ancestry Portugal region and are plausible points of origin.

Evidence against / uncertainties

• The civil registrar’s phonetic rendering “Himenes” points to a Spanish-accented rather than Portuguese-accented pronunciation, which argues against a Portuguese-speaking origin.
• The Indigenous Americas component in Sheila’s DNA is harder to account for under a purely Portuguese European origin, though colonial connections to Brazil and South America are possible.
• The oral tradition more frequently points to Mexico or South America.
• We have not found any Jimenez or Ximenes families in any of the Portuguese lines researched through DNA matches.

Possible research avenues

• Search Mexican and Central American civil and Catholic parish records for a José or Joseph Ximenes born c.1839/40 with a father whose name was a cognate of Francisco, particularly in Nuevo Leon.
• Search New Mexico, Texas, and California mission and civil records for the same, covering the pre-1848 Mexican period as well as the early American territorial period.
• Search Portuguese civil and parish records, and Cape Verdean and Azorean records, for a José or Joseph Ximenes born c.1839/40 with a father whose name was a cognate of Francisco.
• Trace DNA matches in the Nuevo Leon cluster to identify shared ancestors and narrow the family of origin.
• Search the 1871 census again thoroughly for Joseph under all known spelling variants of the surname, including Ximenes, Himenes, Hemmings, and phonetic corruptions, to obtain a direct birthplace statement.
• Examine the North Risca Colliery explosion inquest records and associated burial register entry for any statement of birthplace or more precise age.
• Examine Newport and Monmouthshire Catholic registers for any earlier occurrence of the Ximenes or Himenes name that might indicate when Joseph arrived and whether family accompanied him.