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Before the quarantine I had the liberty to travel to many places looking for my ancestors, and visiting my family. We have a long time doing this and we have been successful since we have been able to gather many generations, and we have met knew members of the family we didn't know.


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Part of my husband's ancestors came from Spain, Portugal and France, and they settled in Lara's State specially in a small town named "Rio del Tocuyo". Río del Tocuyo is named Santiago del Río del Tocuyo, and it was founded by Francisco de la Hoz Berrio y Oruña en 1620. This town was known too as little Mesopotamia because it is situated between 2 rivers, Río Tocuyo y Río Morere. People say that the town is the most friendly town in the world, and we can give testimony of that. People answered all the questions we had, they guided us wherever we wanted to go.



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Actually, Río del Tocuyo is dry, full of stones and wood, but long time ago it was a navigable river, and that fact is proved because it was found a Steamboat when the waters of the river descended quite a lot. This ship it is supposed to have sunk in 1850, and the historians think it was dedicated to the marketing of firewood and coal. Also, it was found in the river bed one anchor. This steamboat could posibly navigate the Caribbean Sea to the town along Río del Tocuyo. It is not sure where the ship came from, some historians believe the ship was English and not American. The ship could look like the one in the picture because of the findings.


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[source](http://eltocuyohistoriacolonial.blogspot.com/2016/05/encontrado-barco-de-vapor-en-el-rio.html)</center>

We came to this town in search of information about the first inhabitants that came to this place. Knowing about the ship we could infer that they came from european countries such as Spain, Portugal or any.  We were investigating the surnames Rodriguez, Gutierrez, Infante, Silva because these are the surnames of my husband's great-granparents. We were not lucky this time because the offices were closed, but as soon as the quarantine finish we will come back to the place.

I never get a no for an answer, so I decided to walk along the streets of the town asking people about what they knew about the firt people who lived in the place. I was sent everywhere, I realized that the town was really in a miserable condition. People didn't care much about the historic value Rio del Tocuyo has. I felt very sad, and I imagine how sad my husband's ancestors felt about this indifference.


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I went to the cemetry and to the church, and I felt I was getting near to find something important.



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We kept walking for a long time, talking to people but we got nothing that we could feel it was of value for us. We took a  road away from town centre, and all of a sudden I saw a man lying in a hammock. I told my husband to stop the car in front of his house to ask, and when I saw this man near I told my husband that ke looked like to his uncles. The man was so kind and came to us abandoning his comfort, and he anwered all the questions we asked him. He is a descendant of my husband's great grandparents Idelfonzo Silva and María Florencia Infante. His name is Antonio Silva and he told us that when he was a little boy he met my husband's father, they were cousins. He felt so happy and went inside the house to dress properly for the picture, and presented us his family. May be he is not alive now, but we felt that our trip had that purpose, to find a member of the family who was very far from us and needed to be taken into account in the family tree.




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