Robert Francis Prevost, who was selected as the Catholic Church’s first American pope Thursday and took the name Leo XIV, has a family history that some were celebrating as uniquely diverse, with one genealogist claiming he has ties to “free people of color” in New Orleans.

Pope Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents, along with his mother’s older siblings, were “identified in records as Black or mulatto,” Honora told Forbes, but the family “passed … into a white racial identity” when they relocated to Chicago, where the pope’s mother—Mildred Martinez—was born in 1912.

The pope’s grandparents resided in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, an historically Black neighborhood, before moving to Chicago, Honora said.

Pope Leo XIV was born in Chicago on Sept. 14, 1955 to Martinez and Louis Prevost, a World War II veteran of French and Italian descent.

Martinez’s descent has been widely reported as Spanish, and Pope Leo XIV does not appear to have made major public statements regarding Creole heritage—the Diocese of Chiclayo, where Pope Leo XIV served as bishop between 2015 and 2023, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.

WHAT DO RECORDS SHOW ABOUT POPE LEO XIV’S FAMILY?

Honora said in a Facebook post Thursday “Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has Creole of color roots from New Orleans on his mother's side!” He told The Times-Picayune a marriage license shows Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, the pope’s grandparents, married in 1887 at Our Lady of Sacred Heart church in New Orleans. Those records show Joseph Martinez listed Haiti as his birthplace, Honora told the newspaper. He added the family was listed as living at 1933 North Prieur St. in the city’s Seventh Ward, an area that was demolished during the construction of the Claiborne Avenue overpass, which critics say significantly disrupted vibrant Black neighborhoods in the city.

KEY BACKGROUND

Pope Leo XIV, 69, was born in Chicago to his mother, Mildred Martinez, a librarian, and his father, Louis Prevost, a World War II Navy veteran and school superintendent. He also has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph. He studied mathematics at Villanova University and earned a graduate degree in divinity from the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago. Ordained in 1982, his religious career took him to Rome and Peru, where he was naturalized as a citizen in 2014 around the same time the late Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo, where he became bishop. He took his position in the Vatican overseeing the appointment of new bishops in 2023, the same year he was made a cardinal. Pope Leo was elected following four ballots on the papal conclave’s second day of voting. He is viewed as more of a centrist than Francis, and has been an advocate for migrants and the poor, with possible recent social media posts suggesting he has been critical of President Trump’s actions toward migrants.

As President Donald Trump's administration purges public records since storming back to power, experts and volunteers are preserving thousands of web pages and government sites devoted to climate change, health or LGBTQ rights and other issues.

Resources on AIDS prevention and care, weather records, references to ethnic or gender minorities: numerous databases were destroyed or modified after Trump signed an executive order in January declaring diversity, equality and inclusion programs and policies within the federal governmentto be illegal.

More than 3,000 pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site were taken down and more than 1,000 from the Justice Department's website, Paul Schroeder, president of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, told AFP.

Some websites have disappeared altogether, such as that of the US development agency USAID, which has been effectively shuttered as Trump slashes US aid to poor countries. 

And the National Children's Health Survey page displays a "404 error" message.

Federal agencies must now avoid hundreds of words such as "woman," "disability," "racism", "climate crisis" and "pollution" in their communications, the New York Times reported.

"The focus has been on removing language related to environmental (or) climate justice on websites, as well as removing data and tools related to environmental (or) climate justice," Eric Nost, a geographer at Canada's University of Guelph and member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) told AFP. 

"This Trump administration moved more quickly and with a greater scope than the previous Trump administration," he said.

EDGI, a consortium of academics and volunteers, began safeguarding public climate and environmental data after Trump's first election in 2016.

Among the tools used are the WayBack Machine from the non-profit Internet Archive, or Perma.cc, developed by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School.

These systems, which long predate Trump's election, help "courts and law journals preserve the web pages they cite to," said Jack Cushman, director of the Library Innovation Lab.

Long used by journalists, researchers and NGOs, web archiving enables a page to be preserved, even if it were to disappear from the internet or be modified later.

This data is then stored on servers in a large digital library, allowing anyone to consult it freely.

- Volunteer work -

Archiving initiatives have multiplied, expanded and coordinated since Trump's return to the White House.

The Data Rescue Project (DRP) brought together several organizations to save as much data as possible.

"We were concerned about data being deleted. We wanted to try to see what we could do to rescue them," Lynda Kellam, a university librarian and DRP organizer, told AFP.

She first launched the project as an online Google doc in February -- a simple word-processing tool listing downloaded PDF files, original dataset titles and archived links.

It is now maintained by volunteers "who are working after work" to keep it running, said Kellam.

"We are all volunteers, even myself. We have other jobs so that has been challenging," Kellam added.

The data collection work, largely carried out by associations and university libraries, is threatened by a lack of resources.

"Funding is the key issue... as the library and archives community rushes to take on a larger preservation challenges than ever before," Cushman said.

"We need to fund coordinators for the ongoing effort, new tools, and new homes for the data."

Harvard is also battling the ire of the Trump administration, which has cut federal grants to the prestigious university and threatened its tax-exempt status after it refused to comply with the president's demands to accept government oversight.

"Data is the modern lighthouse, helping us plan our lives: it shows where we are so we can plan where we're going," Cushman said.

"Businesses, individuals, and governments will suffer greatly from any failure to collect and share reliable data on weather and climate, health, justice, housing, employment, and so on."

Leslie Preer, victim 

A 45-year-old man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Montgomery County Circuit Court today for a 2001 homicide that was solved in 2024 through forensic genetic genealogy.

According to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, “Today in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, MD, before the Honorable David Lease, defendant Eugene Gligor, 45, of Washington D.C., entered a guilty plea to the charge of second-degree murder for the death of Leslie Preer.

Preer was found deceased in her home in the 4800 block of Drummond Ave. in Chevy Chase on May 2, 2001. Her death was ruled a homicide. DNA belonging to an unknown male was collected at the scene. For 23 years that unknown male had not been identified, but in 2024, due to advances in technology, the Montgomery County Police Department Cold Case Section used forensic genetic genealogical DNA analysis to identify Gligor as the perpetrator. He was known to the victim’s family and had previously dated her daughter.

Gligor faces up to 30 years in prison, which was the maximum penalty for second-degree murder in 2001 when the incident occurred. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 28, 2025 at 9 a.m.

Assistant State’s Attorney’s Donna Fenton and Jodie Mount are prosecuting this case.”

Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society (MPAAGHS) will conduct its monthly meeting “virtually” on Saturday, May 10, at 11 a.m. The meeting will feature a talk by Marvin Tupper Jones entitled “Juneteenth Soldiers of Northeastern North Carolina.” Jones’ presentation will take place on the eve of next month’s commemoration of the 160th anniversary of Juneteenth.

Marvin Tupper Jones is related to members of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) who served in Texas at the time of Juneteenth and he has researched them and others. These include those who marched from Norfolk to North Carolina to conduct Wild’s Raid, a sustained action that freed 2,500 enslaved people and destroyed rebel camps and supplies. 

Jones is the director of the Chowan Discovery Group, whose mission is to document, research, preserve and present primarily the history of his native Winton Triangle, a 284-year old Black landowning community in northeastern North Carolina. Visit Jones’ website at www.chowandiscovery.org.

To receive a meeting invitation or get information, email mpaaghs.va@gmail.com or call 804-651-8753.

The public is invited to a presentation, “DNA 101: An Introduction to Genetic Genealogy,” at the Middlesex County Public Library (MCPL) system’s Urbanna branch on Saturday, May 17, at 10:30 a.m. The talk is hosted by local historian and genealogist Bessida Cauthorne White. Refreshments will follow her talk.

This presentation is designed as a beginner’s introduction to DNA testing for genealogical research, and will include an explanation of basic genetic genealogy terms. It will also cover the types of DNA testing that may be used for genealogical purposes and the DNA tests currently on the market, as well as the type of information that they can provide, who should be tested, and the limitations of DNA testing. A DNA resource handout will be provided to attendees.

White, a genealogist and community historian, as well as retired attorney, and lifelong activist, will discuss these topics in addition to her personal experiences with DNA testing for herself and her family. She has been a genealogist for more than forty years and manages DNA test results for forty of her family members and friends. Her recent genealogy projects include the identification of the enslaved at Menokin and at Stratford Hall (both 18th century homes in Virginia’s Northern Neck), and their present-day descendants. For the past several years she has directed the research and application process for multiple historical markers that reference African American history in Eastern Virginia. She is also co-founder and president of Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society, and is a founder of the Greater Richmond Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.

Info: 804-758-5717 or email yourmiddlesexlibrary@gmail.com.

MyHeritage is offering free access to all our WWII collections during May 7–11, 2025. That’s over 127 million records across 13 collections. They cover enlistment, draft, casualty, and prisoner of war records from the U.S., Europe, Australia, and beyond. This is a meaningful opportunity for your readers to dig deeper into their family’s WWII stories, and perhaps uncover something they’ve never seen before. Search the free records Here’s just a sample of what’s included: U.S. WWII Draft Registrations, Navy Muster Rolls, and Army Enlistments POW records from France, the U.S., and the former Soviet Union Casualty lists from Ukraine and Finland Nominal rolls from Australia and New Zealand Draft cards from Kansas and Georgia One MyHeritage user found a WWII record of her father, Donald Gene Johnson, in one of these collections. On VE Day, as the family anxiously awaited his return from the front, Donald’s father-in-law helped print the headline announcing the end of the war. You can watch their story in this video. The full details are in this blog post.

From the Washington Post:

Eugene Gligor took a seat on the steps outside his apartment building in Washington, D.C. He scrolled through his phone, drank a cup of coffee. It was June 18, 2024, sunny and 80 degrees.

“Hands up!” came a sudden voice moving toward him with rising volume. “Hands up!”

“What’s going on?” Gligor responded. “What is this about?”

Gligor, 45, stood in a courtroom Wednesday and finally acknowledged the dark secret he’d been hiding for half his life, the one that brought police to his doorstep last summer. He pleaded guilty to the 2001 beating and strangulation of Leslie Preer inside her home in the Chevy Chase area of Maryland.

The case had gone unsolved until last year, when Montgomery County detectives homed in on Gligor, who had dated Preer’s daughter in the 1990s. He’d quietly gone on to a professional career, most recently as an account executive for a nationwide firm operating video surveillance monitoring at commercial properties. To friends he was warm, gregarious, seemingly committed to personal growth and self-improvement — and living in Washington’s trendy U Street Corridor.

Leslie Preer in 1997 (Montgomery County Police Department)

Investigators got to Gligor using a relatively new form of DNA analysis that links genetic clues left by suspects at crime scenes to people who have submitted their DNA to ancestry research companies. The method doesn’t so much lead directly to the suspect, but can point investigators to possible relatives, even distant ones. In this case, that meant two women — completely innocent — in Romania, said Sgt. Chris Homrock, head of the Montgomery Police Department’s cold-case unit.

From there, and over about two years, Detective Tara Augustin built out a traditional family tree, eventually learning there were distantly related American family members with the surname “Gligor.”

The name caught investigators’ attention. Eugene Gligor had been mentioned by a former neighbor in the case file. The daughter’s ex-boyfriend.

“That was our aha moment,” Homrock said.

They needed to get a sample of his DNA but didn’t want to spook him.

The detectives learned that on June 9, 2024, Gligor would be flying back from London to Dulles International Airport, according to court filings. So they went to Dulles and put together a ruse, getting a U.S. customs officer to divert Gligor into a room for ostensible “secondary screening,” the court filings state.

On a table waiting for Gligor, positioned there earlier by Montgomery investigators, were several bottles of water. Gligor took the bait. He finished one of the bottles, put it down and left. Detectives entered a short time later, according to court filings, and bagged the evidence. Testing later confirmed the sample was a direct match to DNA found in Preer’s home and under her fingernails.

The investigation of Preer’s killing dates to the morning of May 2, 2001. When Preer didn’t show up to her job at an advertising production company, a co-worker grew concerned and called her family. A short time later, the co-worker and Preer’s husband, Carl, who’d left for his own job at about 7:30 a.m., walked into the house on Drummond Avenue, according to court filings. They saw dried blood, a knocked-over table, a moved rug.

“Mr. Preer called out his wife’s name and looked quickly throughout the home but could not find her,” Assistant State’s Attorney Jodie Mount said in court Wednesday.

Police were called. They eventually concluded that while Preer was alone, someone got inside and attacked her in the front foyer. The assailant strangled her and bashed her head into the floor, according to autopsy findings, before carrying her body upstairs, leaving it inside a shower and disappearing. Forensic investigators collected blood in the home and found the DNA of an unknown male.

When detectives finally closed in on Gligor last year, they charged him with first-degree murder. His attorneys launched an aggressive defense, filing motions to have key evidence tossed from the case. Their biggest battle — whether the judge would toss out the DNA findings — was scheduled to be argued in August. Gligor’s trial was set for nine days in October.

Instead, Gligor and his attorneys reached an agreement with Montgomery prosecutors. By pleading guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder, Gligor faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, compared to a possible life term for the first-degree murder count. Prosecutors avoided the uncertainty of the DNA challenge and a trial. Sentencing was set for Aug. 28.

Wednesday’s plea hearing mostly covered previously known basics of the case. But earlier court filings and hearings, taken together, reveal new details, such as body camera recordings that captured Gligor’s arrest and the contentious questioning that followed by two detectives.

“Well honey, your DNA was in the crime scene,” Augustin told Gligor, leading to more back and forth, with Gligor asking to speak with an attorney.

“I asked for legal representation and you guys are very smug looking at me like I’ve done something,” Gligor responded. “And of course it’s innocent until proven guilty, right? Am I wrong or right?”

“You are entitled to your due process, absolutely,” responded Detective Alyson Dupouy.

“This is insane,” Gligor said.

Gligor’s attorneys, Stephen Mercer and Isabelle Raquin, wrote in court papers that the scheme at Dulles to collect Gligor’s DNA — given that it wasn’t related to legitimate border security issues — violated his constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The evidence collected, they wrote, should thus be barred from the case. But Gligor’s guilty plea came before that argument could be settled by a judge.

The morning of his arrest last summer, a Montgomery County police surveillance team set up outside his apartment. When they saw him come outside and take a seat on the stairs, they made their move.

Gligor was taken to a D.C. police station, held in a locked room and given a bologna sandwich, according to Mercer and Raquin’s filings. Some two hours later, he was led into an interview room, where he was soon joined by the two Montgomery County detectives, Augustin and Dupouy. Augustin read Gligor his rights to remain silent and consult a lawyer. Then she began subtly asking questions.

“So we were working on a case that came from Chevy Chase,” Augustin said, “and when we were going through the case file, your name was in there as someone that was related to the family. We have a big list of people, but friends, family, something like that. So do you recall back in 2001, Leslie Preer?”

“Yes, that she was murdered,” Gligor said.

They spoke about him dating Preer’s daughter and how he had spent time at their house. Augustin said someone had left DNA at the crime scene, and asked if he had relevant information for them.

“I’m just, I’m a little confused,” Gligor said. “So to find out more and talk to me, why not just call me and ask me to come in and talk? … I mean, I feel a little bit trapped here.”

“Well, you’re under arrest,” the detective said. “You should feel trapped.”

The following is a press release issued by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration:

Opening the Vault gets visitors close to historic treasures; exhibition will begin with Washington and Franklin artifacts from America’s founding period   Washington, DC, May 7, 2025 – As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the National Archives is launching Opening the Vault, a new exhibition series to put on display some of the most historically valuable and iconic artifacts in American history for the first time in many years.   The historical treasures now on view include:  General George Washington’s signed Oath of Allegiance to the United States, repudiating any allegiance to King George III and sworn while he and his troops were encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in 1778 General George Washington’s Revolutionary War account book, which served as an expense report of the Continental Army throughout the war Benjamin Franklin’s handwritten postal ledger, created in his capacity as the first Postmaster General in 1775 Benjamin Franklin’s table of postal rates identifying what, and how much, was required to send a letter in 1775 The artifacts are the first installment of the new Opening the Vault rotating exhibition series that will highlight landmark moments in American history. The first rotation will be on display from May 7, 2025, through August 6, 2025.  “The National Archives has so many incredible objects that document the American Story, so rather than let them sit in a vault—where nobody gets to see them—we decided to ‘open the vault’ to show the American people some of the most significant records and artifacts in their history,” said Jim Byron, Senior Advisor to the Acting Archivist. “These remarkable items are tangible bridges to the past, connecting the American story from 1776 right up to today.” These historic treasures also commemorate the 250th anniversaries of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Postal Service, both to be celebrated in 2025.  The next Opening the Vault rotation will be announced over the summer.   Opening the Vault is on display at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Admission to the Museum is free. Visitors are encouraged to go to https://visit.archives.gov/ to learn more about the museum experience.  View the virtual exhibit. ###

FREE BCG-SPONSORED WEBINAR

“From Despair to Cargoes of Hope: WWII’s Displaced Persons”

by C. Ann Staley, CG^®, CGL^®

Tuesday, May 20, 2025, 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

Many immigrants entered the U.S. under the Displaced Persons Act. Based on specific criteria, eligible displaced persons (DPs) could be admitted to the U.S. if they would not become a public charge and have safe and sanitary housing and employment without displacing some other person. The displaced person or refugee was the concern of the International Refugee Organization. The U.S. created the Displaced Persons Commission to oversee the act’s enactment. Is your ancestor named in the record sets created? The presentation will discuss the history of the act and the records created as a result of the act. 

C. Ann Staley, CG^®, CGL^®, has spoken regionally, nationally, and at sea. She serves as the Membership Chair for the Genealogical Speakers Guild; on the faculty of The International Institute for Genealogical Studies; a volunteer on a number of the National Genealogical Society committees; and as a volunteer of the Florida State Genealogical Society. She served previously on the board of the Association of Professional Genealogists and has taught at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). Ann is the author of articles for the NGS Magazine and is the co-author of the NGS Research in the States Series: Florida. Ann has been researching her family from Alabama, Mississippi, Indiana, and Virginia to France, England, Ireland, and Germany.

BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “From Despair to Cargoes of Hope: WWII's Displaced Persons” by C. Ann Staley, CG, CGL. This webinar airs Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at 8:00 p.m. EDT.  

When you register before May 20 with our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars (http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=9367), you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Anyone with schedule conflicts may access the webinar at no charge for one week after the broadcast on the Legacy Family Tree Webinarswebsite.

“BCG promotes continuing education as essential for competent family history research,” said President David Ouimette, CG, CGL. “We appreciate this opportunity to provide webinars focused on standards that help genealogists and family historians build their knowledge and skills and hone their craft.”

Following the free period for this webinar, BCG receives a small commission if you view this or any BCG webinar by clicking our affiliate link (http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=6803).

To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2025, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard(https://bcgcertification.org/free-bcg-sponsored-2025-webinars). For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (https://bcgcertification.org/learning) 

Lisa S. Gorrell, CG

BCG News Release Coordinator

The words Certified Genealogist, Certified Genealogical Lecturer, and Certified Genetic Genealogist, and their acronyms CG, CGL, and CCG are registered trademarks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists®. These marks are used under license by board certificants after periodic evaluation.

 A forensic genetic genealogy team recently uncovered a mystery behind a partial human skull found on a beach in Northern California 32 years ago. 

The woman’s skull was spotted near Trinidad Head, a rocky structure in Trinidad Harbor, in 1993. At the time, a traditional DNA profile was developed and entered into the National Unidentified Person DNA Index. No match was made.

In 2024, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office submitted evidence to Othram’s laboratory in Texas hoping that advanced DNA testing could identify the woman. Othram scientists developed a DNA extract from the skeletal evidence and used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a new DNA profile for the unknown woman.

Several months later, Othram provided HCSO with new leads. “Investigators used this report to launch a follow-up investigation and locate a potential relative. The California Department of Justice compared the relative’s DNA profile to the DNA profile developed from the skull, which confirmed that the skull belonged to Kay Josephine Medin,” DNASolves.com wrote. 

Kay Medin also went by the name Kay Adams. She was reported missing in August of 1987 after she vanished from her home in Trinity County. 

Medin worked as a school teacher in Hyampom, and her boss said she was in good spirits the last time he saw her.

The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office listed Kay’s disappearance as suspicious.

“In November of 1987, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office received a package in the US mail. The package contained skeletal remains and an anonymous letter. The letter gave directions leading to more human remains. The directions lead to a location near Ammon Ridge Road in Humboldt County. Detectives responded to the location given in the letter and discovered additional human remains, about 45 miles west of her home. These remains were later identified as belonging to Kay Medin through a comparison of dental records,” DNASolves.com wrote. 

A death certificate was issued for Kay Medin in 1988 while her skull was still missing. “It is unclear how the majority of her remains were found 45 miles from her home or how her skull was found almost 100 miles away,” DNASolves.com wrote. 

Today, her death remains as an unsolved homicide cold case. 

Kristen Mittelman, chief development officer for Othram labs, said, “We’re proud to be able to help investigators give these victims their names back, and hopefully move the investigation forward toward resolution. That’s the most important thing.”

Anyone with information that could help solve this cold case is encouraged to call the Humboldt Sheriff’s Office.