Ygnacio Higuera
Jose Ygnacio Anastacio Higuera (1757–1805) came with the De Anza Expedition of 1776.
Ygnacio Higuera is reported to have been in prison for a year at the Presidio of Monterey. During that time his wife Michaela Bojorques had a child with Francisco Bernal. The child, Maria Margarita Bernal, is technically the step-sister of Ygnacio's second wife Ramona Bartola Bernal.
Maria Juana Nepomuceno Higuera
After Antonia Gregoria's unexpected death in 1840, widower Agostin Bernal promptly married Juana Nepomuceno Higuera. He was 44 years old by then with six children, but his bride was 17.
The Higuera family was very well established in Alta California
Josefa Antonia Gregoria Berryessa
The first of Josefa Bernals' sons to reach adulthood was Jose Agostin Bernal, born in 1797. Another son was born three years earlier and is buried in the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. Agostin Bernal worked on his father's ranch and learned how to consolidate his wealth. When Joaquin died in 1837, Agostin inherited a portion of his father's land and cattle.
But before that, he married the youngest daughter of the Berryessa family, Josefa Antonia Gregoria.
Maria Zacarias Bernal
From Jenny Clendenen's book, MINE: El Despojo de María Zacarías Bernal de Berreyesa: “María Zacarías Bernal was born in 1791 at the Presidio of San Francisco and was married at fourteen to leatherjacket soldier José de los Reyes Berreyesa. As a mother of thirteen, she lived on Rancho San Vicente, a cattle ranch in the foothills of south San José; her parents lived next door on the vast Rancho Santa Teresa. In fact, the Bernals and Berreyesas owned most of the Bay Area in the mid-1800s.
Ana Maria Jacoba Bernal
Jacoba was the second daughter, that we know of, born to Josefa and Joaquin. She was born two years after her sister at the Presidio of San Francisco. She was married at age 15 in 1804, a year after her sister's marriage and just three months after her sister Maria Antonia was born (eighth of 13 children – possibly more).
Encarnacion de los Dolores
As there is almost no source material on Maria de la Encarnacion de los Dolores Bernal, I'm borrowing from the limited sketches of her eventual husband, José Gervacio Argüello. This story has the least connection to Northern California among all the women in these posts.
Maria Josefa Daria Sanchez of Sinaloa, New Spain
Well into the late 1600s, the presidio of Sinaloa was the northwesternmost outpost of New Spain. Colonists from Spain had forcefully conquered the Indigenous nations of Mexico much as the British were to do in the United States. Sinaloa was one of the most isolated presidios on the northern frontier.
The Bernal Women of the Alta California Ranchos
The intersection of Bernal Avenue and Sunol Boulevard is nearby my house, so I can't get more local than that. For this series of posts, it's a good place to start. The so-called “Tri-Valley” includes the cities of Pleasanton, Livermore, Sunol, and Dublin, California. So who were Bernal and Sunol families?