Juan González Bernal

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ²⁵²
Juan González Bernal and his wife, Apolonia, are mentioned in 1663 as belonging to the "Griegos" family. A daughter of theirs was involved in an affair with a Pedro de Arteaga. As late as 1703, two daughters of Juan González, Melchora and Antonia, were claiming Santa Fé property that had once belonged to Isabel Bernal (their grandmother).

~ Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, p. 40

Juan González Bernal died before the Reconquest, but some of his children returned to Santa Fe. Two daughters of his were Antonia Bas González and her sister Melchora. Antonia lived with her daughter and two grandchildren in Santa Fe, while Melchora had moved to Santa Cruz. In 1704, they deposed that land in the center of Santa Fe, unfairly granted to Diego Arias de Quirós, had belonged to Isabel Bernal before 1680.

Melchora had a niece, Ana Bernal, the wife of Luis López. She lived with Diego González, and a Juan González was also Ana Bernal's uncle. Juan testified in 1691 as "Juan González Bernal" that he was a native of New Mexico and twenty-three years old. In short, both Diego and Juan seem to be brothers of Antonia and Melchora.

~ Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Kindle Locations 8246-8255

Juan González Bernal of the seventeenth century, whose wife was Apolonia Varela, from all indications turns out to be a son of the original Sebastián González who married Isabel Bernal of the Juan Griego family. Of the daughters of Juan there mentioned, Melchora and Antonia, the latter was the wife of Apolinar Martín Serrano (DM, 1692, no. 6). Two known sons were Juan II, who married Nicolasa Zaldivar Jorge, and Sebastián, husband of Lucia Ortiz. Their mother appears to be the same Apolonia Varela whose marriage to Juan Bautista Zaragoza was annulled in 1641, a cause célèbre of the period.

~ Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Kindle Locations 15738-15745

Juan married Apolonia Varela de Losada, daughter of Pedro Varela and Señorita de Losada, in 1643 in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España. (Apolonia Varela de Losada was born in 1622 in Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.)