Hope Torres learned in nearly 30 years of research that one of her ancestors was Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the Spanish explorer who inspired the hunt for the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola.
Another Torres ancestor was a wine and food taster and accountant for one of the kings of pre-Columbian Spain, another discovery along a family tree she has traced to 824 A.D. in northern Spain."To find them is very exciting," said Torres, whose maiden surname is Otanez.
Three years ago she traveled to northern Spain to do research and meet relatives in the town of Otanes.
"It was like meeting relatives I had known before," she said.
Not that the devout Mormon's genealogical pursuits have always gone smoothly. Early on, letters to Catholic relatives in Mexico requesting information on family history were met with suspicion and obfuscation.
"They were offended because the church is doing this," she said of the Mormons' effort to identify and perform proxy baptisms for the dead.
It wasn't until Torres visited Mexico and met her relatives that some of her genealogical fervor rubbed off on them. Suddenly, records she'd been told had been burned during a revolution were willingly produced.
Now, the product of her labors is prized, she said, and "I have people lined up to copy it."
Stories like Torres' abound in the Mormon Church. The faith's fourth president, Wilford Woodruff, was so enthusiastic about the work that he compiled a list of dozens of the famous for whom he performed vicarious rituals in the St. George Temple in 1877.
His lengthy list included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, John Wesley, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon and Christopher Columbus.
Over the years, other Mormons have similarly stood in for the famous and infamous.