Family Tree Blanks

Juan Pablo Martinez Torres Rojas Serrano Lopez Hernandez Baquero Acevedo Velez BLANK Olarte BLANK Perdomo BLANK

It must have been the old pictures my mom brought back from Colombia that sparked my interest on my family tree. I've talked to my grandfather about it before, but I have a newly found interest to fill-in the blanks of missing names. In Latin America there is a fairly easy way to track down your lineage (as long as you keep up with it), by simply adding your mother's maiden name after your last name. That means that when I have children, they will get my last name, followed by their mother's maiden name, followed by my mother's maiden name, followed by their mother's maiden name, and so on. Now, that doesn't mean it will appear that way on their birth certificate, there, only the father's last name and mother's maiden name are recorded. It is just an imaginary trail following behind that allows you to know where your parent's parents family came from. And I am missing a lot of them on my mother's side. My mother's dad passed away when she was young, and for what I understand, her mother Isabel never got along with his side of the family. Although she is alive, we have never had much contact with her. She is my only contact with that part of my family, so my next little project is to send her a letter hoping she'll be able to recall at least a couple of generations, that way I'll get those blanks out of my line of last names.
It's actually fun when you think about it. People you never met, whose names you've only heard a couple of times in your life. Yet, that's where you come from. Who were they? Where did they live? What did they do for a living? How did they meet? I think it's fascinating.
(The picture is of my mother's father, newly recovered on her last trip to Colombia)