The line
The descent from Pablo Armando is closed and documented, with no inferred link left in it. And as of 10 September 2026 the line runs one generation higher: an Argentine army card names his father and mother.
Two things shape this page. Living people are omitted from the build, which removes the most recent generations. And the top of the line changed on 10 September 2026: an Argentine army enrolment card, filled in at the consulate in Cape Town, names Pablo Armando’s father and mother. For months there was nothing above him. There is now one generation, and it is documented rather than inferred. The card → · Method → · What has been searched →
The line
| Gen | Person | Dates | Where | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Juan Carlos Lerena m. María Lerena — so written on the card; her maiden name is not yet known | — | Presumed Rosario de Santa Fe; nothing else yet known of him | Documented Named as the father on his son’s 1908 ficha de enrolamiento. Corroborated from outside Argentina: Pablo Armando’s eldest son was Ricardo Juan Carlos Lerena, b. 6 Jan 1920, Cape Town. |
| 1 | Pablo Armando Lerena in South Africa Robert Paul Lerena m. Mary Septima Taylor, d. Nov 1935 aged 51 | 22 Feb 1882 – 19 Mar 1950 | Born Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina; died at Newlands, Cape Town | Documented Argentine passport, 1940: born Rosario, Trainer. Death certificate A 214036: Race Horse Owner. Named as father in the 1911 Corpus Christi baptism of his son Roque. |
| 2 | Nuno Fernando Lerena m. Catherine Mary Sophia Booyzen, 1929–2013, at Johannesburg | 6 Oct 1924 – 1 Jul 1971 | Born Cape Town; died at Germiston, Transvaal | Documented Named with this exact birth date as a residuary heir in his father's 1950 estate; own death notice 6746/71. A salesman. |
| 3 | Cheryl Anne Lerena | — | — | Living — name only Named among her father’s children in his 1971 death notice. No dates, no places, no photographs, under this archive’s rule on living people. Her DNA test is used on the DNA page only for what it says about Pablo Armando, who died in 1950. |
Documented Every step of this line now rests on a record. Nuno Fernando's birth date appears in his father's estate papers and again on his own death notice; Cheryl is named in that death notice as his daughter. There is no inferred link left in the descent. The estate →
Her line goes back further than his
Documented Pablo Armando's wife was Mary Septima Taylor (17 September 1884 – 15 November 1935), and her family can be traced three generations above her, to a James Taylor born about 1796 — still further back than the Lerena side, where Pablo Armando's parents are now named but nothing beyond their names is known.
Her name is a count: she was the seventh daughter of ten children, and Septima means seventh. The Taylors →
The Chappell–Forbes knot
A correction to this archive’s own record, and an arrangement that reads strangely until the dates are put in order.
This archive recorded Roque’s first wife as “Rosalina Wilhelmina Chappell”, taken from a marriage index, and Ricardo’s wife as “Doreen ?”, taken from the family chart. Both were wrong in the same way, and one document fixes them.
Roseline Wilhelmina FORBES married Frederick Christian Chappell on 1 November 1920 at Woodstock, Cape Town — an event recorded twice over, in the South African civil marriage records and in the Anglican parish registers, and confirmed again by Frederick’s own Western Cape estate file. So Chappell was her married name, not her maiden name. She was a Forbes.
Frederick Chappell died in 1933. Three years later his widow married Roque Luis Armando Lerena, which is why the 1936 register calls her Rosaline Wilhermina Forbes Chappell — exactly what a remarrying widow would be called. And her eldest daughter by Chappell, Doreen May, born 1921, married Roque’s brother Ricardo Juan Carlos Lerena.
Inferred What is not proved: that this Doreen May Chappell is that Doreen. The relationships come from the FamilySearch Family Tree, which is user-contributed and is not evidence on its own. Every surrounding fact checks out against records; the link itself rests on the tree plus the surname appearing in both marriages. Strong, but not a document, and marked as such.
A discrepancy left standing. Doreen’s death is 17 November 1993 in the tree, and the Johannesburg cemetery register agrees exactly on day and month — but this archive’s own Government Gazette sweep found her estate advertised on 23 February 2001. Either the year is 1999, or the estate sat unadvertised for six years. Not resolved.
Generation 1's other children
Pablo Armando Lerena and Mary Septima Taylor had at least three sons, all born at the Cape.
| Son | Born | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Roque Luis Armando Lerena | 25 Nov 1905, Cape Town | Baptised at Corpus Christi, Wynberg, 12 June 1911. Retired railwayman; d. Johannesburg 29 Jan 1973. The "Louis" of the 1950 will. His baptism and his death notice between them identify generation 1 — and prove that Pablo Armando and Robert Paul are one man. His death notice gives 6 Dec 1905; the register, 25 Nov. |
| Ricardo Juan Carlos Lerena | 6 Jan 1920 | Residuary heir with Nuno. His descendants are the largest branch on the family chart. |
| Nuno Fernando Lerena | 6 Oct 1924, Cape Town | David Defranceski's grandfather. |
Cheryl's own brothers and sisters — Jeannette Marie, Paul Raymond, Catherine Tertia and Patricia Carmen — are named in their father's 1971 death notice and are all now deceased. Note Paul descending from generation 1, and Carmen surviving as a given name into 1958.
Gavin Lerena
Family chart This archive earlier recorded the South African jockey Gavin Lerena as a public figure and expressly claimed no relationship. The family's own descendant chart now places him: son of Carlos "Tex" Lerena, son of Ricardo, son of Pablo Armando — which would make him Cheryl's first cousin once removed, and David's second cousin.
Recorded as the family holds it, and not yet verified against a public record. It is, however, exactly what this archive predicted before any of it was known: that the sixty-one South African Lerenas are one kindred, and that a rare surname plus a shared trade is a strong signal.
Where it joins the other archives
Cheryl Anne Lerena married into the Defranceski family. That marriage is the hinge between this archive and the Defranceski archive, whose line runs back through Johannesburg to Gračišće and the Istrian peninsula. Their son married into the Falco line of Arienzo in Campania.
Three archives, three continents of origin, meeting in Brisbane: Lerena from the River Plate by way of South Africa, Defranceski from Istria, Falco from Campania.
What is still missing
The line is solid downward from Pablo Armando Lerena, and his own birth is fixed to a city and a day by his own passport — Rosario de Santa Fe, 22 February 1882. Above him there is nothing. His parents are unnamed in every document held here.
And the obvious way to supply them has now been closed. The Rosario cathedral baptism index has been read letter by letter, under any surname, for 1881, 1882 and 1883 — twenty-six sections in each year, the cathedral being the city’s only parish until 1888 — and he is in none of it. The marriage registers are clear from 1868 to 1891. Uruguayan civil registration, which began in 1879, does not hold him either; nor do the indexed Spanish parish records. The full record of what has been searched →
So the hope has moved off birth records altogether, onto three letters now with archives: his military enrolment in Buenos Aires, which would name his parents outright; the consular file behind his 1940 passport, which would show what he produced to prove he was Argentine; and the anarchist press in Amsterdam, which named the men deported from Argentina in the years he left.