I am a 13th-generation Texan and a descendant of Vicente Guerra, a member of one of the founding families of the 1718 expedition that established the community that became San Antonio. I am also descended from the Curbelo and Travieso families of the Canary Islands, who were among the settlers who established La Villa de San Fernando de Béxar, the first organized civil government of what is now San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.

I am the second-great-granddaughter of José Estévan Sandoval, who served as Sheriff of San Antonio in the late nineteenth century. His parents were Carlos Sandoval, who served as an enlisted First Corporal during the Civil War, and María Jesusa Carrillo. María Jesusa's father, Matías Carrillo, served in the struggle for Texas independence at the Battle of Concepcion and the Siege of Bexar.

Carlos Sandoval's father, Lieutenant José María Sandoval, was born in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain and arrived in Veracruz in 1812 aboard the frigate Venganza after serving in the Spanish military. He later settled in Béxar and married María Gertrudis Rodríguez, daughter of Mariano Rodríguez, a member of the historic Rodríguez family of Spanish Texas.