Brigida de Quintos's death record, in Kalamba (1856), speaks of her as the daughter of Manuel de Quintos and Regina Ochoa.
The most obscure part of Rizal's family tree is the Ochoa branch, the family of the maternal grandmother, for all the archives,--church, land and court,--disappeared during the late disturbed conditions of which Cavite was the center. So one can only repeat what has been told by elderly people who have been found reliable in other accounts where the clews they gave could be compared with existing records.
The first of the family is said to have been Policarpio Ochoa, an employé of the Spanish customs house. Estanislao Manuel Ochoa was his son, with the blood of old Castile mingling with Chinese and Tagalog in his veins. He was part owner of the Hacienda of San Francisco de Malabon. One story says that somewhere in this family was a Mariquita Ochoa, of such beauty that she was known in Cavite, where was her home, as the Sampaguita (jasmine) of the Parian, or Chinese, quarter.
There was a Spanish nobleman also in Cavite in her time who had been deported for political reasons--probably for holding liberal opinions and for being thought to be favorable to English ideas. It is said that this particular "caja abierta" was a Marquis de Canete, and if so there is ground for the claim that he was of royal blood; at least some of his far-off ancestors had been related to a former ruling family of Spain.
Mariquita's mother knew the exile, since, according to the custom in Filipino families, she looked after the business interests of her husband. Curious to see the belle of whom he had heard so much, the Marquis made an excuse of doing business with the mother, and went to her home on an occasion when he knew that the mother was away. No one else was there to answer his knock and Mariquita, busied in making candy, could not in her confusion find a coconut shell to dip water for washing her hands from the large jar, and not to keep the visitor waiting, she answered the door as she was. Not only did her appearance realize the expectations of the Marquis, but the girl seemed equally attractive for her self-possessed manners and lively mind. The nobleman was charmed. On his way home he met a cart loaded with coconut dippers and he bought the entire lot and sent it as his first present.