Selena Quintanilla’s family tree, from Lake Jackson to Corpus Christi

The top row of Selena Quintanilla’s family tree is her father’s family in Corpus Christi, Texas. Abraham Quintanilla Jr. was born there on 20 February 1939, the son of Abrán Quintanilla Sr., who repaired car bodies and painted houses, and María Calderón.³

Abraham sang with a group called the Dinos, later Los Dinos, from the middle of the 1950s. His article gives 1956 in one place and 1957 in another.³ The name of that band passed down to his children’s group a generation later. On 8 June 1963 he married Marcella Ofelia Samora.³ Wikipedia describes her as Mexican American with some Cherokee ancestry, and none of the sources opened for this page gives her year of birth.²

Abraham and Marcella had three children. Abraham Quintanilla III, known as A.B., was born at Toppenish, Washington, on 13 December 1963.⁴ Suzette was born at Corpus Christi on 29 June 1967.⁵ Selena, the youngest, was born on 16 April 1971 at the Freeport Community Hospital in Lake Jackson, Texas, near Houston, where the family then lived.^2,3

All three were in the family band before they were adults. Humanities Texas notes that Selena sang with her brother and sister as a child, and the band’s roles followed the family line, with A.B. on bass guitar, Suzette on drums and Selena as the singer.^1,2

In 1980 Abraham opened a Tex-Mex restaurant in Lake Jackson, Papa Gayo’s, where the children performed. It closed the next year in the recession that followed the oil glut, and the family lost its home.^2,1 They moved to Corpus Christi, where Abraham became the manager of the new Selena y Los Dinos.²

The band released its first single after the move, and the family later built a recording studio in an industrial part of Corpus Christi.¹ A.B. produced and wrote many of his sister’s albums and singles, and Abraham founded Q-Productions, a recording studio and management company, at the end of 1993.^4,3

Chris Pérez was born at San Antonio on 14 August 1969. He became the lead guitarist of Selena y Los Dinos in the late 1980s, after A.B. heard him play.⁶ He and Selena married in Nueces County, Texas, on 2 April 1992, which brought him onto Selena Quintanilla’s family tree as her husband.^6,2

Selena was killed at Corpus Christi on 31 March 1995, at the age of 23, by the former president of her fan club.^1,2 She is buried at Seaside Memorial Park in Corpus Christi.² The chart draws the marriage as ending with her death.

The family turned its Corpus Christi studio into a museum in 1998.¹ Suzette, who married Bill Arriaga in 1993, became chief executive of Q-Productions in May 2016, when her father stepped down, and she runs the Selena Museum.⁵ A.B. went on to found the Kumbia Kings and later the Kumbia All Starz.⁴ Chris Pérez formed the Chris Pérez Band, whose album Resurrection won a Grammy in 2000, and published a memoir, To Selena, With Love, in 2012.⁶

Abraham Quintanilla Jr. died at Corpus Christi on 13 December 2025, aged 86.³ Marcella, A.B., Suzette and Chris are living, so Selena Quintanilla’s family tree gives them names, years, marriages and public work only. It does not draw their children.