Highway 99: July 2009

Friday, July 31, 2009

Genealogy Happy Dance Time!

I am going to try and get this thing off the ground.I have to write about my great news of two days ago.I had finally got around to posting on http://www.sfgenealogy.com/spanish/index.htm mailing list asking if anyone else was researching the surname MOTA.This was my dads paternal grandmothers maiden name.It is not a common Spanish/Mexican surname and I have not been able to place my great grandmother Susan Mota in the census before 1880.So all I knew was she was born abt.1862 in May, in California,and spoke Spanish.She married a Sicilian immigrant and was in Gilroy by the 1890's.I had found mention of a Mota in Bancroft and figured she might be a granddaughter of his.
Well a researcher of California family's came up with her full name,baptism and birth date, place and her family!It is most certainly her!I am very excited!And amazed at how many early California lines my father is descended from.Now I need to order the film to look at her baptism and make a real effort to find her on the 1870 census now that I will have some other info. to use in the search.
I want to try and find her marriage record as well.Susana Delfina Ruiz de Jesus Arroyo was born May 21,1863 and baptised June 14,1863 at Mission San Juan Bautista.

What It's About

California's great central valley.The "other California".Long a red headed step child to the glamor and wealth of the big coastal cities,the Hollywood California and the silicon valley wealth of the 20Th century.The California of my roots is the agricultural,working class,blue collar California.Where the Okies and Arkies came to escape the dust bowl or in my family work in the war effort and stayed.Were the recent immigrant and the descendants of those who came with Father Serra both worked the fields and Spanish was the first language of many. And highway 99 was the road through it all.
I want this blog to be about my search for roots and the stories of my family,the ones I was told,the ones I overheard sitting behind the grown ups chairs while they talked,the one's the cousins have passed on to me.Of the research I have done and the history I love about all the people I come from, Californiano and my moms southern family too.
I am the only one left who remembers a lot of it,some things I know they would have rather we forget.But the hard truths and bad memories teach as much as the good ones do.I believe family's learn from it all,if they want to.
You reach a point in your life when you realize that your running out of time to pass things along.That we are not guaranteed a tomorrow or a next year.That maybe the one who wants to hear the stories is not even born yet and you may not get to tell them face to face.Maybe you just need to get off your butt and say what you have to say and let who needs to hear it find it in their own time.
So I hope I'm there and this is the place.

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Highway 99

Friday, July 31, 2009

Genealogy Happy Dance Time!

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