April 2011
1 post
3 tags
Breakthrough...
Daddy took the day off last Friday and made a significant step in finding great-great-great-grandpa Rodrigues. He found an article on his death in the Oakland Tribune dated June 10, 1927. First, this was the breakthrough he was looking for… he found the obituary in the June 12, 1927 issue as well. Second, this date added even more irony to the family tree because daddy was born on the...
February 2011
1 post
Narrowing the scope...
I know… I know… it has been nearly two months since my last post…
Daddy had Friday, February 11th off… he works for the County and today was the only holiday that they have off that… it seems, no one else in the world does… Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday.
Daddy went to the Oakland Family History Center and did a little bit of work on finding...
December 2010
2 posts
False Alarm...
After looking over the death certificate and I wish daddy had the document scanned… he realized that it is not his great-great grandpa. First, it said that the person had only been in the United States for five years. We know that in 1921 he had been here for approximately 15 years. Additionally, it said that he was a widower, my great-great-great grandmother (his wife) passed away in the...
2 tags
Rodrigues Progress...
This will probably be a pretty short post… my tummy is hurting. Daddy came home from work with some great news… while he was at work, he received a voice-mail from the County. It looks like we may have narrowed down my great-great-grandfather Manuel Rodrigues’s death date. In my last post, I said that daddy did some research and requested three copies of death certificates...
November 2010
3 posts
4 tags
November 17 (Genealogy Day 2010)
No, it’s not a National Holiday nor is it a day that is celebrated anywhere else but in my family. It was celebrated this year on November 17, 2010 by daddy, actually it is every year on November 17. Why November 17, you may ask? Well, there is a story behind that… it started many, many years before I was born.
In the second grade, Daddy met his childhood best friend. His name...
4 tags
Daddy's interest in Genealogy
My great-grandmother, Barbara May Townsend Smith (March 1, 1923 - March 6, 2009) began researching our family tree many many years ago. Daddy has a lot of letters from relatives, histories from different family members, books from different lines of the families, and many more interesting tidbits. Daddy is currently working on putting all of the familial relations into Family Tree Maker in order...
A Halloween Birthday
Halloween is a birthday for two people in my family. My second oldest cousin was born about two decades ago… give or take. But I am not going to talk about him…
My great-grandpa David Charles Smith was born on October 31, 1919 in Bellingham, Whatcom, Washington, USA. He is the second youngest child of Eudell Revere Smith (21 Dec 1875 - 12 Oct 1951) and Mary Blanche Morton (10 May...
October 2010
4 posts
14 tags
Branches in the Tree (Surnames)
Of course, my dad is really writing this blog; however, he hopes that some day I will take it over.
Today’s topic is my familial make up… I am a mix of some interesting nationalities and that is the topic that I chose to talk about today.
My mother is 100% Japanese. She is first generation from her mother’s side of the family and her father’s side of the family has...
6 tags
Great-Grandpa George Gomes
Great-Grandpa George Gomes (22 Feb 1925 - 17 Nov 1998) His first name is George, and there is a story for that. Great-Grandpa was born the youngest of eight children to Portuguese immigrants on February 22, 1925 in Oakland, CA. At the time, his parents (Victorino Gomes (17 Nov 1882 - 29 Jan 1852) and Maria Jose de Sousa (15 Sep 1885 - 6 Jul 1966)) had run out of names after naming the previous...
I read my post from last night and thought I would expand a little on the title of this blog. The beauty of family history is that it is a blending of two families, at least in recent history. The fun part is figuring out where the families came from and what part of history did they play a part in.
For example, my first cousin four times removed is a lady named Jennie Gerome. Jennie Gerome...
2 tags
The Beginning
It’s been a week since dad attended the Family History Expo in Pleasanton, California. It was his first such seminar and he says that he learned quite a bit. One of the sessions he attended discussed genealogy blogs. Thus, the reason for this new blog. It was presented by Thomas MacEntee, the Geneablogger. It was a good session and he said he learned a whole lot from Mr. MacEntee.
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