Welcome to My Genealogy Obsession’s first post of 2017! I hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. I had some great time researching my family history in 2016. There were some sad times too. But there are times when you find not just a golden nugget of family history, but a whole bar of gold! Read about my Great Genealogy find of 2016.
What am I talking about? Well since the day I first started researching my family history, my Dad and my Uncle, his younger brother, have mentioned sporadically that they believe my grandfather had a sister and that she died in her early 20’s. All throughout my research from the beginning until August of 2016, I couldn’t find any evidence, documentation, notation, or record that even had a whisper of a sister for my grandfather. After my Dad passed away last March, my Uncle brought it up again. Again, I couldn’t find anything on this alleged sister. I know that there are many other family genealogist who have felt the frustration that I have felt. I know y’all hear me!
Fast forward to August 2016, I am searching in Ancestry.com for records concerning my great grandparents, Salome Luna and Monica Pinedo Fernandez and a bunch of new documents showed up. It looks like Ancestry.com had just updated their databases and the Mexican Civil Records became available for my family in the state they lived in, Zacatecas, Mexico.
I found that my grandfather not only had this elusive, alleged sister named Marcelina (YEAH!!!), but my grandfather also had another sister and two other brothers (WHAT??). I found the oldest of my great-grandparents children, Pomposo who only lived till he was 6 years old, a daughter named Cirilia who sadly only lived 15 days, the elusive sister, Marcelina who lived long enough to marry but only to pass away at 23 years old (yup, early twenties!), then I found the second-youngest, Juan C. who only lived till he was two year old. It is sad that they all died so young, but it makes me happy that finally, I have the documentation I need to find this elusive sister of my grandfather, but to also prove her and her sister and brother’s relationship to my family.
So in all, my great-grandparents had a total of 8 children. All of this time I thought and for the most part was told that the children of my great-grandparents only consisted of the 4 Luna brothers; Lino, Tiburcio (my grandfather), Martin, and Miguel; but I am so glad to have found the missing Luna children and have connected them to my family.
When you have family history in a country that doesn’t have much documentation available online, and your not in a position to travel to said country to look in their records, be patient. It will show up in a database sooner or later.
Have you had a “Gold Bar” find like mine? Comment and let me know, I would love to hear your story!
Remember always,
Great story, Tricia! You never know what you will find. I just found record for a THIRD marriage for my great-grandmother on Ancestry. I knew about #1 and #3, but up pops #2. Great-Grandma lived with my family for 10 years, and still there are secrets. LOL
Wow! It is good that we don’t lose focus of our ancestry. I’m glad you found #2 and have a fuller family tree because of it. Congratulations!