Last night I was doing some research on the internet, ok to be honest, I was just poking around with no real focus.  I was looking at my grandfather’s page that I have on Ancestry.com.  I was just looking at some of the documents, again, no real focus here on what to look at.  I clicked on his 1930 census and looked at it again.  I saw that my grandfather was listed as living at 142 Jalisco Street, Montebello, CA with his brother living next door at 140 Jalisco St., CA.  I decided to look for the address on Google maps but nothing showed up.  The street Jalisco doesn’t exist anymore. 

Well I decided to see what other places my grandfather has lived in.  I have a few other address in Los Angeles that I got from his Immigration Petition, but I check the city directories to see what that database had listed.  I found my grandfather in the 1950 City Directory for Montebello living at 50 Plymouth, Montebello with his third wife, Mercedes.  This was very interesting as it was the first piece of evidence that my grandfather and his wife Mercedes were a couple. I only have my grandfather’s Immigration Petition where he states that he was married to Mercedes, but I have nothing else to collaborate that fact, other than the city directory listing I just found..  Just out of being a thorough genealogist, I decided to look at the page before my grandfather’s listing to see if there were any other Luna’s listed and lo and behold, I not only find one of my uncles listed as a roomer at my grandfather’s house, but several cousins living at 144 Jalisco Street, Montebello!!!  What a coincidence that my grandfather and his brother lived next door to my cousins 20 years earlier! 

I decided to look up the Plymouth address on Google Maps but that too no longer exists.  So I decided to get to the bottom of this and emailed the City of Montebello, Planning department.  I got a response that I had emailed the wrong department and that the person who responded will be forwarding my email to the proper department, Engineering Division.  I am hoping to hear from them soon.  

Never underestimate the value of the City directories!!!