Digging up stuff!

My sister, my mom and I just wrapped up a 5 hour long search on Ancestry.com.   I have to tell you that my mom wasn’t too excited when we finally started inputting information on-line. The first thing she told me was “No quiero toda esta información en el internet.”  I reassured her that whatever info we find- It’s already on the internet!

For privacy reasons I will not be posting names and places. 

We started off with my maternal grandmother.  We did a search for her name and place of birth. Right away, we found her!  It was surreal seeing her name on the census that was handwritten in 1930. She was 8 years old and she was able to read and write.  I know it’s generic info, but she was there!  It was exciting to see my mom into all the names and date we saw.  It’s like taking a walk down Mexican memory lane for her.

From there we got side tracked with all the names my mom was able to recognize.

“Mira!  There is so and so.“ 

“Oh look, there is my uncle and his then wife.” 

Mira!  Ella fue mi vecina!

“Ellos tenian una tienda de zapatos”

“Ella y mi mamá cosía juntas.”

“Éste y ella  se casaron y tuvieron muchos hijos.”

And the big kicker that had my sister and I laughing como locas was…

“Ves a esta señora? Ella apuñaló a un hombre porque se estaba burlando de su hermano.”

I swear.  True story!   After laughing for what seemed an eternity, we went looking for my maternal grandfather.

We found nothing.  We searched and searched and switched names and we couldn’t find him at all.  We grilled my mom to find out anything about him and his side of the family but came up with nothing.  We couldn’t even find relatives.  This was a little disappointing after the high of finding my grandmother. My mom wanted to break out the birth certificates and start looking.

I think we may find something big here like, maybe he wasn’t born where my mom says he was.

We went on and on looking for him and came up empty handed.  We will continue on looking.  With circumstances beyond our control, there is no way for us to get any info from the relatives in Mexico.  I’ll save the explaining for another post!

There is still a lot of stuff I don’t understand about Ancestry.com.  When I did general searches for myself or my dad, all I got was generic info.  Although check this out: I was able to find my dad’s info from his death (under the Social Security Death Index) and his SS# was there too.  That was a little shocking to see.  Scary, too!

This week we will continue our search and I will bring you my final post on Friday.  This will include some tips with searches and a very special giveaway for 2 lucky readers.  If you are on the search for your ancestors, this is the giveaway for you.

Stay tuned…

This is not a paid post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.   Ancestry.com gave me a full access membership to facilitate this review. 

About Liz Cerezo

Liz is a Mexican-American blogger living in Southern California. Married 14 years, and a mami to 3 kids, her content is inspired from living in and raising a multicultural familia. Liz has been blogging for more than 4 years, establishing herself as a nationally recognized Latina blogger. She often blogs in Spanglish and may throw in some Tagalog when talking about her hubby. You can also find her chit chatting away at @Liz_Cerezo.

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