Tuesday, February 9, 2010

It's raining!


It was a dark and stormy morning. All things considered not the banner day for traveling from Pasadnea to Burbank, but I'd made an agreement with a "History Compadre" to pick him up and travel to the Southern California Genealogical Society and Family Research Library.

The Library is primarily focused on family stories, but there is so much on the shelves that informs the context in which people lived. There are groups that meet through the week, each with a particular focus; African American, French Canadian, German, and Hispanic and that just gets us as far as the letter "H".

And there is so much more. There are sections of the library that are focused on histories that relate to each of our 50 states. Some books are focused on the state, regional, county and city level. And there hundreds and hundreds of cd's crammed with census, birth, death, probate, and all other forms of data.

I loved taking notes from a book by a Mr. Calleros, El Paso, Then...and...Now. The focus on this book is on the year 1896. It's like historical double dip; the book was written in 1954 and that historical perspective is also a part of the treat.

My grandmother Estefana Garcia de Villa may have had taken this picture about 1906 or 1908. My mom was born while she and my grandpa were living in El Paso. I'm some of the photos in the book were a part of the world she and my grandfather knew.

It was so worth the drive in the rain.

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