Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Mini Road Trip – Day 2

We're still in Henderson, NV visited with our aunt and her room mate today. Since we were all looking at photos yesterday, I brought along my portable Flip Pal scanner (best product I ever bought!) My aunt was just amazed at all the gadgets I brought along with me. As I was scanning my aunt brought several more photo albums out onto the table. I must have spent over an hour and a new set of batteries scanning. We all had a great time looking through photos we had seen many times and talked about the people in the photos who were no longer with us.

I brought along some family group sheets I wanted to give to my aunt. While my husband and I were on our 2011 road trip we met collateral relatives in Metairie, LA. These very nice people were my brick walls I've been struggling with for about 10 years. They opened their homes to us and filled in so many blank gaps in my research. I could never find my Louisiana family in any of the censuses, but the Metairie relative showed me where they were located in the 1920 and 1930 census.

While going over the 1920 census with my aunt we “found” the missing uncle I had been searching for. In 1920 my grandfather (my aunt's father) was listed on the El Paso, TX census stationed at Fort Bliss, an Army post, and listed as divorced. He had at that time a son who was born in 1916 with his first wife. I could never find the son in the census or his mother. Well lo and behold! The son was listed as a three year old “nephew” with his uncle's family in Louisiana. All this time I had no idea where he was and my aunt was the one who pointed out exactly who the “nephew” was. Her oldest half-brother! So today I did the genealogy “happy dance.”

Bright and early tomorrow we're heading for Mesa, AZ for day 3 of this mini road trip.

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