My father’s paternal Mexican-immigrant ancestors.

I have only blogged once since my big trip to Texas last October for the Texas State Genealogical Society’s Family History Conference in Austin (where I taught An Introduction to Researching Your Mexican Ancestors and another session), preceded by a week-long vacation in other areas of Texas with my husband and parents for a big family history anniversary. A really really big anniversary! Which I will share later.

October was a crazy busy month, preparing for that 10-day trip. During which time came that HUGE announcement from Ancestry at the end of the month—their release of the indexed, searchable, digitized Mexico Civil Registration collection (3 days before the class in which I was teaching these same records!). This of course meant that I spent the entire month of November researching in that collection…and scoring…big time.

Then came health issues resulting in two surgeries, tests for a third upcoming surgery, the holidays, and the need for a long period of recovery from those two surgeries. With very little time for research, and even less time for writing.

I have made more discoveries in the last 5-1/2 months (due to the release of that new Ancestry collection), than in all the previous 16+ years that I have been trying to research my father’s paternal Mexican line. Searchable indexed records make such a world of difference.

So brace yourself.

We’re embarking on a fast ride. The starting point? Los Angeles, California in 1937.