My Ancestral History

This week I took a little break from my "investigating" - I did however receive a phone call from Mary Shomber with the Azusa Historical Society. She told me that she found the obituary I requested but was not able to take a copy of it since the newspaper was in poor condition. She was however able to copy word for word what was said: "Death Doings The Pomotropic Azusa Cal - Friday Feb 23 1912 One of the oldest Mexican residents D. Arvisu (sic) was buried from the Cathilic (sic) church 'Wednesday Afternoon' he is said to have lived in this section from 40 to 50 years, and had reached the age of 90, he was highly respected by his neighbors, the Americans, and the funeral procession was one of the largest ever seen in Azusa. His home had for many years been on Azusa near First Street." Aside from the spelling errors and the longest run on I've ever seen (don't know if that was the reporter or the transcribers doing) that is a pretty interesting article

I've decided to take a break from Grandpa Ernie's mother's side. The whole point to this research to begin with was to find out more about his father. Unfortunately, I don't know anything more about his father than when I started. Here's what I know so far: Name: Andres (or Andreas) Avila Siblings: Maria (B: 1881), Antonio (B: 1882) and Clara Nephew: Jorge or George (Maria's son) (B:1914) -Maria, George, Antonio and their mother Gariala (typo?) (B: 1841) lived in Gallup, New Mexico according to the 1930 census. That's pretty much all I know so far, which isn't much. I mentioned before that I'm requesting the Ernie's Birth Certificate to see who is listed as his father as well as a marriage record between Lupe and Andres. Hopefully that will reveal something more that I can go off of.

Speaking of my past...I recently found an old picture of myself from about 5-7 years ago. Although I could have afforded to lose more weight at the time, I of course was significantly thinner than I find myself today. I made a plan and a deal with myself to go to the gym and while I was ready to go after work yesterday, my more distant past pulled me to something else instead. Instead of working toward a me I knew a long time ago, I jumped on the 605 headed north to the Azusa hills towards the Azusa City Library. It's the only place that holds both of John Arvizu's books and having found out yesterday that my great grandmother's picture is in the book, I decided to skip the gym and seek out my more interesting and unknown past. It took me quite a while to get there but I eventually did. While I drove through the old part of Azusa I wondered how it looked when my relatives lived there. I was a little upset that I couldn't remember the address of the house t

This weekend, mom, Camile, Makayla and I took a trip to Glendale, CA to visit the grave site of Domingo Arvizu . That in itself was an adventure. Getting to the cemetery was easy, finding the burial plot was a challenge. We eventually found Space G and a huge tombstones among other smaller and more battered tombstones. It simply read:Domingo Arvizu Fellecio (passed away) Febrero 20, 1912 EDAD (Age) 83 Anos Nativa De Mexico When I spoke to the record department the week before, she told me that unfortunately not much was said about him except that he was buried on the 21st ( immediately the day after he died) that he was Mexican and that he was buried with 3 other people who were unnamed. I figured those names would be listed on the tombstone but they weren't. I know that Domingo and Francisca had 2 still borns and 2 children that died in infancy. I originally thought that maybe Francisca was buried here with her husband and 2 infant children, however, it hardly

It has been a while, but I've been so distracted with the vast amounts of information I've been finding that I haven't had time to update the blog. The information I've found in the past couple of days have been so exciting I have to get it out. I recently discovered an interesting resource on ancestry.com. They are message boards dedicated to specific last names. I decided to browse them in the names of Lujan, Avila and Arvizu. The latter proved to be fruitful. I found a message responding to someone's inquiry about Domingo Arvizu. This person claimed to be a great great grandson of Domingo and suggestioned searching somoprimos.com for more info. I was very very confused by the site and thus turned of by it and gave up. The message also said that Domingo was buried in Glendora, CA. Seeing as this message board is over 7 years old I decided not to reply and ask for info. I didn't think it would help. So instead I googled cemeteries in Glendora and called t

Note: *Click throughout entries to view documented proof* My research gathered over the last 4 days have been both plentiful and frustrating. On one hand I've found so much information on certain sides of m family, on the other hand the side of the family that I originally start this quest for seems to have disappeared after the 1930s. Here is what I started with and what I know thus far: Mom's Side: Grandma Josie's side: Conrado Segrua *Line 22* and Anastacia (Rojas) Segura *Line 26* migrated to Morenci Arizona on November 24 19 08 from the El Paso , Texas Border. They previous lived in a town in Mexico called Lagas -although having been written twice in handwriting it could be Logas and a number of other possibilities. Either way the town does not sound familiar, but then again I know nothing about Mexico except for TJ and Rosarito. Moving on - It appears that Ana's father's name was Magdeleno Rojas *Line 26* and Conrado's father was

To get right to it, this blog was created to document my research into where and who I came from. I've always wanted to conduct a personal history of my family, but never actually sat down to do it. I can't tell you what made me decide to do it now. Maybe it was a combination of things. Maybe it has something to do with my Grandmother, Josephine, passing this past September. I'm not really sure why but the most important parts about this is I plan to find out information that I never knew before, to satisfy my nature of always asking "why, how, who, when, and where" - Equally important, I'm doing this for my parents. I can't understand why they never asked these questions before but they want to know now. Before I get started I guess I should tell a little bit about myself. I was born to Lynn and Luanne Lujan on February 5th 1983 in La Mirada California. I grew up in Pico Rivera, California where I currently reside at the age of 27. I went to Whittier Coll