NARA

National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.archives.gov/index.html
(from Wikipedia)
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives.^[5] NARA is officially responsible for maintaining and publishing the legally authentic and authoritative copies of acts of Congress, presidential proclamations and executive orders, and federal regulations.

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Along with the multitude of historical government documents, including but not limited to things such as the United States Constitution. The NARA also is the guardian of public records that hold a much more personal value to genealogists and family historians.....ORIGINAL records of ancestors who immigrated to the United States and/or travelled between the US and foreign countries. These records include interviews with the person as well as 'witnessess' for the person, official US forms that the person had to complete, possibly court records regarding the person, military records and quite possibly a photograph or two.

And while I am discovering that my direct maternal ancestors on my father's side (that seems very convoluted.....basically - my dad's mom's family) seem to have all been born in California. My grandfather was born in China (but that is another story!)  Quite a number of them seem to have made trips between California and China.  Because they travelled during the years that the Chinese Exclusion Act was being enforced there is quite a bit of documentation to prove there US citizenship!

I made my very first trip to the NARA, San Francisco last Saturday, 25 Feb 2012.  Two very exciting things happened. First, of course, was getting to look at some of these records and secondly to meet one of my cousins for the very first time. We are second cousins once removed to be specific.

Because we attended a special event at the NARA there was a 1.5 hr powerpoint  presentation giving an overview of  what the NARA is and what it does.  Then we had 1.5 hrs to research and view records. During pre-visit emails with Marisa, the archivist at NARA, we had already requested six files to be pulled for us to review.  There was so much information to absorb in these files.  We could not even begin to read them all.  We tried to scan as much as possible, but in 90 minutes we only managed to scan 20 pages and one picture.  BUT this picture is truly a treasure!!! I had seen photographic reproductions of it recently, but this was THE REAL PHOTO.  It is a picture of Mary Siu and her seven daughters and two sons and a mysteriously unknown older gentleman.......



center & seated: Mary Seu Lowe;
from left to right: Frances, Jane, Jessie, May, Georgia,William, Unknown,
Arlene, Harry, Jewel (Pat)



I plan to go back to the NARA as soon as possible to finish scanning all of these files and perhaps locating other files related to our family.

vacation #2

.....we were sitting around eating chilaquiles at breakfast......our tummys were all full. and the question comes up. .....what to do today.....SNOW TRIP!!!

...we cleared our schedules, packed snacks and overnight bags.....and AWAY WE WENT!!!

tommy cleaning the windows before we left....



he shoulda waited...they were way more filthy when we got back!



the price of gas when we left town



George Edgar & Luke READY to play in the snow





and he LOVED it!





George's first trip down the hill.....



Luke's first ride!



TIME FOR SNOWBALL FIGHTS............. 

                           

.....AND more SLEDDING

...UNTIL Tommy tangled with the Charlie Brown Tree.....

eating snow

The anatomically correct Snowman.........

Building Captain Jack Sparrow....the Snowman



...ok the snow is fun....but I COLD....CAN WE GO INSIDE NOW .....please?!

 



and after a night of FARTING....we went home :)



Judianne & Sylvia

THE END.

 

i am researching and documenting the story of my family.  if you want to share my journey check out www.judianne-islandgirl3.blogspot.com

one person that i would truly like to find is my grandfather.

he was a 'paper son' with 'bought papers' that my grandmother's mother provided for him to make the journey to america and marry her daughter.

because of this, and because rumor has it that he jumped ship when it made port in San Francisco, it is extremely difficult to find any documentation of his existence prior to finding him in the 1938 phone directory for san francisco.

the things i do know about him:
he was kind & caring
he took care of his family, and his extended family of nieces and nephews
he did not speak much english

his REAL name was KU FON
his name in america was PETER FON DONG
he died in 1980

he jumped ship when he arrived in San Francisco
he worked as a long shoreman where he fell off the side of a ship and broke both his feet
he worked as a private chef in several white families homes
he named my father after commander kirby, one of his employers, whom he greatly admired
he had a restaurant on california street and divisadero called kay's fountain.

this last little tidbit has always puzzled me as i did not know 'who' kay was.....but tonight i may have found an important piece of the puzzle.  while flipping through scanned documents related to naturalization on the familysearch.org website, i came across two documents naming the persons as KAY DONG. at first i dimissed this information as i immediately thought it was a female.....but then i remembered the restaurant...and wondered what if?

i flipped over to ancestry.com and found a number of records referring to KAY DONG and lo and behold.....KAY DONG was a male.  i need to do more research as the birthdates and the arrival ports don't seem to match up......but MAYBE just MAYBE i have found an important clue as to what his paper name was.........

....stay tuned as i continue this sleuthing.