The Garcia family link...

Thanks to my friend, Miguel Alba, I now have three more birth documents for the Garcia family.  The antique books are over 150 years old and I was surprised that we weren’t asked to wear gloves to turn the thin pages..which are filled with documents with indexes to the names...

The good news is that we found, Salvador, Rosalia and Dolores.  The bad news is we couldn’t find  Rafael Garcia Villarrubia, my ancestor.  I know he was widowed with a small daughter named Francesca, and he immigrated to Argentina to remarry and have another family.  Somewhere in my family tree he is part of my great, great grandmother Maria Garcia García’s family.

And then, while still in the small room that had shelves filled with antique books, Miguel read the baptismal document again that my Garcia cousin had shared with me and found that when Rafael was born, the family lived in a place called Hacienda de Almellones.

I could see the excitement on Miguel’s face, but with the language barrier, I was lost.  But not for long as he led me quickly to the parking garage and a grin again.

I got ahead of myself.  Before we returned to the parking garage, he had led me up several flights of stairs at the ayuntamiento, which is equivalent to a city hall, and he found a man to further our quest.  The man’s last name was Garcia, so he was interested in finding my Garcia family also.  He looked at his computer and within seconds, we saw a real map of a small barriada, called Almellones.  At one time, the area was a finca, or very large vineyard.  My Garcia relative was either the jefe (owner) or a worker.  He told us that all the Garcías who lived in that these families were related to me.  I was stunned.

Then, Miguel and I followed the map, found the area and he started yelling, “hola?” over and over again.  A man came out to see what the racket was about, who I later found A possible Garcia cousin, Manolo García Lopez.  My head was spinning already from speaking Spanish, so finding this man and knowing the Garcías lived all around where I stood in that hamlet, made me realize how much I love this family research.  When I thanked Miguel effusively, he grinned and said he loved it too. 

Soon afterward, we met Miguel’s wife Isabel who he calls Isa and his middle son, Alfonso at a chiringuito, which is a restaurant on the beach where we can slip our toes in the sand, which I did immediately.  Boquerones, pulpa, rosada (deep fried anchovy’s, squid and white fish)and deep-fried vegetables, wine, conversation and smiles took us away u til nearly 4:00.  I loved every moment.

I got in Lola and drove back to Los Nuñez without a snag.  Sadly, I ended up missing my visit with Angela Ruiz and her family because when I got “home,” I got into the pool and then promptly fell into a heavy sleep in the lounge chair...She was very sweet as I apologized after telling her I hadn’t realized how exhausted my research day had been.  We have another date for Sunday with their family.

Tomorrow is a free day and I’m sure all of you can imagine where I’ll be spending my lazy day...