FAMILIES ARE GOLD ~

In my pursuit of family history and my quest for connecting with family members I have been out of touch with or have never met (Silvan/Ruiz family), I have found a new insight on my feelings and thoughts: I am a mixture of Spanish (half) and English, German, Dutch and French.... and the Spanish seems to take over since the genealogy bug has attacked me like a virus. I want to speak Spanish, feel Spanish, think Spanish and meet my Spanish family, albeit through documents, records, stories and soon ---- walking on that Spanish soil.

A newly-connected cousin (Ramona) has given me great ideas (she is a Spanish teacher) to rejuvinate my sparse Spanish-speaking ability. I bought 1000 flash cards and a CD and guess what? I understood most of the words. Castillion Spanish is different from many of the teachings but I am ready. My brother (hermano) - Steven (Esteban) speaks it very well and I will never catch up but... I am definitely on a roll... Hola!

Once I began my odyssey into the unknown, I have added some facts that descendents rarely enjoy. My great grandfather Francisco Ruiz had no distinquishing marks of identification listed on the HARPALION ship's manifest, but his son (my grandfather) Ben had moles. His brother (Miguel) had a scar on his right eye and his brother (Juan) had moles above his right eye. See? This changes names into people. Fleshing out families like this and writing about it is golden!