Manuela's Petals - On to Hawaii

Finding Grandma's ship (Orteric) sailing from the Rock of Gibralter with her and close family members in 1911 was truly a step up. I have finished the skeleton of their trip and produced a 35 page draft that takes the family to their very strange welcome into Honolulu. The last couple of weeks have been spent fighting computer problems and trying to loosen layers of history to put me into the Spanish settlements of Hawaii and learning the sugar cane field experience... That was such hard work!!

Delving into the genealogy has created many different folders of information; finding cousins and connecting again has been lovely. Now, with Aunt Rita's help I have learned we have Gonzalez cousins in Woodland and Winters, CA -- THAT folder is still nearly empty but hope to fill it soon. They are my great Aunt Cristencia's grandsons!

I wonder if there is a way to research the family of great Uncle Victorino and Ramona Silvan in Hawaii?? And then I have all the Ruiz family to follow and feel the astonishment and wonder of finding our family and connecting there also!

This next week will find me taking Genealogy/Internet Advanced classes in Williamsburg, Virginia at the College of William & Mary and hope I can slip through the doors of knowledge and some of it will actually seep into the doors of my brain ~ Until then, I will follow up with another update after the classes and hope by then I may have connected with the Gonzalez cousins in CA!! Smiles to all of you from Charles City, Virginia and the baby-step-research of Manuela's Petals....