BIG NEWS ~ I FOUND THE MISSING UNCLE

Imagine my delight when I found a page on ancestry.com that brings up a wealth of information with just a name in a little box I hadn't ever tried...I typed AGUSTIN SILVAN HERNANDEZ. (He was my great grandfather Juan Francisco Silvan Hernandez's brother whom I understood went "to South America somewhere....." when the other three siblings sailed from Spain to Hawaii and later to California.) Finding him, I knew, was a daunting task and one I doubted I would even begin. I'd found the other brother, Geronimo Silvan Hernandez, and his wife Joaquina on a ship sailing to Spain from Cuba in 1931..... but Agustin? A mystery that would probably remain a mystery...... UNTIL TODAY!!!

We know in the early 1900s that correspondence was nearly impossible. And if one didn't read or write, it was absolutely iimpossible to connect to family who'd left the homeland.
After finding Geronimo, I knew he and his wife had sailed to Cuba to work in sugar cane fields either on their way to America or to work and return to Spain. They did, indeed, return to Spain as proven by the MANUEL CALVO ship manifest in 1931.

But Agustin? I am giddy again. I found the ship manifest ~ He was shown as male, single, did not read or write, born in 1887 and he was from Zamora, listing his full name Agustin Silvan Hernandez. He sailed from Havana, Cuba (from working in the sugar cane fields?) in 1930 on the CRISTOBAL COLON to Coruna, Spain via New York. Big Sigh....

This tells me both brothers returned to Spain one year apart, probably returning to their home village of Fuentesauco. Now, if I can just find a ship arriving in Coruna, Spain to follow him home! For now, I am happy to have found him at all.

AND today I was already in thrill-mode after receiving a copy of my Abuelita Manuela Silvan's marriage certificate to my grandfather Bernardo Romero Ruiz... again -- she thought she was 19 when she married him, but alas! With the inability to read or write, she always thought she was born June 24, 1900 when in truth she was born June 25, 1901.... Ah, back to the search!