California Farms of the 1920's

After writing the blog about the Marques family, immigrant farmers from Portugal.   I realized that they are five generations from little Bradly Hunt. Augusta was Eleanor's grand mother, and Eleanor is Sherina's grandmother.  So that makes Augusta Bradley's,  great, great, great grandmother.
When I think of immigrant farm labor of the 1920's in California, I think of the great John Steinbeck novel, "The Grapes of Wrath".  Man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Steinbeck consistently and woefully pointed to the fact that the migrants’ great suffering was caused not by bad weather or mere misfortune but by their fellow human beings.  Living in Sacramento myself, I know a little bit about the history of the cannery.  Over 100,000 migrant men and women workers were employed packing cans of fruit and sugar beats.  In sociology classes I took at The University of California at Davis, we were taught about Chavez and the Mexican Migrant.  Steinbeck wrote about the displaced farm belt families of Oklahoma.  Researching the Marques family was the first I had read about all the immigrants from Portugal.

Have we come very far in the past ninety years?  If you didn't read my blog, check it out under the Ginn pages.

What is it to be an Immigrant

Being able to trace your ancestry to an immigrant of the Mayflower, is like having a sliver from the true cross where Jesus died.
This past weekend marked nine years since 3,000 people lost their lives in New York and Washington D.C., many of whom we can claim as Americans. One thing I remember about that day and the days following was how that tragic event brought Americans together. Everyone was wearing the flag of the United States. The flag of our stars and stripes was hung from every freeway overpass. Patriotism was all around you. Today Islamophobia is replacing homophobia as our outlet for hate. Americans and the Tea Party wannabes want you and I to believe that the President of the United States is a: Terrorist-coddling, Warmongering, Wall Street-Loving, Socialistic, Godless MUSLIM.
One of America's greatest strengths has always been taking in immigrants from cultures around the world, and assimilating them into our country as Americans; thus united we our stronger. By being citizens of the U.S. we are Americans first, and only, in our national loyalties. This feeling, this movement of Nationalism did not last long.
I was attending Ventura College at the time. I remember a group of students on the campus called MEChA. They were often holding rallies on the campus, speaking of La Raza and waving flags of Mexico. Another movement was starting. First State, then Federal government began building walls between Mexico and the United States; not just physical walls to keep immigrants out but social walls of discrimination.
Not too many months back I was counted for the fifth time in my life on the Census of the United States.
There were ten questions in all. This comes to my attention because most if not all of the source documents I and other genealogical researchers use, is derived from the Census data that is collected every ten years.
In 1790 the United States took its first Census. The surname and first initial of the head of the house was taken, and dash marks were placed for how many free white men there were in the household. To date the United States has now completed twenty-two counts. Each one being different from the prior. Out of the ten questions on the current 2010 Census, two questions, number eight and nine are concerned with your racial and cultural heritage. Question number eight had five questions within that question. This question wants to know if the person identifies with Spanish, Mexican, Latin, and so on, it actually said “and so on”. Question number nine gave other racial groups only one box to check. I chose White, but does that really say who I am?
Mexico is celebrating this week, 200 years of independence from Spain and 100 years since the Mexican revolution. The actual date is September 16, 1821; the war between the colonies of Mexico and Spain began in 1810. I make this comparison, as Mexico’s war was not unlike the war between the Colonist of New England and Britain or any other war to gain freedom and independence.
There have been so many wars, and so many more reasons for our ancestors to immigrate to new lands that this history is what makes the genealogy all that more interesting.
So follow me on my journey back home as I attempt to tell the whole story.

I Had A Dream

A week or so back I got very involved in my family tree project and I guess I was not sleeping well. I was remembering my childhood at the age of eight years when I first started genealogy in school. My father Donald Howie had an old box of photos from his father William Rider Howie. I looked through all those old black and white photos and tin type photos of days gone. I also ran across some old newspaper clippings of obituaries. One of them was from a newspaper in Montreal Canada. It read to my memory "Montreal's oldest living resident Jane Howie passed away". It was a typical obituary for the day. It described her life, her faith in God and her family. At that time I had asked my dad about her, however he didn't know who she was. The clipping went back in the box never to be seen again, but not out of mind I guess. So the other night I awoke thinking about this clipping and if this could be a possible link to my roots. I quickly sent an email to my mother June Howie. Unfortunately she either had never seen the article that I was describing or had forgotten it. Since there is no one I could turn to so that I could get the information I needed, I had to begin a very thorough research. Using both ancestry.com and the internet I was successful. There is a very useful website called Interment. In 2005 they went to each cemetery and wrote down a description of the name, location and a database of each headstone which is still intact. Each of these data bases are too large to place in my blog. So just click on the link and search yourself. I have found Howie's, Lorimer's, and England's to mention a few. I was then able to have some more data to then look through Church records and Census records. Soon look for the Howie Page on the left to see what I found on Jane Howie.