Discoveries

 Hello there,

It´s been a while but I´m still here, still trying to find out more information on my ancestors and their mysterious photographs. To refresh our memories: last year I found hundreads of photos that Lauro Canuto Álvarez, who married my great-grandaunt, Ana María Llorente, took during a period I´ve been able to narrow down to 1890-1930. With the help of my grand-mother, I´ve been able to name many of our direct and indirect family members, however, dozens of people remain unidentified and this is my amazing quest: to discover who they are, and how they impacted the life of my ancestors.

 I just recently figured out that the photo I uploaded for a "background", are not members of my family, but instead of Mr. John F. Brittingham, who was the employer of Lauro C. Álvarez at "La Jabonera" -the soap factory- in Gómez Palacio, Durango. So far I´ve discovered that this person John "Juan" Brittingham married three times over the course of his life; Damiana González, Otila Ávila and Angela Caballero. Many of the photos I´ve found include whom I believe are the Brittingham children or "heirs" to John´s fortune. 

By the way, my great-grandfather, Gabriel Servín, who married Concepción Llorente, also worked at the same factory, therefore him, Lauro C. Álvarez, and José Manuel Llorente are my three relatives that had something to do with La Esperanza soap factory. The more I dig in, the more I find about them all...

Jabonera "La Esperanza", Gómez Palacio, Durango.

Still, my quest remains to find out more about Lauro Canuto´s family, the Alvarez´s, and to be able to identify them in the photos.....

Let´s begin

First of all, thank you for taking the time to visit my blog, I hope that you find this project interesting, and that you may be able to help me figure out who the people in the photos were, what they did, where they lived and maybe some anecdotes that your great-grandmothers, grandparents or someone has passed on to you.

My name is Luis and I was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1988. My maternal side of the family has always been proud of our roots, our ancestors and their stories; my grandmother has kept an amazing wall in her house covered by extremely old family photos. We were always told their names and details, but it wasn´t until very recently in my life that I´ve grown interested in genealogy and history. And so now that my grandmother -who is 85 years old- is starting to lose some of her memories, I am worried that a lot of that wisdom and precious details may go with her.

On November of 2019 I made an extraordinary discovery at her house, when I found a very old family photo album that was buried under papers, newspapers and old folders. I wrote about this discovery in my personal blog, and you can find the Spanish entry here. I asked my grandmother about the people in the photos, and even when she was able to tell me some names, I saw right away that most of the people in it weren´t actually our relatives, but we were indirectly related to them. Here´s how we are related:

So Lauro Canuto Álvarez (1880-1950) married my great-great aunt Ana María Llorente (1886- ), and the last time any photos were added to the album was in 1950, the year Lauro Canuto died. What happened to the album afterwards remains a mystery, but it appears that it was forgotten and buried under decades of newspapers, documents and magazines until last year. I believe most of the people in the photos were Lauro´s family members, who therefore are descendants of his parents, León and Felicitas - hence the blog´s title-.  

I recently started using Ancestry.com as a tool, and I have been able to find several documents and immigration papers that show that Lauro and Ana María lived at some point in their lives in Gómez Palacio, Durango, Mexico, but also in Chihuahua, Chihuahua and the United States. However, I have found that the couple and Lauro´s family used to gravitate towards La Unión, New Mexico, USA. I have never met any distant relatives from the Álvarez (Alvares ?) side, but I´m hoping this blog and Ancestry will help me contact them and spread the word about this quest, ultimately providing enough information to put names to the people in the photographs. 

So bare with me and let´s enjoy this voyage back in history through amazing photography captured both by Lauro and Ana María, who seemed to enjoy the simple things in life such as picnics, beach days, walks through the forest, and family reunions. Any information that you may have, please share with me... show this blog to your oldest family members, who by seeing the photos or hearing the names may recognize some of them. Thank you all for your help, and I hope you too find some answers here.

Let´s begin, familia!