Thanksgiving Genealogy Adventures

This Thanksgiving weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging out with Denise Levenick, aka The Family Curator. She happens to live near my in-laws, so we found some common free time and set up a visit.

We spent some time at the Los Angeles Public Library central branch downtown. It's quite a building. The lowest floor is devoted completely to genealogy and history.

I stuck to my plan to tackle southern California city directories. I've been using them, along with voter records, to track the rolling stones in my family. In the 1941 L.A. directory, I found that my grandfather had a partner in his feed business. I knew about the business, I didn't know his aunt was his partner. In later directories, he's listed as sole owner.

I also found my mom (listed as "1 child") along with my grandmother in the 1948 East Los Angeles directory. My grandfather must have been in the Navy then, as grandma was in her father's household. My mom probably didn't know she ever lived in East L.A., until now when she reads this post.

Denise did some research on her end as well. Then we packed up and went to a restaurant bar for a quick appetizer and conversation. The great thing about social networking in the genealogy community is that you already know each other online, so small talk isn't necessary. You can just jump right in. We talked about genealogy education, our ancestors and all the things our families find boring.

Our visit was much shorter than it should have been. We both had to get back to our families. However, I now have a friend I can meet up with every time I'm in town.

Thank you, Denise, for the fun day and the reminder of how thankful I am for my genealogy friends.