Here is a message I sent along to be posted either entirely or partially on
the NGGS facebook page (you all might want to start talking about the last
two sentences):

One day in 2002 while recovering from a terrible car crash that my wife and
I were in (we both fully recovered), I was fooling around on the internet,
bored, and just decided to google "Puentes". Well lo and behold there was a
hit on "someone" looking for information about my father, his brothers and
my grandfather Julio Puentes from San Jose, CA. That day changed my life. I
contacted the person who posted the question and it turned out to be my
cousin Marty Puentes. I just want to acknowledge publicly that Marty is the
main reason I started doing genealogy which led me to starting the
http://nuestrosranchos.org group in 2003 which gathered people together
researching Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes that eventually led to
the fabulous group: Nueva Galicia Genealogical Society
(http://www.nuevagalicia.org/). Thank you Marty, you have advanced our
family's history in your search for answers to our past.

Marty Puentes is the grandson of my Uncle Martin (dob 1912) brother to my
father, Antonio Puentes (1914) two of 8 children of Julio Puentes (1886) and
Virginia Diaz (1886). Virginia Diaz is in picture one and six of the slide
show (http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article71081497.html). In the
first picture she is sitting next to her mother Antonia Santa Maria (1862)
with my father Antonio on her lap and my uncle Martin to the far left along
with various other Tio's and Tia's. In the pistolero picture you see my
grandmother Virginia sitting with a sibling on her lap but the man holding
the pistola is my Great Grandfather Francisco Diaz (1862) with his mother,
my GG Grandmother, Andrea Torres (1833) to his left. Notice that Antonia
Santa Maria is also holding a pistola (on Francisco's right).

Hello NGGS you all are doing great things in advancing your own genealogical
family history and sparking wide spread interest in OUR rich history via
outlets like: Facebook, http://www.nuevagalicia.org/,
http://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/,
http://www.guadalajaradispensas.com, and just via word of mouth from one
interested person to another interested person. Thank you for all your hard
work and all you have done. In the near future I'm going to be retiring from
helm of the http://nuestrosranchos.org group. So don't be surprised if soon
you are asked to do MORE if that group is to be continued. . .

Sincerely,

Joseph

Joseph Puentes

Clean@h2opodcast.com

http://h2opodcast.com/vsse.html