I am now quite at home by-the-sea in San Francisco.

I updated my email address but still have not received any emailings from our group:(

I was SHOCKED to find out that there is no Family History Center in San Francisco! Only one on Pacific that is open by appointment only.

Even worse, there is no Home Depot, and no 99 centavos Only stores.

How am I supposed to get my new apartment building on its feet without Home Depot?

I made a major genealogical break through. A stranger from Corpus Christi emailed me. He told me his own (Jurado) grandmother left him a box full of letters and old documents, and recipes from someone named Maria del Rayo Caballero.

From the content of the documents and civil filings he concluded Maria del Rayo Caballero was a wealthy woman, and his grandmother might have worked for her.

Then he found my maternal website. The first time he knew who Maria del Rayo Caballero was.

My ggggrandmother who was born around 1782. Not only did he have her correspondence, but her picture! I never dreamed there could be a photo of any of my relatives that far back, seven generations. She was born before photography, but in her old age lived into that era.

He went on to tell me the recipes were written in her own hand, dozens of them, dated in the 1830s, in beautiful, perfectly legible script, with a notation that these recipes were cooked in her kitchen.

Of course he never gave me so much as a recipe for frijoles!
He says he's going to publish a book based on my family recipes, which is just fine. I had hoped to share them with you here. But if I have to buy a copy I will be glad to!

He also told me that he has a novena card of hers dated 1802 with the prayers she recited as a child.

But his nudge encouraged me to further research Maria del Rayo Caballero.
I was able to push my ancestry through her all the way back to Cristobal Caballero and Ana de Pena who were born in Cordoba, Spain around the 1630s.

I almost feel like I knew Maria del Rayo Caballero. I feel a deep affection for her.