Greetings,
A little introduction from a newbie here. My name is Cindy and I live in sunny Southern California. My interest in family history dates back to 1977 when as a teenager I interviewed family members and started collecting facts. I was overwhelmed almost immediately by how to organize the data and also by not having a clue as to how to proceed with what I'd learned to make progress.
Fast forward to 1997 when my in-laws (knowing that I'd always shown an interest in genealogy) gave me a gift of Family Tree Maker software. I dove in headfirst and thanks to the new-fangled internet (it was completely new and foreign to me back then), I was able to make great strides in research mainly due to connecting with cousins and discovering the resources of my local LDS Family History Library.
Despite having better tools, the one area that I've never gotten very far with is my mom's ancestry in Mexico. Because of that, I've decided to really focus intently on Jalisco research. I was absolutely delighted to find this site. While I very recently had some exciting success tracing my mom's maternal grandfather's lines in Jalisco (found 12 abuelos all within two days thanks to church records), I continue to be challenged by her mom's mom's lines and all her father's lines. They remain brick walls for me.
My mom's maternal grandfather's lines have been found in Ocotlan, La Barca, Jamay, Magdalena and possibly Tequila. Surnames are: Jimenez/Jimenes/Gimenes/Ximenes, Peres/Perez, Castellanos, Carillos, Velasco, Sagu and Franco(?) [not exactly sure on the last surname as I've only found it on one baptismal record and it was very hard to decipher.]
Mom's maternal grandmother was born in Tototlan and I only have two surnames in this line: Orozco/Orosco and Vargas.
Mom's father was born in Guadalajara and his parents surnames were Navarro and Padilla, but I haven't got any information other than their names, so researching them at the moment feels like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Looking forward to getting acquainted with others here. I should mention, all my Spanish language skills come from school and they're pretty rusty, sorry to say.
Here's to breaking down brick walls soon! (Thanks for reading if you got this far.)
CindyF