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| San Diego, As Seen From Coronado Island February 2013 |
(Digital Image; Photograph and Text, Copyright (c) 2013 Cynthia Shenette) Last month my family and I spent a couple of weeks in southern California on vacation. It was a wonderful respite from the snow and cold of Massachusetts. None of us wanted to come home! This photo was taken on one of the rare cloudy days we had in San Diego. Quite a dramatic sky, don't you think?
While we were there I had chance to check out the San Diego Public Library. Doesn't everyone visit the library while they are on vacation? My son had some homework to do, and I had a little research I wanted to do for myself in the California Room. While I struck out at finding what I was looking for with my own research I also asked if they had information on surveyors in the San Diego area. My friend Barbara Poole, who writes the wonderful and ever informative Life From the Roots blog, had an ancestor, Charles H. Poole, who was an early surveyor in the San Diego area. It was just my luck that a young man overheard me talking to the librarian. He mentioned the name of two books about surveyors in San Diego, and the librarian brought out the two books, the History of San Diego Land Surveying Experiences by Curtis M. Brown and Michael Pallamary (out of print but available on WorldCat) and Lay of the Land: the History of Land Surveying in San Diego County by Michael Pallamary. Well, didn't I hit pay dirt! Barbara's ancestor was featured prominently in both of books! So even though I didn't find the information I was looking for on my family I still had a great day!
The moral of the story is then next time you are in sunny southern California forget the beaches, and hit the library! Also, sometimes it's just nice to help another genealogist. You'll be glad you did!
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Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Aloha! - Wordless Wednesday
