I don’t remember, now, how I used to imagine my family in Cuba.

Both of my parents were born in Havana, yet they passed on to me very different impressions about their lives and families in a Cuba of the early 1900s through the mid-1950s.

My father’s experiences seemed fairly clear to understand. He often spoke of feeling like an immigrant while growing up in Havana, and it was because his parents had journeyed to Cuba from the Galicia province of Spain, and then associated closely with the large Gallego community in their new land. It was easy for me to imagine the arrival of my father’s family to Havana, especially since I had visited my grandparents’ birth places several times in northwest Spain.

Thoughts about my mother’s family, however, were always hazy.

Her mother’s side of the family seemed to have been a long time in Cuba. My mother enjoyed being able to grandly pronounce the double last names of her Cuban-born maternal grandparents, and she could share some details and personal memories about the people within the large family whom she encountered most often.

Yet, my mother was missing any specifics beyond the generation of family she knew.

Details about her father’s side – and her paternal grandparents – were even fuzzier. My questions about this DeZaldo family were often answered by my mother’s wistful reveries of vague stories she had overheard, or of visiting relatives from elsewhere.

My mother had spent her early years living at the DeZaldo estate near Havana, and she loved to reminisce with tales formed by her favorite childhood memories.

But since she was the youngest cousin of her father’s DeZaldo family, my mother didn’t remember those people who visited from overseas or have details about the exciting travels and events from well before her time.

She would attempt to share some family information with me, but I sensed that my mother’s vague recollections were sketchy. She also had a propensity for coming up with stories and explanations that you knew were barely based on facts. Entertaining, yes, but my many questions about my mother’s extended family remained unanswered for years.

My mother, Adela De Zaldo y Moré, was a charming character – expressive and “simpática”. She was fun, and she left a pleasant impression on everyone she met.

And it is mostly because of her collection of stories – usually told with vivid enthusiasm and a touch of drama – that I’ve always imagined Cuba as elegant, strong-willed, earthy, and culturally diverse.

The stories she shared were simple – rich snapshots from her life growing up, without much analysis of cause and effect – and they were perfect for helping me to create my own visions of the people and places I had never known.

Now, I am imagining Cuba differently.

It’s an evolving view, one that keeps adapting to new details and my changed impressions. Cuba now feels closer to me and so much more familiar.

And I keep noticing that I don’t quite remember how I pictured it all before – my distant family and the journeys of their lives.

A single photograph prompted my online family search

What first stirred my imagination was a black and white photograph.

It was a captivating image, but just one of many my brother had found in an old family photo album. He decided to digitize it, then put it in a frame and gave it to me as a birthday gift. This photograph sat in my dining room for years, and I noticed it often.

The photo was of my grandfather, René De Zaldo, standing by an old Indian motorcycle.

In that image, René is surrounded by a small group of bystanders and fitted in the race gear of motorcycling’s early days – circa 1915.

I knew little about the photograph, and I had so many questions

There were few clues to help me understand that image of my grandfather. And nothing was written on the back of the print. So, just imagine the questions I had.

What was the story of that scene?

How did René De Zaldo get started with motorcycles?

And was it really a race? Did he win?

Who could I ask to learn more about my grandfather René?

I tried asking my mother about the photograph. But by the time I really wanted to know more about my grandfather, my mother could hardly answer where her father René was born. I assumed he was born in Cuba. However, she would sometimes say her father was born in Mexico and, at other times, she would think it was in San Antonio, Texas.

Where, then, was that photograph taken? Was it in Cuba? Mexico? Or somewhere in the US?

There were few other people in my family I could ask to get real answers.

And I could not have asked my grandfather myself. I had only known him for about a year when I was six years old and circumstances had brought us together in Lisbon, Portugal. He passed away in Lisbon a few years later.

Still, I really wanted answers. And the lack of information about the photograph made it even more intriguing. That framed image of my grandfather and his Indian motorcycle kept calling to me…

So, in 2011, I googled “René De Zaldo”.

It took me a few years to find answers to my questions about my grandfather and that Indian motorcycle.

Along the way, however, my Google searches online started to uncovered more extraordinary stories than I ever could have imagined – about René, and about other near relatives I had never even heard of.

I’ve been lucky. My research has turned up hidden gems of family information. I keep looking, and I’m still digging up new details online.

Finding lost family stories because I could just “Google it”

When I started my Google research, I wasn’t really expecting to find much. Maybe I would learn some simple dates of major life events – like birth, marriage, or death.

As it turned out, I’ve discovered wonderful tales about my close and more distant family, with adventures occurring in world locations I had not considered before.

These particular events and stories were found documented in books, magazines, letters, and official records that were published across centuries and continents.

What made possible my thrilling success in family research? It’s all thanks to the advent, and continuing process, of digitization – and the ability to “Google” keywords and find digitized copies of printed information and images online.

The DeZaldo y Moré family – so much more than I expected

I had sensed that the DeZaldo y Moré stories would be fascinating, and it’s true – with René and the DeZaldo side of the family traveling often across the Atlantic, and the Moré family side well-established for centuries in Cuba.

But how would I have discovered it all before?

Now, here I am finding details, or new clues, about René’s motorcycle and so much more, just sitting at my laptop or searching from anywhere on my phone.

What will I discover today?