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?