Listen to this story in Olaqu.
Her mother passed away from ovarian cancer when Josie Cavazos was fifteen years old.
The 62-year-old, who is almost 50 years old, still wishes she could have questioned her mother about her early years or how she ended up working as a waitress at Home Cafe for 20 years until it changed its name to Andy’s Home Cafe in 1977.
Don’t miss the next big story
To receive the stories you need about the city you love every weekday morning, sign up for The Launchpad.
She remarked on a recent Tuesday, “I didn’t realize when I was that young that there was such a finite window to get these stories and talk to my family about their history and their families.”
Earlier this month, a dozen individuals, including Josie and her 44-year-old daughter Christina, gathered at the Leonel J. Castillo Community Center to learn about genealogy and how to conduct family history research. The two-hour session was created especially for Latino and Hispanic families, who occasionally have difficulties in locating their forebears.
Hispanic and Latino heritage has not been as thoroughly cataloged and inventoried as European heritage, according to Carlos Cant, an adjunct history professor at the University of Houston and co-founder of the Collective of Progressive Educators (COPE), which organized the workshop.
From Buffalo Bayou Partnership, a message
Visit Cistern Illuminated in Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern this holiday season to experience peace and quiet. Kelly O. Brien, a Houston-based artist and engineer, created a calming sequence of light and sound that transforms 221 concrete pillars above sparkling water.
To learn more about this special Houston holiday event, go to buffalobayou.org.
Houston Landing is grateful for its sponsors.Become one now.
A wealth of information is available. However, it cannot be emphasized that not everything has been inspected or inventoried.
The goals of COPE, as stated on its Facebook page, are to provide safe learning environments for all communities, establish collaborations with advocacy organizations, non-profits, universities, and resource centers, and unearth, preserve, and promote minority histories.
In order to achieve this, the nonprofit organized the event in collaboration with AARP and invited four presenters to impart fundamental knowledge about genealogy.
Independent researcher Ramiro Contreras suggests that beginning genealogists build a family tree and collect basic information about their own family. Look for individuals who were alive around 1950 using internet repositories such as Ancestry.com, then work your way backward.
By 1950, the paperwork bureaucracy is robust, according to Contreras.
This holiday season, give more Houstonians access to local news that matters!
Come along with us as we give our community the gift of knowledge. Through December 31st, your donation will be matched.
According to Contreras, Hispanic and Latino families particularly benefit from the digitization of U.S. Census and baptism data.
He went on to say, “These records are telling us a story.” They are speaking to us, and when you click on them, they will converse with you and share details about the life of your ancestor.
The experts advised using FamilySearch.org to find documents from Spain or Latin American nations. Carl Smith, manager of the Clayton Library’s Family History Research Center, said the website, which is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, contains a sizable collection of worldwide records.
According to Smith, the Mormon repository’s associate partner, the Museum District research center, has access to records that would otherwise be confidential.
Smith added that with over 100,000 books and 3,000 periodicals, the research center has one of the nation’s greatest collections of both published and unpublished family histories.
Most records are still not available online. He continued, “It won’t be in our lifetime.”
According to Marina Flores Sugg, she went to the class to find out more about how to conduct research on both sides of her family. Flores, a fourth-generation Texan, claimed to have little to no knowledge of her Mexican ancestry.
Because we have lived in Mexico for so long, we have lost a lot of our previous contacts, she remarked.
She is aware that her great-grandmother brought Flores’ grandfather to Houston in order to prevent the 12-year-old from being recruited by Pancho Villa, a Mexican rebel. She also recalls hearing that her grandfather moved to Texas and started working as a meat cutter.
According to Flores, he is the one who cuts the meat into various kinds of steaks. The animal is simply killed by the butcher.
Flores also recalls her great-grandmother’s home on Canal Street in Houston’s East End, where the matriarch operated a sizable press for clothing.
My mother tells me there s no way you can remember that, Rena, because you were two or three. I said mom, I remember, Flores said.
Cavazos said her mother grew up in Dewalt, Texas, got married young and worked as a waitress at Andy s, the longtime Houston restaurant. Other than that, she doesn t know much else about Guadalupe Castillo Waterhouse or how she lived her life.
Cavazos hopes that by learning more about her mother, she will learn more about that side of the family and what brought them to Texas.
I have little bits and pieces but I never sat down with anybody in my family to get the full story.
Republish This Story
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
For Hispanic and Latino families, genealogy research comes with its own set of issues
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!
