20 June 2008

The last week in May, before I left for Central America, I spent a week in Los Angeles and Southern California doing some genealogy. I visited the former homes and schools of mine my parents, my grandparents, great aunts, and great-grandparents. These were from the Hague, Wallace, Blanding and Akins families.

After my first day driving all over L.A, I stayed with long-time school friend Carolyn and her husband (see photo of Carolyn & Leonard at table), in Palm Desert.

Then I drove over through Hemet to Lake Elsinore and stayed with 3rd cousin Joyce Stucky Movius of our Akin lineage. (see photos of her family members).

Donna-Joyce-Georgette with Akin Heritage book I gave Joyce

Joyce in 4-generation photos

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I was overjoyed when Joyce gave me an old water and mold-damaged tin-type photo album that had belonged to Howard Nelson Akins. (see photo of old tin-type). So I am going to take special care and fix up the scanned old tin-type images . Few have names, I'll try to preserve and identify them all. I had inherited a little box of a few of Howard's papers, etc. when he died in 1954. I was a child, but very impressed with the "old things" including mention of his father, Marshall J. Akins serving in the Civil War -36th Reg, Wis Vol. - I think this is what started my early interest in genealogy. Marshall Akins was born in 1844 at Busti, Chautauqua County, New York.

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Finally, I drove to Fullerton to visit cousin Patti and her family. We had a big dessert night and her sister Carol and family came over. These are my Dad's nieces and of the Hague / Wallace lineage. See photo of some of the clan around the table.

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I drove back to Los Angeles and took even more photos of old family homes. Google maps helped out. Here is a photo of a Blanding family home from the 1920's or 1930's on Long Beach Ave. The train tracks are in front of it. It used to be painted white and was called "The White House."

From LAX I flew to Central America with Overseas Adventure Tours. In a group of 16, we visited Mayan ruins in El Salvador, Honduras (Copan), Guatemala (Tikal), and Belize (Lumanai). It was a good experience and all things went very well.