Today I met with a third cousin of mine, B. Mares, at the Special Collection Library in Albuquerque. She is the daughter of Justin Zimmerly, who was a grandson of Juan Jose Zimmerly. Juan Jose was the oldest son of Samuel and Paubla (Torres) Zimmerly. She found me through a posting that I made on this site about her father.
It was a very productive meeting. We both had items to share with each other. I showed her photos of my great-grandfather Estevan Zimmerly from my website, which included one from his wedding day. I also shared a descendancy chart of Samuel and Paubla (Torres) Zimmerly and an ahnentafel table of Paubla (Torres) Zimmerly. However, B. Mares shared with me some stuff that was really good.
Since Mrs. Mares is a descendant of Juan Jose Zimmerly, she has access to some important family artifacts. When Samuel Zimmerly died, Juan Jose and his mother took over running the family grist mill. B. Mares had a ledger that was used in the business. Entries in the ledger include names of Socorro residents. Also, at the back of the book someone recorded the births of selected family members. B. asked me if I thought those birth records were reliable. I told her that although these were not primary documents, the fact that these births appeared to have been recorded soon after the actual events made them somewhat reliable. I mentioned that she should still try to verify the information elsewhere, but that it would be okay to use it for her initial research.
B. said that in the future she would allow me to copy pages from the ledger. I will try to post those pages on this blog once I copy them.
B. also shared with me a number of documents. She showed me a photo of her great grandfather Juan Jose. We compare his photo with a photo of his brother Estevan. There was a definate family resemblance. She also allowed me to copy my great-grandfather Estevan's baptismal record. Although I probably have the document somewhere, it was nice to have it immediately so that I could post it on this blog.
Other items included:
* an 1860 California census that appears to show Samuel Zimmerly in Visalia, California.
* a corrido (funeral song) written for one of Juan Jose's sons Eduardo Zimmerly who died when he was a teenager.
* a death certificate for Flora (Zimmerly) Salazar.
* an ancestry chart that shows B.'s ancestry.
* a family group record that shows the children of Samuel T. Zimmerly, son of Juan Jose and grandfather of B. Mares.
* she also mentioned that her family has certain artifacts such as Samuel James Zimmerly's Knights of Pythias sword and scales that were used in the grist mill. I asked her to have photos taken of those objects so that I may post them on this blog.
I will share some of these items in this blog.
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