{"id":3539,"date":"2013-09-01T20:15:21","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T03:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jett.in\/?p=3539"},"modified":"2013-09-01T20:15:21","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T03:15:21","slug":"gold-rush-tracing-my-great-grandparents-to-the-land-of-the-mother-lode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/2013\/09\/gold-rush-tracing-my-great-grandparents-to-the-land-of-the-mother-lode\/","title":{"rendered":"(G)Old Rush — Tracing My Great-Grandparents to The Land of the Mother Lode"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Green<\/a>

Green = Grass Valley, Red = Jackson<\/p><\/div>\n

a short (family) history lesson<\/h3>\n

for the longest time i remember my maternal grandfather saying his parents lived in Grass Valley<\/a>\u00a0(aka\u00a0Glass Valley<\/em> as he said it with his accent), California in the early part of the twentieth century (first wave of Chinese immigrants<\/a>). as a young kid i had it in my mind they owned a gold mine, but later i learned they (much more realistically, lol) had a restaurant and did fairly well for themselves serving the people working in the large mines near the city.<\/p>\n

cut to about a year ago when i gave\u00a0ancestry.com<\/a> a whirl (i signed up for their free trial, did all my research, then canceled; no shame in my game). i found a record of them in the 1920 census!<\/em> i don’t know the full details of how they got these particular names (mom explained it to me once), but even though they were really Chans<\/a>, they used the last name “Moon” when they emigrated from Hong Kong (or China, mom’s not sure), coming over as a so-called “paper son<\/a>” (and wife?).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

if i’m reading this census form correctly, it says that as of January 1, 1920:<\/p>\n