52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

I don’t think I have any pictures of my first car.  It wasn’t anything to brag about. I was thankful to have something of my own to drive though.  I can’t even remember what type of car it was.  It was a 1978 and it was a huge green boat of a car.  It had belonged to my Grandpa, Ed Thompson.  Soon after that,  I began driving another big car, this one a cream-colored 4-door Chevy Nova.  Not super-exciting either.  When I left for the Air Force, I was carless for a couple of  years.  It kept me in shape!

Since I have nothing exciting to write about my own vehicles, I thought that I’d focus this post on my Grandpa Don Sanchez.  He was an auto mechanic and had an obvious love of cars.  The majority of the pictures I have of him include a car.   He had his own mechanic shop for a number of years.  I think that I need to read up on cars a bit – I might have an easier time dating some of these pictures!

I found this picture among these things.  My mom had said that she thought it was the place he owned with his brother, Floyd.   Unfortunately, all I can read of the sign is “ARAGE”.  Not very helpful.

In this one though, I can read “Burien Service Associates”.  A clue. There is another small sign behind the car, but I can’t read it.

And this, I believe is one of my Grandpa’s nephews.  I thought the Indian on the car was interesting.

And I wonder where he is in this picture.  Doesn’t it look like he might be on a track or field of some sort.  Those are a lot of steps behind him.

Even though I have no idea what any of them are, I like looking at them!

This is my grandpa, Donald Arthur Sanchez.  He was a mechanic and had a very obvious love of cars.  More than half of the pictures I have of him have a vehicle in them.  My aunt just sent me this one and I love it!

Does anyone happen to know what type of car this is?  Too bad he didn’t keep it.  We could be cruising down the street in all of the local parades.

I pulled out a box of negatives – many of which I’ve never seen the pictures to.  They are a larger format than my scanner takes (it is made for 35mm film), but I was able to fit them in anyway.  The only problem is that I can’t scan the entire picture in at one time.  It’s fine as long as the picture isn’t a close up and there isn’t anything important around the edges.

I have noticed that I seem to scan them in upside down about 75% of the time.  All of the letters/numbers in my pictures are backwards.  I suppose I should take my time and do it again the correct way.  Now that I own the scanner, I can do that.  I was just too excited to take my time this scanning session.  I wanted to see what I had!

I just wanted to cry when I saw some of these pictures though.  Like this one of my grandfather:

And this one of my grandmother:

I’ll be sharing more of my great finds over the coming weeks!

Another picture that I am not sure of.  Who are they?  When and where was it taken?  I really wish that they had been labeled…

They have some pretty big fish there!

This picture belonged to my grandfather, Donald Sanchez, who served in the Coast Guard.

I am not sure if he is in this picture or not.  It wasn’t labeled and it’s hard to ID anyone from their back.

I am curious as to what on earth they are doing.  It looks like the truck was maybe transported across two small boats.  Seems very odd to me.