Manuel Diaz

Following the trail of the Diaz family, I looked in the US-Mexico border crossing records. On 26 May 1910, Manuel Diaz, a younger brother of my 2nd-great-grandmother Teresa Diaz, crossed the border at Naco, Arizona. The record shows Manuel was a carpenter, short (5 foot 1), from Hermosillo, Sonora. According to the record Manuel was 35 years old. He listed his mother, Dolores Quijada, in Hermosillo as next of kin. Manuel was traveling to Douglas, Arizona for a week to visit Jesus Arvayo. It's hard to tell but it looks like he listed Jesus as "brother-in-law." Manuel had $15 on him when he crossed the border.

Source: Ancestry, US Border Crossing Records.

Douglas is a mining town located on the Arizona-Sonora border, about 32 miles east of Naco. Perhaps Manuel was going for work.

Manuel appears again in the 1930 Mexico Census in Nogales, living in the household of brother-in-law Francisco Mirazo and his sister Maria Diaz. The census says that Manuel was 44, but he would have been 55 in 1930.

Source: Ancestry, 1930 Mexico Census.

I'll have more on Maria and Francisco in another post. After they were married in Hermosillo in 1911, the couple ended up in Nogales. I remember my Granny telling stories about going to visit her Mirazo cousins in Nogales when she was young. In 1929 when she went to Nogales with her parents Plutarco and Manuela Campuzano, they visited the Mirazo/Diaz family. She would have also seen her uncle Manuel. I don't know yet what happened to Manuel, if he stayed in Nogales and worked as a carpenter into old age. But it is good to have another piece of this family puzzle.