Geneaology - John's Mother - finally found

Woo hoo!!! I finally found a birth certificate for John's mother. Not for the wonderful woman who raised him - (although I do have that one too) but for his birth mother. I had been looking and looking for her so I can get her temple work done - but to no avail.

A family book that J's aunt gave me showed his mother's name as Lydia Ann. I had never heard her called Lydia - only Ann. I have been to her gravesite - it's right there in the Coolidge cemetary along with all her other family members so I know she died in 1956 but couldn't get anyone to tell me when she was born. No one wants to talk about her at all. The name on her grave is Ann VH - and the date 1956 - nothing more.

One of J's 2nd cousins gave me this link:

http://genealogy.az.gov/

It is great - any birth can be recorded after 75 years and any death after 50. On this web site, I found the birth certificate for my father and all his siblings. The death certificates for 3 of my great-grandparents on the Carter side and many other relatives. It's neat to see these actual documents and so easy to save a copy of them.

But no matter how hard I looked, I hadn't been able to find J's mother. We are planning to do the temple work for his Mom in January so I felt I had to find this information so I could have his Mother's done at the same time. I was beginning to think maybe she had been born before the family moved to AZ. Finally a few days ago, while looking just for last name of VH in all of AZ, I found it - it doesn't have her first name as Lydia - nor does it have it written as Ann (which is why Alexshuman has that middle name). Instead there it is - Annie, born Nov 7, 1920.

So, it's a start but now I have lots more work to do to find the rest of the family.