California's Juana Briones and the Mystery of a Photograph

Descendants of Santa Clara Valley pioneer Juana Briones believe this photograph to be Juana.

Only available through the Point Reyes National Seashore Archive, it may not be used without their permission.

I am working on research for a new book about some exceptional people in California. There have been so many who have lived and worked in the region of the San Francisco Bay Area, long before Silicon Valley. While researching this group, I've uncovered lots of interesting stories.

One of them, Juana Briones, had family who came with the first Spanish-speaking civilians to settle in the San Francisco Bay Area. Juana's mother came to California as a four year old, with Juan Bautista de Anza, settling with her parents in the first pueblo of California, the pueblo of San Jose.

I don't want to give away all my story, so I wrote about one tiny aspect of it in my column this month for the local paper. Click, to read about an intriguing mystery:

Juana Briones And Her Photograph


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