It’s been awhile since I’ve made a surprising brick wall breakthrough. One of the biggest ones was Lillian Redford. It was a little bit harder because her brother named one of his daughters after her. So things always got a little confusing. Until 30 minutes ago. I was just going through some California City Directories, clicking the green leaf reluctantly in Family Tree Maker.

California Death Index, 1940-1997 via Ancestry.com

My only question is, “Why now?” I have searched for Lillian a million times over the years and it’s never yielded a result. They must have done an update of some kind that added new records or maybe a refined search algorithm. I don’t quite care though, because I finally have something on Lillian after 1920!