Stories of Early Albuquerque

October 2021 Albuquerque Historical Society Program

On October 17, 2021, compiler and editor, Rosemary McNerney Winkler, presented excerpts from her book, “Stories of Early Albuquerque: As Told in the Albuquerque Genealogical Society Quarterly“. The book shares the history of some of the post-1848 families who helped usher the city into the modern age. Rosemary McNerney Winkler is a member of the Albuquerque Genealogical Society and has been writing about these families for the group’s publication, the Quarterly, since 2013.

“Stories of Early Albuquerque” can be found at Page 1 Books, Treasure House Books in Old Town, Museum Store at Albuquerque Museum, and Organic Books in Nob Hill. Read “Genealogical book looks at the pioneering people who helped usher Albuquerque into the modern age” by Elaine D. Briseño in the Albuquerque Journal.

Rosemary McNerney Winkler grew up in Albuquerque, graduated from St. Pius X High School, attended UNM and worked for the City of Albuquerque. She married William Winkler and was a stay-at-home mom until finding a cause in neighborhood and education issues in the 1970s and became an “urban guerrilla” working with other neighborhoods, the City Planning Commission, and the Board of Education to improve the neighborhood and elementary school. She served on the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, PTA, neighborhood association, Citizens’ Advisory boards, and the APS Vocational Education Advisory Committee. After that, Rosemary attended CNM receiving an associate degree in accounting. She was self-employed for over 30 years until retirement.

Always interested in family history, she listened to stories and quizzed parents, grandparents, grand aunts, aunts and uncles, first, second, third, fourth cousins and siblings, always making notes. In about 1995, Rosemary joined the Albuquerque Genealogical Society. She taught a class on publishing family history at UNM Continuing Ed and volunteered at the Genealogy Center. After publishing several family histories and her dad’s military history from original documents, letters and photographs and donating them to the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, she took the editor job for the AGS Quarterly in 2013 for which she received the NM Press Women 2019 Communications Contest First Place for Publications Regularly Edited by Entrant–Newsletter. Her interest in DNA started in 2004 due to a family friend who managed the DNA labs for Family Tree DNA and became volunteer administrator for three surname projects.

The family stories in this book started as a fun project of series for the Albuquerque Genealogical Society Quarterly. It became a rewarding experience for Rosemary.