time travel

I have decided I love looking back into the past. I started indexing. This means digitizing old records such as a censuses, draft cards, etc.. so that they can be easily accessible.
Because someone did this before me, I was able to find out about grandparents and greatgrandparents on both sides of my family. For example, I learned that on the Castro side, my dad's dad was a big wig landowner, el jefe if you will, and everyone around him worked for him. 
I spoke to my sister who lives in Mexico, and has had conversations with a certain older lady who is a cousin of ours. Mari, my sister learned about our grandfather thru this lady, Teresa. She said he was a mean boss as well as a hardworker. That he treated the people as peons, slave-like almost. Dang it! I didnt like hearing this, but there was a reason why he was on top.
As for Magdaleno, his son, my 'father', she said he was lazy, but ever so good at doing business. She said he could trade a piece of metal, junk essentially for a strong horse. I would like to know more about them, I am sure there is a noble, honest, decent person in there somewhere. I would like to know how they came about to be so 'well-to-do".  So for that, I will just keep on digging for answers!