SNGF - My Best Genealogy Vacation

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans

It's Saturday Night again –

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing:

1) Think about your genealogy career - have you taken a "genealogy or family history vacation?"
2) Tell us about one (or more) of them - where did you go, what research did you do, did you meet family members, etc.
3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post. Please leave a link in a comment to this post.

Here's Mine:

I think my best genealogy vacation was when my daughters and I took a road trip to Idaho and Montana, with a stop through Wyoming to visit Yellowstone National Park. We had just purchased a new 1999 Ford Explorer and it had no plates yet, so everywhere we went, no one knew we were tourists (at least no one knew we were from California).

Sightseeing
The first few days were spent sightseeing. We had no real plans—just drove and stopped at places that interested us. We checked out Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, and an Oregon Trail exhibit. We stopped to view the Grand Tetons and then headed for a day trip into Yellowstone National Park. We only saw a few elk and buffalo and checked out the hot springs and a waterfall.

We stayed overnight in West Yellowstone and the last room available at the Pioneer Inn. There was no phone in the room and we didn’t call Norman that night, and not again until the next night. He was so worried about us. This was before I had a cell phone. It was before smart phones and tablets. We chose the next motel by checking the CSAA book. My eleven-year-old checked out the entries and helped make the decisions. High on her list was a pool. High on the younger nine-year-old daughter's list was a breakfast bar. High on mine was an indoor corridor and non-smoking rooms.

Genealogy
Now to the genealogy part. We got to Anaconda first. My grandmother, Anna Sullivan, was born there, and we checked out the town and visited the history room, where the docent there found some documents on my grandmother’s brother-in-law’s work history at the Anaconda Smelter. I had hoped for employment records for her dad, but there were none. We also went to the cemetery and found her sister, Ethel’s grave. She died giving childbirth and the baby died, too.

Next, we went to Butte. This was where my grandmother married my grandfather, William Cyril Hork. I had tried ordering their marriage record but they couldn’t find one. So, we decided to go to the St. Patrick’s church office and see if they had a record. The office lady stuck us in a room and said to look through the books ourselves. They had all of the record books from the other churches that used to be in Butte. I gave a book to each of my daughters and told them what to look for. My oldest found it! The office lady made us a photocopy. I did not think to write down the page number or the book title. We took that copy back to the county courthouse and showed her the names and dates of the parties. She finally found the official one—it had been indexed incorrectly! We found it by going through the book by date.

We had other stops in Butte, too. I took a photo of the address where my grandmother’s aunt lived. Her husband had an electrical shop and she hosted my grandparent’s wedding supper. We also went to the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives. We looked at newspapers and found the announcement of my grandparent’s marriage.

The girls with their 2x-great-grandmother

We spent the night in Missoula and then headed to Hamilton. This was the town my grandfather grew up in. We first went to the Riverview Cemetery and found lots of Hork tombstones all together. His mother and several of his brothers and sisters were buried there. I found a surprise. I had wondered where his sister, Ida Colmann had died, and lo and behold, she was buried there, too.

Our last trip was to the Ravalli County Museum and Historical Society. There I found some newspaper clippings about the Hork family. They had a surname index, which was very helpful. My grandfather’s brother, Tony, had been the county recorder for fifty years.

By now, the girls were tired of genealogy research. There was a park across the street, but I didn’t feel it safe enough for them to play there while I was inside. So, the rest of the trip back to Boise was to their choosing. We stopped at a dollhouse store and got some small items and stopped along the way to see the views.

In Caldwell, we stayed at a motel, and after picking up my husband from the airport, we attended our niece’s wedding. Then the four of us drove back to the Bay Area, stopping in Nevada for late lunch-early dinner.

It was a very fun trip, but I might have put my kids off on genealogy—they still are not too keen on it. Still hoping that I can get one of them interested, at least enough to save my research.

Copyright © 2021 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.