My Trails into the Past

On a trip in the Spring of 2024, I made a research trip to Texas, spending time researching my mother’s family in Comanche, Dallas, Erath, and Rockwall Counties. This was my second trip to Texas. I had previously made a visit to Stephenville in Erath County with my grandmother in the late 1990s, and had taken photographs of resting places of her side of the family. This trip, I spent time visiting the cemeteries in Comanche County for the gravesites of my grandfather’s side of the family. Most of the Johnston family were buried in Hazeldell Cemetery. There is a discrepancy about the spelling of the name. The sign at the entrance spelled it Hazledell Cemetery. [1] Hazeldell Cemetery, Comanche Co, Texas Find a Grave spells it as Hazeldell or Hazledell Cemetery. [2] Wikipedia has Hazel Dell Cemetery. [3] This is probably the original spelling and the sign is just missing the extra space to support it. Hazel Dell was a small community in southeastern Comanche County. It had a schoo...

Outside activities included a hike at Castle Rock, volunteering at the History Center, phenology, dentist for a cleaning, meeting at the Board of Supervisors, and train club show.   Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: At the History Center, I worked on the Pleasant Hill Historical Society Collection refiling their clipping files into new archival folders. I also pulled deed records at the County Recorder’s Office for a research request. Friday, Tara, John, and I met with a clerk for the Board of Supervisors about a donation of old records they have. Genealogy Meetings:  None of my accountability members came to the Zoom meeting, probably because it was a holiday. We had a good group in the Roundtable, though. Rootsmagic SIG was interesting with Keith demonstrating using it to create a book. I will be hosting the SIG next month. Genealogy Writing/Research : I didn’t write as much this week, though I continued researching the Loveless family, finishing up with James Lo...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings , is to: 1)  How did you observe or celebrate the Bicentennial of America's Founding on 4 July 1976?   2)  What were you doing on that day? Did you or your family attend any special events to mark America's 200th birthday? Thank you to Marian B. Wood for this week's SNGF challenge! Here's mine: Like Randy, I do not have any recollection of the Bicentennial day in 1976. I was still attending college and living at home. Except for the year BART was on strike during the summer, I always attended summer quarter. Since it was Sunday, I may have attended church in the morning. My parents may have had a barbeque for dinner. I could have taken my two younger sisters to watch the fireworks held from Heather Farm Park. If so, we climbed up on the hill behind John Muir Hospital. I do remember doing that, I j...

Outside activities included a hike at Briones, volunteering at the History Center and the Oakland FamilySearch Center, yearly physical with my doctor, and lunch with Nancy and Terry.   Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: Monday, John and I met at the History Center to roughly inventory and clear a space for the Betty Maffei collection. That involved moving boxes around to make room and rehousing some of the collection into banker boxes for better stacking. I opened the History Center on Tuesday again. I started work on the extra boxes of Pleasant Historical Society Collection we found the day before. Our board meeting was canceled due to lack of members available. At the Oakland FamilySearch Center, I showed Laura how to find baptismal and marriage records when she had the old microfilm number. I attended Linda’s presentation on writing. Genealogy Meetings:  On Monday, I attended the NARA SIG meeting. We ended up talking a lot about military records and why there are...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, is to: 1)  Are there ancestor's occupations that you know nothing about? 2)  Pick a great-grandparent or earlier ancestor who held an unfamiliar job (cooper, cordwainer, hostler, etc.). Look it up and write a short description of what their daily work life might have been like.  Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this week's SNGF challenge! Here's mine: One of my husband’s family kin, Joseph McFall (1836-1908), was married to his great-grandfather, Frederick N Davey’s, sister, Catherine Rose Davey. On the Civil War draft registration, Joseph was listed as a caulker. [1] He lived in Jeffersonville, Clark County, Indiana, which is located on the Ohio River. There is a wonderful website, “Dictionary of Old Occupations: A-Z Index,” on Family Researcher ( https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dicti...

Outside activities included a hike at Pt. Pinole, volunteering twice at the History Center, and two days of train club show.   Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work:  I opened the History Center on Tuesday and closed on Wednesday. I worked on a query looking at deed indexes and court records. On Tuesday, I took minutes for the Sonoma County Genealogical Society board meeting. Genealogy Meetings:  On Monday, I attended the renewal accountability meeting and the military SIG. Josh and I met on Friday, catching up on our activities. Sunday, I attended book club and we discussed Paper Bullets. Genealogy Writing/Research : I attended two sessions of writing with the Level Up group. For  12 for ‘26, I did some full-text search on Ebenezer Loveless and wrote that up. I started writing up the timeline for his father, Jesse Loveless. Blog Posts Published: Searching in Cave Hill Cemetery for Vohringers For the theme of “at the cemetery,” I wrote about our visit t...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  Determine where your ancestral families were in May 1876 -- 150 years ago. 2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).   Here’s mine: I tried to get RootsMagic to put out a report, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I had to work this out by hand. Since I research both my lines and my husband’s lines (or more simply put, my children’s lines), I’ll list both sides of the family. The bold names are direct lines. Husband’s Paternal Line My husband’s 2x-great grandfather, Amos Gorrell, Jr. (1837-1928) was living in Cooper County, Missouri, with his wife, Catherine E. Shotts (1835-1918), and children, Louella R (1866-1938), Linnie Sarah (1868-1950), Joseph N (1869-1960), and Ada Leah (1872-1967), and Catherine’s son, Ma...