My Trails into the Past

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) Our family trees contain historical persons who came from places all over the world.  Each of our ancestral lines came from somewhere. 2)  Can you identify your Farthest-Flung Ancestor (FFA)?  Who in your ancestral tree came from the most geographically distant place from where you live now? What brought them (or their descendants) to where your family ended up? Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this idea. Here's mine: My farthest-flung ancestors are Vincent Sievert and his wife, Susannah Raduntz , who were from Posen, in present-day Poland. They were ethnic Germans who came to the US in 1852 and settled in Joliet, Will County, Illinois. The distance from Schneidemühl to my home in Martinez, California, is 9,215 kilometers (5,726 miles). My husband’s farthest-flung ancestor, Ludwig Wilhelm Wollenweber ,...

This week, I’m taking the Land Platting class at GRIP (Genealogy Research Institute of Pittsburgh) now run by NGS. This course is taught by Jerry Smith, Kimberly Powell, and Sydney Cruice. We have learned lots of skills, platting, placing our plats on topo maps, and solving problems. In my spare time, I have platted the four deeds concerning Amos’ land in Ohio township. The first piece of land was described as follows: On 13 September 1836, Amos purchased 124 acres of land situated in South Beaver and Ohio Townships with a mortgage of $496 from the Famers and Mechanics Bank, land described as: “Beginning at the southwest corner at a post, thence by land of said Bank N89E 159 perches, 5/10 to a post, thence by land of William Shearer, N148 perches to a post, thence by land in the possession of Jacob Todd S80W 165 perches to a white oak grubb, thence by land in possession of same, S1W 116 perches to the place of beginning, containing 124 acres and allowance (being part of a larger ...

The tax records I have found for my husband’s Gorrell family have been a godsend. These are yearly records organized by township and boroughs that have helped me place his ancestors in time and place, and discover a possible generation further back than I knew. Here is one entry from 1804 that I’m trying to understand. There are no headings for the numbers, though the taxable items are labeled. The Gorrell men are marked with the yellow highlighter. This tax list even gives me a sense of how the name was pronounced back then. It didn’t have the strong first syllable accent that our family uses. These images were from the Beaver County Genealogy and History Center in Beaver, Pennsylvania. I had a volunteer there scan the pages from two different townships and one borough that listed Gorrell men in various spellings. They did not have the originals, but rather photocopies that were bound together by township and borough. I remembered seeing them when I visited in 2018 but I wasn’t ...

Outside activities included phenology, History Center, lunch with friends, and an airplane ride to Pittsburgh for GRIP. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I volunteered at the History Center, working on accessions by entering them into PastPerfect. I moved the CalTrans collection to the back hall shelves and the new books from the Board of Supervisors to the County room. I also entered some books into the library database. I sent out the BCG press release.   The Writer’s group met this week and we discussed Jacqueline and Margaret’s writing samples, as well as a chance to meet in person when Jacqueline comes down to visit in September. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I met and discussed our trip to Pittsburgh. Genealogy Writing/Research : I worked on Amos (1804-1890), who lived in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. It was a bit of a struggle getting all the deeds recorded and working out the tax records in two different townships. Blog Posts Published: Mam-ma’...

Amos Gorrell, Senior, was born perhaps on 7 August 1804 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. [1] He married Leah Wollam on 24 May 1827 in Columbiana County, Ohio by William Reed. [2] Columbiana County is just west of Beaver County. He died 14 September 1890 in Ross County, Ohio. [3] The questions to answer in this session are: When did he purchase real estate? When did he move to Ohio? I’ll be looking at census, tax, and deed records, and searching in full-text search. 1830s Amos did not appear in the 1830 census, even though he was married with a wife. Likely, he lived with a parent. Four Gorrell households were enumerated in 1830 Beaver County. Samuel Gorrell had one male age 30 to 39 and one female aged 40 to 49 with one male under 5. [4] James Gorrell had one male 40 to 49 and a male 15-19. [5] Sarah Gorrell had one male 15 to 19, and 20 to 29, one female 15 to 19, 20 to 29, and 50 to 59. [6] And on the previous page: Joseph Gorrell had one male 20 to 29, 3 males under 5, and ...