My Trails into the Past

I have completed two hundred and thirty-four (234) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Outside home activities involved volunteering at the History Center and the Oakland FamilySearch Center, running trains at the gallery in Pleasanton, and visiting the San Francisco Public Library history archive by riding BART. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   This week, Jacqueline and I met on Zoom and I helped her fix a table of contents in a Word document. On Wednesday, I went to San Francisco with the NorCal chapter of APG to tour the history archive at the San Francisco Public Library. The five of us then had lunch at food trucks in the Civic Center Plaza. Linda and I rode BART in for easy access. Genealogy Writing/Research: I got started on a couple of articles I’m writing for Der Blumenbaum and Nugget . I also worked on some research and document transcriptions for my Lancaster and Davey families. Blog Post Published: What We Don’t Talk About Enough . For 52 Ancestors’ theme of

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings :  1)  Which of your ancestors lived a life of hardship or sadness?  Who had few possessions or resources, was involved in violence or war, lived through a famine, or suffered forced immigration?   Here's mine: I have a story from an interview with a great uncle, O.D. “Pig” Johnston. Yes, that’s his name and what he had been called since a toddler. The interview was conducted by Jewell Dukes Huddleston and published in two installments in the Comanche Chief in her column called “Wagon Wheels keep on turnin’” on 29 November 1979 and 6 December 1979. He was 81 at the time of the interview. Here is the transcript of what he said about his maternal grandmother, Amanda A. (Haley) Jones. “. . . a twice-told tale recalls the trials experienced by Johnston’s maternal grandmother in her trek to Texas. Her husband [Benjamin W. J

Learning about our family history is exciting. We’re hoping to find interesting people who have done interesting things--maybe even outstanding things. We’re hoping to connect to famous people in history. Sometimes we do, but most of us have ancestors and family members who just lived normal lives, working hard at surviving and making a life for themselves and their families. Along the way, we discover family members who struggled with surviving and supporting themselves or their families. They may have even abandoned their families. We ask ourselves why? Often these stories don’t get passed down through the family and we don’t learn why. Often the root cause is mental illness, something we only recently talked about in our culture. In the past, a person with mental illness may have been sent away to a hospital or home and forgotten. It’s a shock when we discover a family member in a mental home or hospital through a census record or an obituary. My first experience with this is

I have completed two hundred and thirty-three (233) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Outside my home activities included volunteering at the History Center, running trains at the gallery in Pleasanton and the Walnut Creek club, and attending the RootsMagic SIG at the Oakland FamilySearch Center. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Monday Morning Group met on Zoom and I spoke about my trip to Texas. Jacqueline and I spoke on the phone for a bit. RootsMagic SIG was held live at the Oakland FamilySearch Center and there were at least fifteen present. I hope some decide to attend our Zoom meetings in the future. I will be leading the discussion while Keith is on vacation. Genealogy Writing/Research: I worked on cleaning up my download folder from past research sessions and entering data into RootsMagic. I researched some on the Davey family and wrote my 52 Ancestors post about the search for Thomas Davey’s parents. Blog Post Published: Common Surnames Can Cause a Mix-Up When T

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing s is to: 1)  Most genealogists try to stay in contact with their aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Who among them made the most effort to stay in contact with your family?  Did they write, use the telephone, or send cards or gifts?  Did they visit you, and/or did you visit them? Here’s mine: My mother was a letter writer, though she also enjoyed talking on the telephone. Few of her letters have been saved, mostly ones sent to her mother. She wrote weekly to her mother-in-law and Nana wrote back. Her sisters-in-law wrote to her, too. I remember she had a big box full of these letters that she saved. After she died, I looked for the letters, thinking they might contain some good genealogical information. However, the box was not to be found. My sister said that a family of mice discovered them in a closet and used them to make nests. M

When searching for the parents of someone with a common name, one must work through multiple search returns. One example is the 2x-great-grandfather of my husband, Thomas Davey. I started with his marriage to Mary Nicholas on 21 May 1832 at St. Agnes in Cornwall, England. This was from an entry in the 1859 published bible owned by Thomas and Mary Davey. His birth was also recorded in the bible as 3 September 1807. [1] There is no mention of his parents. Two Thomas Daveys The FamilySearch collection entitled “Birth, Marriage, & Death, England, Cornwall Parish Registers, 1538-2010” returned two results for Thomas Davey, baptized in 1807. Both baptisms occurred after Thomas’ birth in September 1807 so either record could be for him, or neither of them. Let’s analyze them. Thomas Davey, son of James and Elizabeth (Thomas-1) The Thomas-1 was baptized on 9 November 1897 in Camborne Parish, but no birth date is listed. The parents in this record are listed as James Davey and Elizabe

I have completed two hundred and thirty-two (232) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Besides phenology, I volunteered at the History Center and the Oakland FamilySearch Center. I also attended the historical society’s event, Author in the Archives on Sunday. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Jacqueline and I met on Monday on Zoom and again on Saturday by phone. Also on Monday, I attended Kinseekers and this was the first time no one had sent in a question. Some of us shared some of our recent findings and I shared about discovering my uncle served on two ships in the San Francisco Bay during WWII. Genealogy Writing/Research: This week, I spent most of my research time reviewing the files I collected on my research trip to Texas last May. I had photographed pages from several books at different libraries and historical societies. I renamed each file and made a complete PDF of all the images. Lastly, I moved them into a “book” folder under the appropriate surname folder. These b