My Trails into the Past

Growing up, pancakes were a special Sunday morning treat. No homemade pancakes from scratch for us—not when Bisquick could do the trick. Mom used an electric griddle, making lots of pancakes at once. My favorite were the tiny pancakes made from the stray drips. I love anything miniature. A stack of hot cakes came with dabs of margarine between them, and homemade syrup from sugar and maple flavoring or imitation maple syrup from the store. We were too poor for real butter and maple syrup. Sometimes we had strawberry jam that hadn’t set well which made a good syrup substitute. With our own kids, we made pancakes from Bisquick but had real butter and maple syrup, though my youngest preferred powdered sugar on top instead. French Toast was preferred over pancakes and we used a recipe in the Cooks Illustrated cookbooks. Their paternal grandmother made Swedish pancakes, either the traditional dollar-sized ones from a special pan or larger ones from a crepe pan. She served them with but...

Outside activities included an eye doctor appointment, train club show, and phenology. I spent much of the days researching and writing.   Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I worked Dean at the History Center and entered entered more books into the library database from his donation. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I met while she was on the road heading back up to Oregon and I enjoyed hearing about Stewart’s birthday party. The only other meeting this week was the CCCGS’ Genealogy Café. Genealogy Writing/Research : I continued working on the Wollenweber family, this week writing and researching about his wife, Philippina Voehringer and her family. I submitted a piece about Louis W. Wollenweber for peer review in the Writing for Discovery course, and I gave feedback on two other pieces. Blog Posts Published: Working as a Baker: What Louis W. Wollenweber did in Cleveland For the theme of “working for a living,” I wrote about my husband’s 2x-great-grandfather...

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)  Who is Ancestor #50 in your Ahnentafel list?  What were his birth date and place, his parents, death date and place, spouse's name, marriage date and place, and how many children they had, and which of his children do you descend from?   Thank you to Lisa S. Gorrell for this week's SNGF challenge topic. Here's mine: Today, I’m focusing on ancestor number 50 in my husband’s family, which is Lars Michäelsson. He was born 6 November 1795 in Åsenhöga, Jönköping län, Sweden to Michael Larsson and Martha Mänsdotter. He was baptized on 15 November 1795. He married Cajsa Svensdotter on 8 February 1795 in Åsenhöga. They lived at Ingarp Södegârd where he was a farmer. They had nine children. Lars died on 9 August 1873 and his wife, Casja died on 12 September 1874. My hus...

Philippina Voehringer Wollenweber was my husband’s paternal 2x-great-grandmother, the grandmother of his grandmother, Matilda Davey Gorrell. I am lucky that I found Philippina in the IGI very early in my research and have since found the church records of her family in the German state of Württemberg. Let us cover her timeline first, and then search for more documents in Full-text search and in newspaper search. 1834. May 26/28   Philippina Margaretha Vöhringer was born to Adam Vöhringer and Maria Agnes Reiff. She was baptized in the presence of Johan Reiff and two others, who are too difficult to read. [1] 1857. Sept. 1.        She arrived in New York aboard the SS Gebhard . She was listed as 30 years old and no occupation. [2]                                 COMMENT: The age is off, as age 30 woul...