My Trails into the Past

I do not remember when I started doing genealogy research. It was sometime in the early ‘90s. I remember the place where I first found my great-grandfather on the 1920 Soundex and then the 1920 census record. I was taken to Sutro Library in San Francisco by my friend, Susan. I was hooked. I spent any free moment to keep at it, though it was hard at that time because not much was online except RootsWeb and county pages on USGENWeb . I visited libraries and wrote letters to libraries and repositories, sending along my self-addressed stamped envelopes. It was fun coming home to the mail with one of my envelopes in it, wondering what treasures might there be. I also read books, beginning with Doane’s book, Searching for Your Ancestors , and later reading Ancestry’s The Source. Somewhere along the way, I knew I should keep track of what I was finding and I kept spiral-bound notebooks of my searches, whether positive or negative. I just wished I had been more organized, separating out ...

We left Kansas City Monday night, arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, and arrive home by that evening. I have played catch up at home most of the week, going out to do phenology, and weeding in my front yard. The rain while we were gone kept the plants alive. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I worked on the BCG-sponsored webinar press release and it will go out next week. Genealogy Meetings:  I met up with Jacqueline to discuss AirTable, our trip to GRIP, and a trip to visit her in April. Genealogy Writing/Research : I am working on the Lancaster family for March’s 12 for ‘26. There is a lot I already have, and I found a lot in full-text search at FamilySearch and newspapers at the Portal to Texas History . I’ve written three blog posts on my other blog, Mam-ma’s Southern Family and am working on the fourth one. Blog Posts Published: Changed My Thinking For the theme of “Changed Your Thinking,” I wrote about how learning some things about our ancestors c...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  RootsTech 2026 just finished today.  Did you watch any classes online?   2)  Which online class was your favorite, perhaps the most informative, most helpful, or most entertaining, for you?    Here's mine: I viewed 6+ sessions at #NotAtRootsTech2026, watching the online presentations live. I attended the conference in person last year, but arrived home from vacation only a day before the conference started. I wasn’t ready to hop on a plane yet. Angela McGhie hit a homerun with her presentation “The GPS in Practice: Examples of Reasonably Exhaustive Research,” held first thing on Thursday morning. Her handout has two checklists: one showing what constitutes reasonably exhaustive research, and the other a list of records to consider when doing reason...

When we start out with our genealogy research, we are just name collectors. We find our ancestors listed in census records, vital records, and in cemetery databases. These people have names, dates of birth, marriage, and death, and name of their children. But in this early state, we really know nothing about them as people. As we become more experienced and begin to research in more advanced records such as deeds, probates, wills, court, and military records, we learn a bit more about our person. We learn how they interacted with the local government, with their neighbors, and with their family. Newspapers also reveal something about their activities, some good and some bad. Some Examples I remember being proud of my great-grandmother, Anna Marie Gleeson, who applied for homestead land in Dakota Territory. She ended up purchasing the 160 acres. However, sometime after her marriage to John H. Sullivan, the land was sold by the sheriff for failure of paying the taxes. A newspaper a...

Still on our trip, leaving Ocala on Monday for NYC, arriving on Tuesday. Spent three days with daughter in cold NYC during the day. Left on Thursday for Chicago, arriving on Friday. After a stop for brunch at Lou Mitchell’s, we boarded the train for Kansas City. We visited cousin Kathleen on Saturday in Pittsburg, Kansas, and Roger & Annette in Kansas City on Sunday. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: None this week. Vacation time! Genealogy Meetings:  I attended the RootsMagic SIG meeting on Wednesday until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore—it was approaching 11 pm in NYC. Genealogy Writing/Research : I worked on writing about the Hork families in Montana and Germany for 12 for ‘26. Blog Posts Published: Resolving Conflicts: Element 4 of the GPS For the theme of “Conflicting Clues,” I wrote about resolving conflicts, the fourth element of the GPS, using one of my collateral lines as an example. Randy Seaver highlighted this post in his " Best of the Genea-Bl...

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)  Do you know what activities one of your ancestors/relatives engaged in?  How much detail do you know about those activities? 2)  Use the FREE artificial intelligence tool  Google Gemini 3  to describe what your ancestor or relative experienced in his/her activities (e.g., military service, a ship they migrated on, an occupation, an office they held, etc.).  Here's mine: I started out stating the following to Google Gemini 3: “My father-in-law was landing gear specialist during WWII in the Army Air Forces in England, stationed at Burtonwood. What would his job have been like?” The AI answer is this: That is a fascinating bit of family history. Being a landing gear specialist at RAF Burtonwood during WWII meant your father-in-law was at the absolu...

Johan Anton Hork (1843-1906) was my great-grandfather. He immigrated to the United States in 1870, married Julia Ann Sievert in 1872, had ten children, worked as a tailor, and died in Wyoming in 1906. I wrote about his life in The Family of Johan Anton Hork & Julia Ann Sievert – 12 for ’26 . Now is time to cover his origins in Germany. He was born on 9 November 1843 in Oberhundem, Westfalen. [1] It is a very small village in Kreis (District) Olpe. This area is now in the German state Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhein Westphalia). His baptism record was found and from there, working backward, his parent’s marriage and their baptism records were found. These records were found using microfilm at the Family History Library. Digital images are available now, but only at a FamilySearch Center. This is on my research plan the next time I am there. I want to update my source citations to the online images. For now, the reference will be to the microfilm number. On the name change. The...