My Trails into the Past

Wallace William Waldron, my dad’s sister, Lorene E. Hork’s future husband, served in the United States Navy during World War II. Wally was born in Vallejo in 1922 but grew up in San Francisco where he graduated from Lowell High School in 1939. In 1940, he worked as a messenger until he enlisted in the Navy on 11 October 1940. From the database on Ancestry of World War II muster rolls, I discovered he served on two ships. [1] USS Argus (PY-14) [2] The USS Argus was commissioned on 13 February 1941. It started as a yacht built by Krupp Germaniawerft (Kiel, Germany) for Max C. Fleischmann of Santa Barbara (the same Fleischman family of the yeast company in Cincinnati) in 1927 and named Haida . The Navy had the Craig Shipbuilding Company in Long Beach convert it for Naval Service. The Argus’ duties were to patrol the San Francisco Bay which she did for the 12 Naval District. In September of 1941, she was transferred to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and renamed Pioneer . T

I have completed two hundred and twenty-eight (228) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I went to the History Center (twice), hike (outdoors), Oakland FamilySearch Center, and phenology (outdoors). Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   I met with Jacqueline. We worked on flights from Eugene to Salt Lake City. We’re both going on the CGS research trip to the FamilySearch Library in September. On Wednesday, I got back from my weekly hike in time to see Deb Dean give her certification journey. We had met when I was in Joliet last month. Genealogy Writing/Research: I worked on my Polly line more at the FamilySearch Center getting links from locked films. I finally transcribed all the newspaper articles I have found at the Portal to Texas History. I wrote about my progress on the timeline in a blog post this week. Blog Post Published: Automobiles My Parents Owned . For 52 Ancestors’ theme of “Automobiles” I wrote about the variety of cars my parents owned. I had photos of a few 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 tonight is to:  1)  Do you collect maps of the places where you have ancestors or family?  I do!  I love maps.  And have so many places! 2) Tell us about a recent map find for your genealogy and family history (it could be any time), and where you found it.  Here’s mine: Funny how this subject came up today. I just wrote a post about my progress in researching my ancestor, NHO Polly. Part of what I need to do in analyzing the other Polly men in Lewis County, Kentucky where I first find NHO Polly, I need to study some maps. Some Polly men lived on the Cabin Creek watershed and NHO Polly lived on the Kinniconick Creek watershed. One question would be: how close where these two creeks? It hasn’t been easy locating contemporary maps. These men lived there in 1840. I can locate several maps that are much more current. But nor

Since before my research trip to Texas last May, I have been working on my mother’s family line involving N.H.O. Polly. He is her third great-grandfather. His daughter, Martha Jane, married George W. Lancaster. Part of the goal of the research trip was to locate more documents about him at local historical societies and archives.  Timeline Family trees online name NHO’s parents, but I am not yet convinced. So, what I am doing is writing up what I know into a report. I am also creating a timeline of the events in his life and the source citations to those documents. This timeline is mostly of deed transactions, tax lists, census enumerations, and court records. I have added some historical events to put the times into context, such as the start and end of the Civil War, the formation of new counties, and the births and marriages of his children. Adding the source citations has been tedious. Some of the documents were found years ago on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt L

We were not well off and rarely had a new car. I remember some of the cars my parents owned but I don’t have photos of all of them. I located photos online for illustration. When my parents were married in 1952, my dad was driving a 1948 Chevy. Here’s a shot of them leaving on their honeymoon. And another shot of the car with Dad holding me in 1954. Sometime before 1963 or 64, they had another Chevy but I don’t have a photo of our car. I kind of remember it looked like this one, which is a ’57 station wagon. We loved sitting or lying in the back portion and looking out the back window. After we moved to Walnut Creek, they bought a Rambler Ambassador station wagon. Here’s a shot of three of my siblings in front of the car. I’m not sure what happened to that car. My dad was promoted at work and was given a company car to drive. It was a Ford Country Squire station wagon and he was allowed to use it on the weekends. So perhaps that is when he sold the Rambler. The wagon can be seen in t

I have completed two hundred and twenty-eight (228) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I went to the History Center (twice), hike (outdoors), Oakland FamilySearch Center, and phenology (outdoors). Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   I met with Jacqueline. We worked on flights from Eugene to Salt Lake City. We’re both going on the CGS research trip to the FamilySearch Library in September. On Wednesday, I got back from my weekly hike in time to see Deb Dean give her certification journey. We had met when I was in Joliet last month. Genealogy Writing/Research: I worked on my Polly line more at the FamilySearch Center getting links from locked films. I finally transcribed all the newspaper articles I have found at the Portal to Texas History. I wrote about my progress on the timeline in a blog post this week. Blog Post Published: Automobiles My Parents Owned . For 52 Ancestors’ theme of “Automobiles” I wrote about the variety of cars my parents owned. I had photos of a few of

I have completed two hundred and twenty-seven (227) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I went out to an eye appointment (masked), the History Center, the lab for a blood draw (masked), phenology (outdoors), Roseville to see a steam engine (outdoors), and Mill Valley to give a genealogy presentation. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Monday was Kinseekers Military SIG and I shared a WWII Classification list. I met with Jacqueline on Tuesday afternoon via Zoom and we discussed the CGS trip to the FamilySearch Library. During Amigos, Jacqueline and I discussed Family Tree Notebooks. At Roundtable on Wednesday, the group talked about writing. It was a very good discussion. At book club on Sunday, we all shared books we had read during the past few months since the last BYOB (bring your own book). Genealogy Writing/Research: I did not do any writing or research this week. I had too many meetings that took up my spare time, especially those meetings where I took minutes. Blog Post