My Trails into the Past

   My father's sister, Lorene, passed away this week on 26 Nov 2012.  She died peacefully in her sleep.  She was my father's oldest of three sisters.  Here is a short bio I wrote in 2004. Lorene High School       Ethel Lorene Hork was born Aug 3, 1923 in Santa Monica, California.  She attended St. George's Catholic Grammar School and Chaffey Union High School in Ontario. In grammar school, Lorene remembers "skipping second grade to the third grade and crowning the Blessed Virgin in Our May Church procession." She also won the American Legion School award.       Her first job was as an usherette in a movie theater in Napa. She was paid $12.00 a week. She worked for the Army as a civilian for 18 months and lived in Japan not far from the Imperial Palace. After working there, she traveled around the world with friends visiting Asia, the Middle East and Europe. She returned to the United States on the Queen Mary. Lore...

This post was originally posted on  October 17, 2011 but thought it was appropriate to repost today on Veteran's Day. Seaman Cyril W. Hork My grandfather, William Cyril Hork (1899-1967) served in the United States Navy.   His active service in the Navy was between January 5, 1918, where he enlisted at Salt Lake City, Utah, and June 14, 1919 where he was discharged, again at Salt Lake City.[1] I have his Service Record and learned he used another variation of his name: Cyril Willis Hork.  You can see his signature here: I also learned where he trained and served.  His training took place in San Diego and at Mare Island, California.  He then was stationed at the U.S. Sub Base in San Pedro, California.  From March 31, 1919 to Jun 12, 1919 he served on the U.S.S. Alert. So what was this  USS Alert ?  I found information on the website  California Center for Military History  and there was a photo of the  USS Alert . ...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has a fun Saturday blog activity and today I decided to play.  What the Name Roulette is: Find the name of one of your great-grandmothers. Divide her birth date by 90 and round to the nearest whole number.  Use that number to find the ancestor in your tree with the same Ahnetafel number. Write 3 facts about that ancestor. To find the roulette number I took the birthdates of all four of my great-grandmothers and found that by dividing by 90, I came up with the same rounded number of 21.  The ancestor with 21 is my great-great-grandmother, Mary Sheehan. Mary Sheehan was born probably in Cahirkeem, Co Cork, Ireland. (1)  I do not know her exact birthdate.  The two census entries (1870 & 1880) in the United States have her birth year as 1827 and 1832. Her tombstone listed her age as 70 making her birth in 1832. She married Jeremiah Sullivan sometime around 1841-1842, as their first child was born in Nov 1843. (2) ...