My Trails into the Past

A new (to me) database is on Ancestry.com called “U.S., Northern Pacific Railway Company Personnel Files, 1890-1963.”  I was pretty excited because until this point, I have had no direct ancestors who worked for the railroad. I’ve been a huge railfan most of my life and I was pleasantly surprised to have my grandfather turn up in this database. The Northern Pacific Railway Company was based out of Minnesota but had tracks that went west as far as the Pacific Ocean. My grandfather, William Cyril Hork, lived in Hamilton, Montana, which is in western Montana near the Idaho border. [1] Northern Pacific Ry Co map; wikipedia So what is this database all about? This is a “collection of personnel files from the Northern Pacific Railway Company…and includes company correspondence, job history, salary and promotion documents, leaves of absence, and more.” So this is more than a database. It has digital images of the records! The employee records can include multiple...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has a new assignment for us. 1) Who is your most recent immigrant ancestor?  I'm assuming that your ancestors moved from one country to another at some point in time. 2)  Tell us about that person - name, birth and death, emigration and immigration country and port, date or year of immigration, etc. My most recent immigrant was Anna Maria Gleeson, who arrived in the United States from Canada in 1879 or 1880. [1] There’s confusion as to the exact date she arrived. The year 1880 was stated in the 1900 census. [2]   Her father stated on his naturalization that he arrived April 1879, [3] but later stated 1880 on the 1900 census [4] and 1879 on the 1910 census. [5] Anna filed an intention to naturalized and stated on 7 Oct 1880, that she arrived at the port of Huron in the month of February 1879. [6] Davison Co, 2nd Judicial District, Declarations of Intention 1880-1886, p 24, Ann Gleeson. She was born 13 Feb 1860 i...

On 13 November 1863 in Tidersrum, Ostergotland, Sweden, Carl Johan Ericksson and Stina Maja Samuelsdotter were married. [1] Tidersrum, Östergötland,  1863, pg 29, no. 5, Erickson-Samuelsdotter They were my daughters’ paternal third great-grandparents. Their daughter, Mathilda Lovisa Eriksson-Holm immigrated to the United States and married Pehr Alfred Andersson Lundquist. Carl Johan was the son of Eric Svensson and Christina Carlsdotter, [2] and Stina Maja was the daughter of Samuel Persson and Maja Stina Jonasdotter. [3] Carl Johan was a tailor [skräddare] and he and Stina Maja had 9 children. Three known children immigrated to America: Matilda Lovisa, Carolina, and Axel Fredrick. Household Examination, AI-13 1866-1870," Karl Johan Eriksson, Bjerkefall, p 2 Here is a household examination in about 1866. They were living in Bjerkefall. This record shows Carl and Stina with their first two daughters, one of whom had died the previous year. This record g...

Today is November 11, a day we honor veterans who served in the Armed Forces. I do not have many direct ancestors who were veterans, but I still want to honor those who were. This list includes those ancestors of my husband (in blue) and mine (in red). World War II Tom J. Johnston Jr. Tom J. Johnston Jr ., U.S. Navy. He served just a short time and was discharged due to a medical disability. He had been stationed in Idaho. George J Gorrell George Joseph Gorrell , U.S. Army. He was a staff sergeant with the 913th Air Engineering Squadron. He served in England and Germany. World War I William Cyril Hork William Cyril Hork , U.S. Navy. He served in submarine service and was last stationed in Long Beach aboard the submarine tender, USS Alert . Civil War Amos Gorrell Jr. Amos Gorrell , Jr., Union Army. Co A, 18th Ohio. George Wilson Lancaster , Confederate. He ...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has a new assignment this week: What is your computer history - what have you used, when did you get it, what did you do on it, etc. I started with computers at California State University, Hayward by taking a computer class given in the Math department. I think it was 1977 and I don’t think there was a computer science department yet. The teacher taught us 3 languages at the same time: BASIC, FORTRAN, and COBOL. We could turn in assignments in any language we wanted. For Basic, we had terminals where we wrote code, however we needed to punch cards to write code in Fortran. Once the cards were turned in, we waited a hour for the result: often some type of typo that caused the program to fail. I never bothered with Cobol. I liked the orderliness of writing code but couldn’t figure out a way to make use of it outside of school. I majored in Biological Sciences and was graduating the next quarter. The next year, I was working in the office of...

Randy Seaver from Genea-Musing has an assignment today to discuss our memories of Halloween. I don’t have any pictures of me dressed in Halloween costumes and I don’t remember many costumes, but once I was a ghost made from a sheet. I don’t remember Trick or Treating before we moved to Walnut Creek in 1963. In Walnut Creek, we lived on a quiet country road with about a dozen houses. We would go to these houses first, and then our parents would drive us over to the next block or to another neighborhood where there were more houses. I made the wizard costume on the right. Our favorite house on our block to visit was Mrs. Peterson’s. She had freshly baked cookies and homemade fudge. These were delicious treats. She always oohed and ahed about our costumes.  Mr. Gardner lived across from her and his treats for us were usually an apple from his tree and boxes of raisins. At the time we didn’t appreciate the “healthy” treats. I remember when kids stopped Trick or Treati...

I am participating in the DearMyrtle study group called Tracing Immigrant Origins - Passenger Records Study Group. The 1860 census revealed more detail in the place of birth than more recent census records. Here is the census for my husband's family, Ludwig & Philapena Wollenweber in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. [1] 1860 Jefferson Co, Kentucky census, pop. sched., 2nd Ward Louisville, p 563-64, dwelling 1970, fam 3256, L.W. Wollenweber household,  Ancestry.com  (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 Jul 2010), citing U.S. National Archives and Records Administration M653, roll 375. What can be seen on this census for the place of birth are the actual countries. At this time, Germany is not yet a country by the name of Germany, but rather, many small countries and principalities, such as Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Saxony, and Hessen. I wondered about the instructions for the census enumerator and found the instructions for recording the place of birth...

1) Since this was Back to the Future week, I have a related challenge: Do you recall what you were doing in 1985? Family, school, work, hobbies, technology, genealogy, vacations, etc? 2) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. What was I doing in 1985? I'd been married for just 5 years and we were living in our current home in Martinez. No kids yet. I was working for Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) as a train operator, probably working on the Concord to Daly City line. Somewhere in storage I have my run notebooks and could probably figure out what shift I was working.  It was probably something like 1130-1930 with Tuesday and Wednesdays off because I had lousy seniority, since I had only been there 7 years. My hobbies at the time did not include genealogy. I was a member of the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society. I might have been Secretary, but I can't remember when I was first elected. The club me...

Another great assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings . Here is my assignment: 1) Do you know how, when and where your parents met? 2) Please tell the family story in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in your own Facebook or Google+ post. When I put together a family history of my father, William J. Hork's Gleeson line, I sent out questionnaires for my dad, his sisters, and my cousins to fill out. One of the questions was how did you meet your spouse. He said that he met Lela Nell Johnston at the Walnut Festival. The Walnut Festival was held yearly in Walnut Creek, California in September to celebrate the walnut harvest. A long time ago, a lot of the valley was covered in walnut orchards and Walnut Creek had a walnut packing house, where the trains of the Sacramento Northern would haul them out. The Walnut Festival was a weekend affair were one could ride on carnival rides, eat great junk food, and play games. And of course it was a place to me...

I am participating in the DearMyrtle study group called  Tracing Immigrant Origins - Passenger Records Study Group . We are to provide a link to a passenger list record we have found for one of our ancestors. This passenger list that I found was a treasure, because it took a long time to find. The family of my husband was Lundquist. The earliest census that I found for them was the 1870. Brothers "Andrew" and Gustave were living next door to each other in Jefferson County, Iowa. They each had a wife and children. This census gave no immigration data. This family was difficult to find. I couldn't find any Lundquist families that fit the pattern of the family. Then I remembered about the naming patterns of Swedes. Gustav's and Anders' father's name was Elias. Maybe they were listed with the surname Eliasson? Sure enough, I found the two brothers and their family on the ship list of the SS Manchester, which arrived in New York 9 Jul 1866.[1] 1866 Ship List for...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another great assignment. Here is our assignment: 1) Remember when you were 10 or 11 years old and in fifth grade at school? Was that one of the best times in your life? Or not? 2) Tell us about your fifth grade memories and the highlights of that time of your life - in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or Google+. I attended Parkmead Elementary in Walnut Creek, California for fifth grade. Mrs. Griffin was our teacher and she was the hardest teacher I ever had. She hated our handwriting and made us re-learn cursive all over with all of the exercises. She was also one of those teachers who seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. I think we wore her out because she retired after our school year! But the best part of 5th grade was joining Junior Girl Scouts. I was part of Troop 374. [1] We met once a week in the Kindergarten room and our leaders, Mrs. Bailey & Mrs. Hanson, were teachers, I think (though ...

Today during the DearMyrtle "Mondays With Myrt" we got to talking about Toolboxes. I wanted to share a photo of the toolbox I made in OneNote and had a hard time figuring out a way to share. So I decided to write a blog post about it. I got the idea from Christine Sisko Svircev at the "OneNote for Genealogy" group on  Facebook . She posted a photo of how she created categories and sub-categories. It was colorful and that’s what attracted me to her post. I had watched Thomas MacEntee talk about genealogy toolboxes either at an in-person lecture or via a webinar. Having only bookmarks in your browser is just not practical and so hard to keep organized. Plus there was no place you could annotate what this website was all about! Enter OneNote.  I had been using OneNote off and on. I like the Notebook set-up with Dividers and Pages. It’s how I organized my paper genealogy binders. So when I first started with OneNote in my Office 2010 program, I set up Fam...

It's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun and Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has a great one. Here is my assignment: 1)  Answer these questions in my survey about your genealogy resources and usage: a)  Which genealogy software programs for your computer do you use (e.g., Family Tree Maker, Reunion, GRAMPS, etc.)? I use Rootsmagic as my primary genealogy program, but also have Legacy Family Tree and PAF loaded on the computer.  Sometimes I want to create a special report in Legacy. I also find details missing from some of my sources because of how PAF transferred the GEDCOM to Rootsmagic. So I have to go into the record in PAF and then copy and paste. b)  Which online family trees have information submitted by you - in either a separate online tree (e.g., Ancestry Member Tree) or a universal (collaborative) online tree (e.g., WikiTree)?  I have no trees online except the tree uploaded to FamilyTreeDNA profile of my grandmother. I have added info to FamilySearc...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another wonderful Saturday Night assignment: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1) Do you know which of your ancestors appears the most times in the Census records? How many years? Are there duplicate entries? 2) Describe that ancestor's entries in the records in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or Google+. I checked several ancestors who I know lived a long life. The best candidate turned out to be my daughter's paternal 2nd great-grandfather. Amos Gorrell, Jr. lived from 1837-1928. He appeared in 9 census records from 1840 to 1920. 1840 , he was just a tick mark in the Beaver Co. Pennsylvania household of Amos Gorrell (his father) as one of the males under age 5. 1850 , he was 13 year old in the Jackson Co, Ohio household of Amos Gorrell (his father) 1860 , he was a 23 year old in the Ross Co, Ohio household of Amos Gorrell (his...

Another great activity created by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings to help us share something about our families in our blog. 1) What year was one of your great-grandfathers born? Divide this number by 75 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number." 2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel" - your software will create this - use the "Ahnentafel List" option, or similar). Who is that person, and what are his/her vital information? 3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number." 4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post. 1.  Johann Anton Hork was my oldest grandfather on my paternal side. He was born 9 Nov 1843 in Oberhundem, Westfalia (Ge...