My Trails into the Past

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This week the theme is black sheep, as in ancestors who didn’t behave well. Usually, these are those ancestors who caused enough trouble that their actions were found in the newspaper, making all of the details about their mishaps known to everyone within the reading public, and now with digitization, to anyone. I don’t seem to have one of those kind of ancestors but thought about someone who just didn’t follow the norms. Or couldn’t seem to keep his act together. My great-grandfather, Johan Anton Hork, was just that. He was born in Oberhundem, Kreis Olpe, in Westfalen on 9 November 1843. [1] He was the fifth child of ten born to Joseph Heinrich Horoch and Maria Catharine Trösster. His father died on 5 Oct...

I started this blog seven years ago. It wasn't my first blog. " Mam-ma's Southern Family " was the first but it's theme was too restrictive. I was only writing about my mother's mother's line. I wanted to give equal coverage for the rest of my family and my husband's family, so I started "My Trails Into the Past" blog to do just that. In the past year I started writing more regularly. I started the Monday Genea-pourri  series in November 2017 after seeing Randy Seaver start writing with the meme. This gives me a chance to reflect on what I have done the previous week. Even though it is to be focused on genealogy, I often write about other activities I did with family and friends. Isn't that part of our future genealogy? In January, I have participated in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  meme, started by Amy Johnson Crow , where we write about our ancestors (or ancestors' siblings) based on weekly themes. This has been a fun activi...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy At the History Center , I continued working on the Finding Aid, especially those from the Special Collections. Also, a researcher requested an appointment with me in a week in July to work with court cases concerning Chinese. I’m looking forward to that. Four of us met in the Certification Peer Study Group this week, checking in and discussing the proposed DNA standards for the BCG book Genealogy Standards.  We decided to make known our opinions. I heard back from the client and he was pleased with the finished product. He asked for an additional “tree” showing the relationship of his mother to a great-great uncle and to see if the signer of the Declaration of Independence, Joseph Hewes, was related to his Massachusetts Hewes family. I...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy Monday Morning Genealogy session was small but everyone had opportunity to share and to collaborate with each other. We continued the conversation at IHOP. At the History Center , we finished the processing and finding aid for the John Baldwin collection and started thinking about what collections to do next. I also began learning how to put the special collections into PastPerfect. Our monthly board meeting was this week. On Saturday, I attended the presentation at the Campbell Theater on Highway 21. I love the new theater seats in the theater and the presentations were wonderful with lots of nice old photos. I gave a presentation on Beginning German Genealogy to the “How-To” series at the Concord Family History. Lots of enthusiastic people...

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My name is Lisa. I was not named after anyone. From name books, Lisa is derived from Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a Greek name, meaning either “oath of God” or “God is satisfaction.” Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist. After doing a lot of family research, I have found many ancestors on both my father’s and mother’s sides, as well on my husband's side. I also named my first born, Elizabeth. So checking in my RootsMagic database, which contains ancestors of my children, I found: 10 Elizabeths with no surname 86 people with Elizabeth as their first name 46 people with Elizabeth as their middle name There may have been more Elizabeths with the women whose middle names were listed as E....

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1) It's Father's Day in the USA on Sunday, so let's talk about our fathers.  2)  What did your father really like to do in his work or spare time?  Did he have hobbies, or a workshop, or did he like sports, or reading, or watching TV? 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. There were several things my father liked to do, especially after he retired: gardening, cooking/grilling, and football watching. I wrote about his love of football in this post .  In 1990, they had to move because of the freeway behind them was expanding, so they bought the old Potter house across the street. This property was larger and the backyard was nicely landscaped. My dad puttered around with that and also grew a vegetable garden. And then in the kitchen, he loved to create dishes from either food from h...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Family This past week was more about family than genealogy. My daughter, Margaret was home for a wedding and we did several things together: Monday evening, we met with my sisters, Sabrina and Renee, at Eureka, a new burger place at the Willows Shopping Center. Only Renee had a burger while the rest of us ate fish tacos. It was a great evening of catching up with each other. sister, Renee, daughter Margaret, sister Sabrina, and me Tuesday evening, we went to a San Francisco Giants game where we watched them play the Arizona Diamondbacks. Margaret and me at AT&T Park Sunday, we all attended the memorial for our long-time friend, Bill Swindell, held at Larkey Park in Walnut Creek, next door to the train club. I first met Bill wh...

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to: 1) What was your best genealogy "research find" in May 2016?  It could be a record, it could be a photograph, etc.  Whatever you judge to be your "best." 2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, or in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. After listening to three presentations from Jennifer Holik at Rootstech, I have been wanting to learn more about my great uncle, John Cyril Sullivan’s military service during World War I. He was injured during the war that caused him problems his whole life. I felt that I knew nothing about where he served. I was really bummed out when the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis sent back my request for his military records saying they had no record for him. Mm. I have a photo of him in an Army uniform. His tombstone says he was in the Navy. So the fire didn’t destroy the Navy record...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. Genealogy I presented the last class at the California Genealogical Society ’s Record Series Class in Oakland on Wednesday. Nine of the ten were present and we took a class photo. Records Class Participants For client work , I spent most of Memorial day plus some other days, I worked further on the genealogy summary. Three generations have been completed. I continued working on the John Baldwin collection with John. We almost have all the loose photos connected to the paperwork, so that they can be scanned next. Blog Writing : I wrote a few blog posts these past two weeks: I wrote about my husband’s great-grandfather and how far he traveled in his line of work in the 52 Ancestors post Family After spending time at the Coast Division M...