My Trails into the Past

This is my second year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This is the last post for 2019 and it is supposed to be about ourselves. What would future generations would like to know about me. I have been the keeper of the family history.  I’m sure other members of my family know family stories, but I am the one who has been researching since the late 1980s. I find researching very interesting and it challenges me in ways that few other things do. When I was in college, I loved to do the research but didn’t like writing the paper. The act of finding the information was fun. Getting it down into logical and meaningful order was hard. I still find it hard to get what I have learned into a coherent story. I am a technical writer, one who can write the facts but ha...

One of the main goals I had accomplished by the end of 2018 was submitting my portfolio to the Board for the Certification of Genealogists and becoming certified. It was a major accomplishment and I thought would lead to more opportunities in the new year. However, during 2019, I had no new major clients and research projects, but did have many clients who needed quick record retrievals. I also did not have many speaking engagements. By looking back on what I did accomplish, I was still very active with genealogy throughout the year. I would say, except for the days when I was traveling with family, I spent at least an hour on genealogy, either researching my own family, writing about the research, or learning from blog posts and webinars given by other genealogists. Client Work: 5 document retrieval clients, one very steady 1 record transcription client 1 deed research client 1 phone consultation client Education: Attended SLIG, taking “Advanced Southern R...

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. I was on vacation to New York City from Dec 8 through December 18, visiting with my youngest daughter, Margaret. Our oldest daughter, Elizabeth came to visit for part of the time. We visited the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Botanical Garden in the Bronx, as well as saw three shows: Oklahoma, Tootsie, and Margaret’s play, A Christmas Carol, a Gay Fantasia. We visited several stores, such as Macy, Bergdorf Goodman, and Bloomingdales where we checked out the decorations and watched the light show on the outside of Saks 5th Avenue. We also ate at some great restaurants. I got in an average of 12,000 steps each day and also managed to catch a cold.  It was cold and wet most of the time but fun to be in the city! Genealogy Blog Wr...

This is my second year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. What does the future hold for us? Some day I will be gone, but I hope that before I die, I have finished several family history books to pass down to family. I certainly do not want all of my research work go to waste. I have no one at the moment who is interested in taking it on. I can hope my daughters find someone special in their lives and maybe have children. Maybe one of the grandchildren might become interested in preserving our family history. My husband’s aunt has begun the process of donating all of the Nilsen family material to the California State Archives and I have integrated my research within what she had. I already wrote a three-generation story about the forefathers who came t...

This is my second year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This is a tough meme. I can’t think of any tradition that we have in our family. It seems that each generation tried to make holidays and other events “their own” and did not necessarily pass on old traditions. On my father’s side, his parents were Roman Catholic, and maybe that was a tradition passed down. When we were children, our father took us to church (our mother wasn’t Catholic), and later I took my younger siblings. But none of my siblings carried on being Catholic. I was the only one who married in the Church. On my mother’s side, I would say some food items we ate were passed down. We always had cornbread dressing in our turkey at Thanksgiving. But most of us kids resisted eating greens and...

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 Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 49—Craft . I wrote about the crafty people in our family. For Saturday Night Genealogy Fun—Make a Surname Christmas Tree , I used the posting I had done in 2013. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     I attended the Friday study groups this week, where we caught up from a few weeks absence.   I watched three videos on writing your family history by Lynn Palermo of Family History Writing Studio: 5 Keys to Success, Write Your Family History Stories 7 Myths About Writing Family History Stories-Debunked Your Blueprint to an Ancestor’s Story Client Work : No Work this week. Volunteer Work : I opened up at the History Center this week and Priscilla is back....

This is my second year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My mother was a very creative person. When I was young, she had a painting studio in the backyard of our home on East 9th Street in Pittsburg. Her favorite subjects were still lifes.  I wrote about my mother on the anniversary of her  85th birthday . She also loved to do crafts and make things out of discarded or used items. She made bowls from old 78 rpm records that she melted over coffee cans in the oven and then sprayed them with gold paint. She made Christmas trees from cardboard egg cartons, painting them gold, green, or silver, and gluing in small items such as bells, angels, etc.  Here is one: Every year, she decorated a large apple box for Valentine's Day that our classroom ...

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 Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 48—Thief. I could not think of  post to write using this theme, so didn’t write one. This is the only one I have missed in two years. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     I attended no webinars or study groups this week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Client Work : No Work this week. Volunteer Work : I did work at the History Center this week, still opening up the center and working on special collections that need to be processed or put away. I managed to file away some items into the subject/town files in the library. Own Work: I worked on the Gleeson family this past week, mostly working on land records from Carleton County, Ontario, Canada. My 3x-great gran...

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 Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 47—Soldier . I wrote about Amos Gorrell, who was a Civil War soldier and had a diary that I excerpted from. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Thanksgiving-Genealogy Edition . We wrote about genealogy things we were thankful for. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     “Shipping on the Great Lakes” by Cari Taplin. It was a very interesting webinar about ships used on the Great Lakes. Her photos and maps were wonderful. I attended the Thursday evening group but not the Friday study group meeting this week. Client Work : No Work this week. Volunteer Work : At the History Center this week, I opened up and continued working on special collections that need to be processed. We al...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has our assignment for this week: Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along - cue the Mission Impossible music!): 1)  Think about the answers to these questions about your thankfulness for genealogy: a.  Which ancestor are you most thankful for, and why?   b.  Which author (book, periodical, website, etc.) are you most thankful for, and why?   c.  Which historical record set (paper or website) are you most thankful for, and why? 2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own; in a comment to this blog post; or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link in Comments to your own blog post or Facebook post. Here are my answers: a.  The ancestors I am most thankful for are my maternal grandmother, Pansy (Lan...

This is my second year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My husband’s family is very fortunate. We have typed transcriptions of the diaries his great-grandfather kept while a soldier during the Civil War. [1] At the beginning of the 1861 typed volume, Amos wrote “My Semi-occasional Journal, or Diary while a Soldier in the war of 1861. Transcribed from a penciled account which I carried with me. With some corrections. ++ A. Gorrell”  I will record some of the entries and will not correct any of the spelling shown in italics. I have started transcribing some of the entries in a previous blog post, “Amos Gorrell, Jr., Served in the Civil War, Part I.” I shall continue the story here. There were no surviving diaries for the period of 1863 and part of 186...

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 Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 46—Poor Man . I wrote about Rev. Albert M. Hork, who had poor health. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Number One Songs. We checked what the number one song was for our birth year, our 16th year, our high school graduation year, and I added my marriage year. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     “US Military Soldier’s Homes” by Rick Sayre I attended the Monday Morning group and spoke about finding a Davey cousin who lives in South Australia. I joined the Thursday evening group but we had no Friday study group meeting this week. I presented at the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society about how to order military records. Then listened to Carolyn Williams present abou...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun !! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has our assignment for today: Tonight, we're going to go down memory lane a bit. 1)  What was the #1 song on the day you were born?  Or on your birthday when you were 15?  When you were 18?  Or when you married?  Or some other important date in your life. 2)  Go to http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/birthdayno1 and enter the date and select from UK, US or Australia record lists.  Note:  the first date available is 1 January 1946.   Alternatively, go to Wikipedia.org and search for "number one songs in yyyy" (insert your year) and enter the month and date and see a list of number one songs for each year since 1940. 3)  Tell us what your results are (If you are sensitive about your age, don't list the date or year... ) on a blog post of your own, a comment to this post, or in a Facebook sta...