My Trails into the Past

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 Client Work I did some deed work at the Contra Costa County recorders office this week, searching from the current owner back to the original one on two different lots. This was more difficult than I had thought and made a couple of errors in reading deeds whose descriptions look similar. I learned a lot and decided that title companies earn their living. In this county, there is no master index so I had to check each two-three year index, and then look at each deed to check to see if it was the one I wanted. I hope someday they put a comprehensive index online along with the images to the deeds. Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For the “easy” theme, I wrote about how small town newspapers help fill out the lives of wo...

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 Famil y or at My Trails Into the Pas t . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. The theme this week is “Easy.” It was suggested to write about which ancestor was the easiest to research. In general, the easiest ancestors to research are those ancestors who lived during the 20th century, when vital records, city directories, and newspaper records are available. My grandfather, William Cyril Hork’s family lived in Hamilton, Montana. There are several newspapers that covered news in Hamilton: The Ravalli Republican , The Missoulian , and Anaconda Standard. And fortunately, they are digitized on several of the digital newspaper sites and I have been able to find many articles. What is wonderful about small towns is the news that was printed about everyday activities. I learned a lo...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings : 1)  Each week, The Weekly Genealogist (published by NEHGS) asks a survey question, and readers respond to the question, usually just selecting one of the answer options, and sometimes with paragraphs of information.  Reader Janice Sellers suggested using this week's question. 2)  On 24 July, the question was:  Have you or any of your ancestors traveled across the United States by car, train, wagon, or some other form of transportation that was not an airplane? (You can decide what constitutes a cross-country trip but since the distance from the east coast to the west coast ranges from 2,500 to 3,500 miles, depending on the route, we suggest it should be at least 1,500 miles. Canadian cross-country trips also count.) 3)  Answer the question above in your own blog post, in a commen...

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 Education The major education event this past week was attending GRIP (Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh), where I attended the class, “Tools and Strategies for Tackling Tough Research Problems , ” coordinated by Kimberly T. Powell, and along with additional instructors, Angela McGhie, Karen Stanbary, and Karen Mauer Jones. It was packed with lots of tools and ideas for researching and keeping track of our research results. I will now consider lists, timelines, charts, tables, and spreadsheets to manage all of the data I will accumulate with researching my ancestors’ FAN club. I might even give Scrivener another try. Check out the blog post linked below, where I describe my takeaways from the class. I traveled to Pittsburgh with m...

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. 1)  Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her Hound on the Hunt blog three weeks ago - see Even More Questions About Your Ancestors and Maybe A Few About You (posted 27 June). 2)  We will do these five at a time - Questions 16 to 20 tonight (we did 1 through 5 three weeks ago, questions 6 through 10 two weeks ago, and questions 11 through 15 last week) 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post. Here's mine: 16)  If you’re into DNA which would you say you work on more? Genealogy or DNA? Or about the same? I have not really worked on DNA much, so I’d say I do more genealogy than DNA. Maybe someday I’ll have a problem that DNA will be a valuable piece of evidence. 17)  Do you think that your genealogy is eve...

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 Education I attended the monthly meeting of the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society ’s meeting to listen to Gena Philibert-Ortega talk about library research. She also attended the pre-meeting dinner and it was good to have conversations with her. I gave the Teaching Moment on the different views of the tree at FamilySearch Family Tree and how to research  from the tree. Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For week 28 our theme was Reunions. I wrote about my husband’s Nilsen Family Reunions, held yearly. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun We continued the series of questions posed by Ellen Thompson-Jennings and completed the eleven through fifteen. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I missed bot...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun !! Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing .  1)  Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her Hound on the Hunt blog two weeks ago - see Even More Questions About Your Ancestors and Maybe A Few About You (posted 27 June). 2)  We will do these five at a time - Questions 11 to 15 tonight (we did 1 through 5 two weeks ago and questions 6 tthrough 10 last week) 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post. My responses for this week's questions: 11)  If money wasn’t an issue; where would you go to do genealogy research? Germany to research the Hork/Trösster line in Kirchhundem, Kreis Olpe, Westfalia. Travel from Texas to South Carolina, hitting every county where my mother’s southern families lived. I want to find the records that were not filmed by Famil...

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 mother was a Nilsen before her marriage. When I first met my husband, I found out about the yearly Nilsen Family Reunion. Because there were many families living in Southern California, the reunion in the 1960s through 90s were held in alternately in Southern California and Northern California. The Nilsen family first lived in Hilmar, Merced County, California, when the Rev. Nils Malkom Nilsen came in 1906 to be the first pastor at the Hilmar Mission Church. [1] Later in November 1920, he moved his family to Los Angeles to be the pastor at the First Covenant Church in San Pedro. [2] Three of his children continued to live in Southern California after he moved back north. The first reunion...

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 Education This week I taught one of the Introduction to Genealogy classes we teach on the first Saturday of the month at the California Genealogical Society’s library. My topic, of the four we teach, was about vital records. I started with two students but ended up with seven. They were very attentive and asked great questions. Afterwards I helped one young lady with a census record she had. She was trying to find out where her gg-grandmother was buried. The census showed the 10 year old living as a boarder, however her younger sister had the same first name as the head of household’s wife. I suggested she research the couple. They might be kin. Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For week 27 our theme was Independent. I ...

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: 1)  Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her blog last week - see Even MoreQuestions About Your Ancestors and Maybe A Few About You (posted 27 June). 2)  We will do these five at a time - Questions 6 to 10 tonight (we did 1 through 5 last week) 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post. Here are the next five questions and my answers: 6.  How many DNA companies have you tested with or transferred to? Have you tested at all the 5 major companies? I have personally tested with Ancestry, 23andMe, and LivingDNA. I had my maternal grandmother and my paternal aunt test at FamilyTreeDNA. I have transferred my DNA to My Heritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDMatch. My husband has also tested at Ancestry, 23andMe...

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. Our theme this week is “Independent.” I have many independent maiden aunts and great-aunts. I have previously written about my Gleeson aunts in “ I’d Like to Meet Elizabeth M. Gleeson ” and “ Maiden Aunts .” My idea of independent for this week’s theme will focus on another of my unmarried aunts, my grandfather’s sister, Carolyn “Carrie” Marguerite Hork. Carrie on the right with brother, Cyril, and mother, Julia Carrie was born 16 October 1881 in Aurora, Kane County, Illinois to Johan Anton Hork and Julia Ann Sievert, their fifth child of ten. [1] She worked most of her life as a clerk in retail stores and never married. I have no idea if she ever had beaus. She had three brothers, Albert, Frank, and...