My Trails into the Past

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has a new assignment for us: Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1)   Ancestry.com updated their School Yearbook collection and it is FREE to access until 2 September.  Use https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/yearbooksindex/. 2)  Show us your school yearbook photos from the Ancestry collection, or from your personal photo collection.  Tell us the school and year.  Add your spouse or best friend or children if you wish! 3)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post . Here are mine. I attended Las Lomas High School and graduated in 1972. My grades were just a little above average, only once did I make the CSF, in my first semester of Junior year. I had just a small group of frie...

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. A day late, but at least it's done. Genealogy Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For the “tragedy” theme, I wrote about the four children of Amos and Leah Gorrell who died in one year. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun  We wrote about unusual occupations. 85th Anniversary of My Mother, Lela Nell Johnston’s Birth Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I watched several webinars this week, catching up on some shown while I was on vacation. I enjoyed all of them, though I probably won’t do a bullet journal. Loved platting Mark’s examples from his handout. Bullet Journaling for Genealogy, by Shellee A. Morehead Writing for NGSQ, by Nancy A. Peters and Allen R Peterson 10 Tools for Genealogical Writing, by Harold Hen...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another assignment for us. Here is our assignment: 1)   Which of your ancestors had an unusual occupation?   2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post.   I’m getting a late start, but here it is: Most of my ancestors and their collateral relatives had regular, not so unusual, jobs. They were farmers, carpenters, tailors, mechanics, housekeepers, teachers, secretaries, and ministers. However, I do have an great-grandaunt, Coreta Hutson Speed (my maternal great-grandmother's sister), who ran for Tax Collector in Comanche County, Texas in 1928 and won. It started out a sad story. Coreta’s husband, Bert Weaver Speed, was the Tax Collector until he ran for County Superintendent of Schools in 1924. He had to resign shortly afterwards due to illness, an...

Eighty-five years ago today was the birth of my mother, Lela Nell (Johnston) Hork, the only daughter of Tom J. Johnston and Pansy Louise Lancaster. She was born in Stephenville, Texas, a small-sized town southwest of Fort Worth. In 1930, there were about four thousand residents in Stephenville. Here is the earliest photo I have of my mother with her mother. She lived in Texas most of the 1930s and then near the beginning of World War II, her father worked on construction sites in Idaho, Oregon, and California. They finally settled in California, living in Walnut Creek and finally in Pleasant Hill. I have many photos of my mother, at least half with either her mother or her cousin, Sandra, in them. In high school, she was very active. She served as social secretary during her freshman year at Acalances High School and kept track of all of her dates. She never seemed to have a free night. She met my father at the annual Walnut Festival and they married on 19 April 1...

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. In 1841, the Amos Gorrell family lost four members within days of each other. In 1840, there were six young children in the household of Amos and Leah Gorrell. Two sons under five, two sons five to ten, one son ten to sixteen, and one daughter ten to fifteen. Of course this census does not give names except for the head of household. [1] However, I have a listing of marriages and births, perhaps taken from a family bible. The note written at the top written in my father-in-law, George J. Gorrell’s hand states “Rec’d from Linnie Oma on 1-20-2000, probably the handwriting of Amos Gorrell.” Now which Amos Gorrell is not known, but perhaps Amos Jr. [2] From this record, I could place t...

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  For the “comedy” theme, I wrote about several family members who performed in comedies. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun  We wrote about what youth organizations we were in during childhood. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I attended no webinars this week nor did I check in with either of my cert study groups due to being in EDT and traveling. Own Work: In my spare time, I have entered data from my download folder to RootsMagic database. I worked on the Quigley family as I found funeral home records for John Vir Quigley, his parents James and Ellen Quigley, his brother, George, his niece, Doris, and his sister, Margaret. These records helped fill in some vital re...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has a new assignment for us: 1)  Did you join a youth organization such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire, Job's Daughters, for example? 2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post . Actually, this theme I had suggested several months ago and he acknowledged that. When we lived in Pittsburg, California, I was in Blue Birds. I don’t know when I joined, probably in second or third grade. I have no photos of me during this time, but I do remember wearing the blue uniforms and having meetings where we did crafts. When we moved to Walnut Creek during my third grade year, I didn’t join a group. Perhaps there were no Blue Birds or Campfire in town. During fifth grade, several of my school friends were in Girl Scouts. I begged my mother to let me join. I really enjoyed Junior...

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. There are several members of my family who performed as actors and actresses, some in comedy plays. Elizabeth and Helena Gleeson, my paternal great-grandaunts, performed in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Engaged at the Evans Opera house in Anaconda, Montana in February 1892. They were school teachers at the time and the proceeds from the play were for the public school library. Helena played the role of Maggie, while Elizabeth played Parker Minnie’s maid. [1] My husband’s uncle, Leonard Nilsen, acted in plays while in high school. He performed in The Tin Hero with the junior class at Hilmar High School in February 1939.  He played Spike Ryder, a champion swimmer. [2] My daughter, Ma...

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  For the “sister” theme, I wrote about Margaret Lancaster, sister to my 2x great-grandfather, William Carlton Lancaster. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun  We wrote about what we were doing in 2000. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I attended no webinars this week, but was able to check in with my Friday cert study. It was fun telling about my research trip to the NPRC in St. Louis. Own Work: Besides the blog posts I managed to write (we have wifi on the boat), I have been working on outling my four-week class at the adult school. I also got in a little research in Clinton at the historical society where I found some information on the Catholic church a Gleeson ...

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)  Do you recall what you were doing in 2000?  Family, school, work, hobbies, technology, genealogy, vacations, etc?  If this doesn't work for you, what about your parents? 2)  Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post. In 2000, I was 46 years old. I remember thinking as a ten-year-old, that I would be super old when the new century came and wondered if I would even be alive! Now forty-six seems so young. I was working at Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) as an Employee Development Specialist, Train Operations. I trained mostly the new hires. Norman worked at County Quarry Products.  During the year, we had our 20th anniversary. Most likely we had dinner at one of the restaurants in town. Our two daughters, Elizabeth and Margare...

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  For the “brother” theme, I wrote about the brothers of my grandmother. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun  This was a repeat, about what we were doing in 1985. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I attended no webinars this week, but was able to check in with my Thursday cert study group for about twenty minutes. It was after eleven p.m. in St. Louis. Own Work: I worked on a few blog posts. I did a lot of research for the blog on Margaret Lancaster for next week. I also helped my husband’s cousin, Annette, find some of her ancestors on Ancestry and FamilySearch . She gave me a listing of the Sharp family so I can update my RootsMagic file. I also got some ima...