My Trails into the Past

In my last post about Andreas Pfotenhauer, I found his Civil War Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) on Fold3 . You can view it here . These records gave some information about his service such as location, illness, and finally death. In this post, I’ll add to the knowledge about Andreas’ service by accessing the information about his regiment and his individual unit. These records can often be found with the CMSR in the same location on Fold3 . To locate these cards, I start by using the Browse feature. Next, select which conflict/war and I select Civil War (Union). Under publications, I search for the “Civil War Service Records (CMSR)” for the state I know my soldier served with. Andreas served in Missouri with the 4 th Missouri Infantry. The 4 th Infantry has two categories and normally I’d look for Andreas in the Ps, but for the unit information, I will choose the first category, A-J. Record of Event Cards The Unit tab will have many compiled cards. These cards were co...

I have completed sixty-seven (67) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I am still being cautious and only hanging out with other vaccinated people. I went out three times – train club twice for our shows and to Tony’s to operate on his layout. Otherwise, I was in class at GRIP. Genealogy Blog Writing : I wrote four posts this week! 52 Ancestors—Week 25: Groups—Finding the Membership Groups Found in Marguerite Gleeson’s Obituary Using Newspapers & Other Online Sources I started with the obituary for my first cousin, twice removed. She was a member of many organizations and groups and I used newspapers and online searches to learn about those groups & her involvement. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – How Many Children/Grandchildren in Your Birth Surname Line? I wrote about the generations of Horoch/Hork children and grandchildren down to my grandfather. Finding Civil War Era Compiled Military Service Records – Andreas Pfotenhauer . This week I took a military resear...

Happy Blogiversary! It’s been ten years since I started this blog to write about my genealogy journey in researching my father’s and my husband’s ancestry. This involves many states (except the southern states of my mother’s ancestry), Ontario and British Columbia in Canada, counties of Cork and Tipperary in Ireland and Cornwall in England, several states in Germany, and several counties in Sweden. All too many to list here, but check out my tags to see where I research. In the past ten years, I have written 722 posts! This year, I wrote 141 posts (three more than last year). I wrote about the following topics:  Saturday Night Genealogy Fun : 41 posts. Sometimes these weekly themes, suggested by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, didn’t interest me. 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks : 40 posts, with the rest on my other blog, Mam-ma’s Southern Family. Monday Genea-pouri : 52 posts, one for each week of the year. I write this meme regularly, highlighting mostly what genealogy activities I...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to: 1)  Consider your Birth Surname families - the ones from your father back through his father all the way back to the first of that surname in your family group sheets or genealogy database.  List the father's name, and lifespan years. 2)  Use your paper charts or genealogy software program to create a Descendants chart (dropline or graphical) that provide the children and their children (i.e., up to the grandchildren of each father in the surname list). 3)  Count how many children they had (with all spouses), and the children of those children in your records and/or database.  Add those numbers to the list.  See my example below!  [Note: Do not count the spouses of the children] 4)  What does this list of children and grandchildren tell you about these p...

This week I am taking a military class virtually at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) called “Answering the Call of Uncle Sam: Research in Military Records,” with instructors Sandra Rumble and Jonathan Deiss. [1] So far, it has been wonderful. Tuesday, we’re explored examples of Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) and I thought I would locate a file for someone in my family tree. There are some complete files digitized on Fold3 . The best way to find these records is to use the browse function. I click Civil War (Union) and then browsed to find Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Union and the state of interest. Once there, look for the military unit, and then the first letter of the last name. Most of my known Civil War soldiers served out of Ohio and unfortunately, there were only index cards for Ohio soldiers. I did find a Missouri soldier with a complete file: Andreas Pfotenhauer. He was the grandfather of Fred James Davey’s wife, Christine Pfotenhau...

Marguerite M. Gleeson, a daughter of Martin Gleeson and Hanna Kane, died from an automobile accident on 8 October 1962. [1] Because she had worked for the Bend Bulletin , there was broad coverage of her accident and funeral services. Obituaries often list organizations that the deceased was a member of. Marguerite’s obituary was no different. One article gave this account: “For the past 10 years she worked for the Salem Capital Journal.  At her death, she was the Capital Journal's librarian.  A graduate of Oregon State College, she was a former news editor of the Oregon Statesman in Salem, and later worked for the Bend Bulletin and the Corvallis Gazette-Times.  She was active in numerous groups, including Oregon Press Women and the Legion of Mary, a Catholic organization.  She was a member of the national Federation of Press Women." [2] Another article added that she was a volunteer librarian for patients at the Oregon State Hospital, and had memberships in Am...