My Trails into the Past

I have completed eighty-nine (89) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I am still trying to be careful by wearing the mask and not getting too close to people. This past week I left the house to volunteer at the CCCHS History Center on Tuesday, the Meadow on Thursday, and spent three full days at the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society operating trains for our annual holiday show.    Genealogy Blog Writing : Last week’s post on voting records in California was one of the post highlighted in the 52 Ancestors weekly email. 52 Ancestors—Week 47: Thankful: Family I wrote about being thankful for my family. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Genealogy Database Statistics. We checked out the statistics from our genealogy software program. I use RootsMagic. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: I attended the AppGen meeting, visited with Jacqueline twice, and with Annette in the Friday Peer group. Volunteer Work At the History Center, I continued with up...

It's  Saturday Night  - Time for more  Genealogy Fun!     Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:   1)  If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database (hint:  the Help button is your friend!) 2)  Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook comment. NOTE:  WE last did this in August 2017. Here's mine: Well, I checked but did not do this post from Aug 2017 because I was on a genealogy road trip. I wish I had, because then I could compare 2017 to today. I use the same genealogy software program as Randy, RootsMagic, and it is easy to find the pr...

As I think about what I am thankful for, it is certain I am thankful for my family. I have five brothers and sisters and we all get along so well. We may not get together as often as we used to when our parents were alive and hosted most of the family get-togethers, but my sister, Sabrina is good about arranging at least one or two luncheons at the Spaghetti Factory where we all can eat together. We all live within a few hours of each other, so it is nice when we can get together. I am thankful that when our father died and I dealt with the settling of the trust, no one gave me any grief. There was no in-fighting. We divvied up his items amicably and everyone was a help in cleaning out his place. The women in the family also get along so well. We have “sister” celebrations for our birthdays and include now our nieces and daughters. Covid has put a kink in that celebration but I sure hope it can be revived soon, now that we’ve been vaccinated. I am thankful for our daughters, who thou...

I have completed eighty-eight (88) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. This past week I left the house to volunteer at the CCCHS History Center on Tuesday, the Oakland FamilySearch Library, and on Thursday, took a trip with friends to Truckee.   Genealogy Blog Writing : Last week’s post on voting records in California was one of the post highlighted in the 52 Ancestors weekly email. 52 Ancestors—Week 46: Birthday: Mam-ma’s 99th I shared about my grandmother’s 99th birthday, the last that she celebrated. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Ancestral Family Migration Map . We were to take a map and draw the migration route of one family line. I did two: one for the Coor/Lancaster/Johnston line of my grandmother, and the other was my husband’s great-grandfather’s route through the U.S. as he served as pastor in a variety of places. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: I attended the NGS Quarterly study group on Tuesday and the AppGen meetings on Monday ...

  It's  Saturday Night  -  Time for more  Genealogy Fun!  Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:   This SNGF is based on the Migration map that my friend J. Paul Hawthorne  made on Facebook on 18 November.   He used Birth dates and Places for his paternal line.  1)  For this week's SNGF, make your own migration map for whichever surname or ancestral line you want.  Use a World Map or a country map.  Choose birth, marriage, death, or migration year to put the spots on the map and label them with the year. 2)  Share your map with all of us by writing your own blog post, writing a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it. Here's mine:   I created my map using PowerPoint as well. I highlighted all of the elements and grouped them and then right-clicked to save as an image. The first one is of m...

I have completed eighty-seven (87) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. This past week I left the house to volunteer at the CCCHS History Center on Tuesday, the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society on Wednesday, and at the Strentzel Meadow for phenology on Thursday. I also had a visit to the dentist for a cleaning. Otherwise, I stayed home. We had cool, foggy mornings most of the week.   Genealogy Blog Writing : Last week’s post on voting records in California was one of the post highlighted in the 52 Ancestors weekly email. 52 Ancestors—Week 45: Stormy Weather: Family Stories of Storms from Newspapers I researched in newspapers looking for articles about big storms and found two: one for Hamilton, Montana, where on election day, there was stormy snowy weather. My great-uncle, Tony Hork won the re-election for county clerk. And the other was in Holdrege, Nebraska, where my husband’s collateral family member, John S. Hult, had his chimney blown down in a huge storm. ...

Hamilton, Montana, Voting Day This week’s theme would have gone well with last week’s theme of voting. My great-uncle, Anthony “Tony” Hork, served as Ravalli County, Montana county recorder for fifty-two years, from 1911 to 1962. [1] Tony ran as a Republican and served until his retirement. To meet this week’s theme of stormy weather, on 7 November 1950, was another election, where Tony ran unopposed for Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder. That particular day, seventy-five percent of Ravalli voters went to the polls despite the stormy weather. [2] This was the first snowfall of the year. It began as rain in the morning and when it grew colder, the snow began to fall and made the roads and streets slippery and visibility poor. “The storm made the evening uncomfortable for election revelers and reporters who gathered the returns, but did not seem to affect the voting.” [3] Holdrege, Nebraska, Wind Storm On 26 June 1922, a huge storm of wind, hail, and rain caused damage in the town ...

I have completed eighty-six (86) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. This past week I left the house to volunteer at the CCCHS History Center on Tuesday and Saturday, volunteer at the Oakland FamilySearch Library on Wednesday evening, clean up figures for the circus set-up at the Walnut Creek train club, and do phenology.   Genealogy Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors—Week 44: Voting—Records of My Grandmother, Anna M. Sullivan Hork Voting I wrote about the history of my grandmother voting.   Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Computer History . I wrote out the history of my computer use starting in 6th grade through today. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: I attended Amigos on Tuesday with Stewart and the Peer Group on Friday with three others. That session was productive and we now have plans for future study. On Friday, the AppGen members met to discuss our class progress and future classes. Volunteer Work At the History Center on Tuesday morn...

It's  Saturday Night  - Time for more  Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1) I am a slave to my computer - how about you?  What is your computer history - what have you used, when did you get it, what did you do on it, etc.? Here's mine: My first exposure to computers was in 6th grade (1966) when we took a field trip to a big business in San Francisco and saw the big IBM computer. I think the business might have been Wells Fargo Bank’s office building. For souvenirs, we each got a punch card to take home. In college, I was a bio major, but used a slide rule in chemistry classes. Calculators were very expensive and I couldn’t afford one. In my senior year, I took a programming class offered in the math department at Cal State University, Hayward. The instructor taught us BASIC, FORTRAN, and COBOL. Basically, he told us what to make the computer do, and how to do it in three different languages. The small compute...

My grandmother, Anna Marie Sullivan, lived in Montana until about 1922. She turned twenty-one on 15 October 1913. Did she vote in the next election? The women’s suffrage movement worked hard to the vote for women in Montana, beginning when it was still a territory. Women were allowed to vote for school board elections and on tax issues since 1887 and that right continued after Montana became a state. In 1913, the Montana Legislature passed a bill that led to a referendum for the vote in 1914. There was many speeches and campaigns, including letters to individuals and contacts with newspapers. 30,000 copies of a pamphlet written by the Missoula Teachers’ Suffrage Committee called “Women Teachers of Montana Should Have the Vote” were distributed. The vote was held 3 November 1914 and the amendment passed 41,302 to 37,588, making Montana the eleventh state to give women the right to vote. During the voting campaign, Anna likely was teaching at her first school, possibly a school in ...

I have completed eighty-five (85) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. This past week I left the house to volunteer at the CCCHS History Center on Wednesday and Friday, do phenology, and visit the Sacramento Convention Center with CGS.   Genealogy Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors—Week 43: Shock—What To Do When Discovering Shocking Info About an Ancestor I wrote about when I learned the shocking way my great-grandfather died and how to relay the information to family.   Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – How Many Days Old Are You? . We were to calculate how many days, hours, and seconds we have been alive. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: I attended only the Certification Discussion Group meeting to listen to Jenny demonstration how she uses Lucid Chart program to create mind maps while she works out genealogy problems. It was very interesting watching her work through a problem. Volunteer Work At the History Center on Wednesday morning, I met with ...