My Trails into the Past

I have completed ninety-eight (98) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the History Center, to the meadow for phenology where it was icy, train club for a show night, and a memorial for a friend from the train museum. It was a very nice memorial, but too many people in a small space at the reception, so we sat outside to eat. Genealogy Blog Writing : Curious – How did the Sieverts of Schneidemuhl Posen Get to America in 1850s? For this week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post, I wrote about how I was trying to determine how my Posen ancestors got to Hamburg where they caught a boat to America in 1852. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – What First Sparked Your Interest in Family History Our assignment was to describe how we got started in genealogy.   O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: I met with Jacqueline on Monday and we talked about our future trip to Missouri and Kansas to do genealogy research. We debated whether to fly or take the train. Fl...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing , is to: 1) Daniel Loftus and several other genealogists on Twitter (see https://twitter.com/hashtag/MyGenealogyStory?src=hashtag_click ) challenged genealogists to share what first sparked their interest in family history. What was yours? 2) Post your responses on your own blog, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post, or on Twitter using the #MyGenealogyStory hashtag). Be sure to comment and leave a link to your post on this post. Here's mine: First off, I have written about my beginnings before. First time was with the first week of 52 Ancestors blogging meme in 2018, where we wrote about Start . The next time I wrote about it was a SNGF post in 2019 asking how we got started in genealogy research. When I'm introduced to people as a speaker, I always say it was the birth of my daughters that got me thinking ab...

Vincent Sievert, with his wife and son, sailed from Hamburg to New York City aboard the Bark Johanna Elise in 1850. From there, they traveled to Joliet, Illinois. Two years later, his two sister and one brother came with their families and settled nearby . I became curious about how my ancestors moved from one place to another. There are many things to take into consideration when trying discover how they traveled. What was the distance between the two places? Where there any barriers between the places, such as mountains, rivers, or even the ocean? What technological advances have been made for transportation? What kind of ships? Where there railroads? Was canal or river travel the common method? Knowing about the history and geography of the area is important. I like to locate maps to show the topography and gazetteers to discover the infrastructure of the area. Where there train stations? Were there stagecoach line between local cities? However, I have not located a local gazetteer...

I have completed ninety-seven (97) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the History Center, to the eye doctor for a treatment, to the meadow for phenology, and dinner with Norman’s brother. I had a slight tickle in my throat on Friday and elected to stay indoors over the weekend. Genealogy Blog Writing : Favorite Photo – George Warren Lancaster   For this week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post, I wrote on my other blog, Mam-mas’ Southern Family , about a nice photo I have of my great-grandfather, George Warren Lancaster. I spent time interpreting what was written on the front and back of the photo, which was a part of a postcard. The handwriting was written by at least two different people. One is my grandmother, who wrote that he was her father.   Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – 1940 U.S. Census Last Name Numbers Our assignment was to tell about some genealogy finds we made this past week. I had spent time looking at newspaper articles from the websit...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-musings , is to: 1)  What was your best family history or genealogy discovery (or discoveries) this past week (or month if you choose)? 2)  Post your responses on your own blog, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Be sure to comment and leave a link to your post on this post. Here’s mine: Well, the day is not over yet, and I have been spending time working on some genealogy. This week, I visited the FamilySearch Library in Oakland where I volunteer. Since there were no researchers needing help, I showed Jacqueline, who is just starting to volunteer there, the premium websites available on the FamilySearch library computers when opening the browser. I discovered that two newspaper websites were available for searching: Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive.com . I was very happy to see tha...

I have completed ninety-six (96) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the History Center, to donation sites for some items we no longer need, and to the train club to operate during the weekend show. Otherwise, I stayed home and met people online. Genealogy Blog Writing : Favorite Find – Finding the Holy Grail of German Research, the German Home Town For this week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post, I wrote about how I discovered the German home town of my Hork and Sievert ancestors in a church marriage record. Happy 11th Blogiversary! I celebrated my eleven years of blogging at the Mam-ma’s Southern Family blog. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – 1940 U.S. Census Last Name Numbers Our assignment was to check take our grandparents’ surnames and plug them into a 1940 census search page to see how many people of that surname were in the census. I did it for my grandparents and my husbands. Not surprising, HORK had the lowest number. O nline Study Groups & M...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing , is to: 1)  How many people in your country had your four grandparents exact last names at birth in the 1940 U.S. Census?  [Note, if you're playing and not in the U.S., pick an appropriate database in your country.]  What about your spouse's grandparents last names at birth? 2) List each last name at birth and the number of persons in the 1940 U.S. Census using an exact surname match.   3)  Have you performed a "one-name search" for any of those last names and added them to do family tree? Here's mine: My four grandparents are: Hork, Sullivan, Johnston, Lancaster. Hork = 292 Sullivan = 142,354 Johnston = 90,330 Lancaster = 18,212 I was not surprised by the total for HORK, but that is a huge number for SULLIVAN, even more than JOHNSTON. Of course, if the name was JOHNSON, it ...

One of my favorite genealogical finds is discovering early in my research the hometowns of my great-grandparents, Johan Anton Hork and Julia Ann Sievert. It all started when I found the civil marriage of the couple in a Will County, Illinois marriage book on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. At the bottom was the return, filled out by the German Catholic Priest of St. Johns Church in Joliet, Frank Noble. He married Antony Hork and Julia Anna Siewert on 6 June 1872. [1] Taking the information I found on the civil record, I searched out the Catholic Church and mailed a query asking for a copy of the church record of the marriage. This was back in 1997, in the early days of my genealogy journey. I tried to document what I was doing and have an entry in my correspondence log that I sent a letter. What I received was a photocopy of the two-page spread for the marriage of Anton and Julia. Because this was a German catholic church, and Germans are such great recor...

I have completed ninety-five (95) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. Activities started up again from the holiday break. I went to the History Center, the Oakland FamilySearch Library, dentist, train club, and Kaiser twice for lab tests, and we met a friend for brunch. I am double masked. We were to visit a friend who was on Hospice but he was unable to see us and then passed away on Friday. Ed will be truly missed. Genealogy Blog Writing : Applied Genealogy Institute – My Course in Records I wrote about the open registration period for our upcoming spring session and the five courses that are available. Sunday was the last day to sign up. Foundations – Making Our House Sturdier My first post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks was about how we redid the foundation on our home to better protect it from earthquake damage. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Ancestor Score for 2022 Our assignment was to check our found ancestors against the possible for each generation. I us...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - time for some more  Genealogy Fun! Our mission this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing , is to: 1)  Determine how complete your genealogy research is.  For background, read Crista Cowan's post  Family History All Done? What’s Your Number?  and Kris Stewart's  What Is Your Genealogy "Score?"   For comparison purposes, keep the list to 10 generations with you as the first person.   2)  Create a table similar to Crista's second table, and fill it in however you can (you could create an Ahnentafel (Ancestor Name) list and count the number in each generation, or use some other method).  Tell us how you calculated the numbers. 3)  Show us your table, and calculate your "Ancestral Score" - what is your percentage of known names to possible names (1,023 for 10 generations). Here's mine: I did not do this challenge back in 2016, so I have nothing ...