My Trails into the Past

Not much is known about my maternal great-grandmother, Nell Hutson. Few records were created that name her. Her nephew, Pete White stated on Nell’s sister, Annie Pearl’s death certificate that she was born in Gustine. [1] Perhaps Nell was born there, too. Her tombstone lists her full birth and death dates: born 8 February 1888 and died 14 July 1919. [2] No death certificate has been found for Nell. Even searching line by line in the Comanche County death register found no record. Deaths had been recorded since the early century. Only a short and very uninformative obituary marked her passing and doesn’t even mention her first name, typical of the era. Mrs. Tom Johnson Dead. Mrs. Tom Johnson died on Monday, July 14, at the family residence in Comanche and was buried Tuesday at 10 a.m. at Union cemetery at Gustine. The many friends of the family will learn with keen regret of Mrs. Johnson's untimely death, passing away as she did in the prime of life when so much of her life was ...

I have completed one hundred fifty-five (155) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I did my volunteer stint on Tuesday, phenology on Thursday, and visited with my husband’s brother on Sunday. Genealogy Blog Writing : I Can Identify Because of Muriel . For week 8 of the 52 Ancestors, I wrote about a Gleeson Family photo album I received. The photos were labeled in such words as “grandfather” this and “grandmother” that. Once I identified the possible writer, I was able to place each person in my family. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Family History Time Capsule . This was a post about what I would put into a time capsule for my descendants to open later in time. I included items from my childhood through today plus some family artifacts we have. Meetings/Discussion Groups Jacqueline and I met on Monday since it was a holiday and I didn’t have my adult school class to teach. We talked about our trip this coming week to Salt Lake City for RootsTech and a possible trip to...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing ’s assignment this week: “Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.” 1)   What would you put into your own "Family History Time Capsule" for your descendants to open in the future?  What would you use for the capsule?  Where would you keep it?  Who should open it? Here's mine: This may be the only way some of our family artifacts would be saved. I would put in: **   Childhood items would be a troll from my troll collection, my Girl Scout vest, a Nancy Drew book, some baseball cards, high school senior yearbook, and a few miniature ceramic animals **   Young adult items would be a Neil Diamond record, ticket stub from a San Francisco Giants game, slides taken of my first trip to England, a Great Northern HO engine, and college transcript from CSUH. **   Beginning of married...

Many years ago, when I first started working on researching my family story, one of my aunts (I can’t remember which one – perhaps Aunt Lorene Waldron) sent me the Gleeson photo album. Oh, what a treasure it is. It is leather-bound with photos, mostly photo cards, inserted into pages. Each photo is numbered and there is an index in the front to write who is in each photo. It was so exciting to pursue the album until I realized that the identifier listed people in relationship to themselves. Who was the scribe? My aunt had told me the album belonged to Muriel Gilbert, the daughter of Mary Martha Gleeson and Warren E. Gilbert. She never married and pre-deceased her mother by six years. Since Martha lived in a rest home in her later years, it is likely the album ended up in one of her niece’s hands. My guess would be Margaret Patterson, who was single and had written a story of the Patterson genealogy many years ago. Perhaps Margaret had then passed it on to either my Aunt Lorene, Virgini...

I have completed one hundred fifty-four (154) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I did my volunteer stints Tuesday & Wednesday, phenology on Thursday, and hiked with my hiking group on Wednesday. Other than that I stayed home. Genealogy Blog Writing : My post last week about my grandparents fishing was highlighted on 52 Ancestors blog email. I haven’t written the one for this coming week yet on “I Can Identify.” Still thinking about it. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: List Some of Your Genealogy “Needs” This was a post about our to-do list really. I wrote about needing to finish my AppGen curriculum, writing a couple of articles for society newsletters, and to work on my BCG renewal. Meetings/Discussion Groups Monday was Kinseekers and we had more discussions about naturalization for WWII soldiers. Wednesday, I met with my certification mentee and caught up on her progress with her case study. Sunday, I attended the Virtual Sunday, group from the Seattle Genealogical S...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Here is our command from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing for today: Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.  1)  We all have genealogy-related tasks that we "need" to do.  What are yours? 2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own blog post. Here's mine: My immediate “needs to do” are: Finish the lessons, presentations, agendas, and homework assignments for my upcoming AppGen class on probate records. I am 25% finished. Write my genealogy methods column for California Nugget . Visit another research facility in the county and write up an article for Contra Costa County Genealogical Society’s newsletter Descendants. Write my weekly 52 Ancestors and Genea-pourri posts and try to f...

I have completed one hundred fifty-three (153) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. It rained twice this week but during the night, so it didn’t affect any of my activities. I did phenology Thursday and hiked with my hiking group on Wednesday. My biggest activity was the annual luncheon and lecture by the historical society. I hope the large crowd doesn’t produce any new covid cases. Genealogy Blog Writing : Outcast: Mam-ma and Tom-Tom Gone Fishing . I shared a photo of my grandparents holding a nice string of fish . Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Write a Short Life Sketch of an Ancestor Living in 1900 I wrote about my husband’s great-grandfather and their move from Iowa to California. Meetings/Discussion Groups Jacqueline and I met, discussing mostly RootsTech and DNA. All were available for Amigos and we heard about Stewart’s progress with his client work and his upcoming presentations. Jacqueline and I hosted the CGS Roundtable and the theme was supposed to be about v...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:   It's Saturday Night again -   Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!     Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has given us a new mission: "Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision." 1)  The year is 1900. Choose an ancestor who was living in that year and write a short life sketch (no more than 300 words).* 2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own blog post. *  Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this challenge. Here's mine: Previously, I have written about my husband’s maternal great-grandfather, Rev. Nils Malkom Nilsen, but I have recently discovered new information about him from Iowa newspapers. Nils Malkom was born 21 June 1865 to Jonas Nilsson and Marta Larsdotter in Åsenhöga, Jönköping län, Sweden. [1] By the time he was in seminary school, Nils t...

I have completed one hundred fifty-two (152) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We had nice weather until the weekend when we got some rain and later showers. I went hiking with friends on Wednesday and to the meadow for phenology on Thursday.  I also started my in-person class at the Acalanes Adult School. Genealogy Blog Writing : Social Media: Newspaper Social News . I wrote about the many newspaper articles that named my grandmother, Anna and her sister, Ethel Sullivan in Anaconda, Montana. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Basic Facts for an Ancestor: A. Ebenezer Loveless I answered questions posed by Randy Seaver about my great-great-grandfather. Meetings/Discussion Groups I met with my mentee on Wednesday and we discussed her progress. I also attended the Certification Discussion Group meeting that day. On Friday, our peer group met and discussed our takeaways from our SLIG classes the prior week. Volunteer I volunteered at the History Center on Tuesday and J...

When our ancestors lived in small towns, their weekly newspapers were usually full of news about the social activities of their residents. The Anaconda Standard , published daily, was no exception. The eight- to twelve-page newspaper covered local, state, and national news. The Anaconda news usually began on page 4 and would run a couple of pages. There were also pages concerning other local towns, such as Butte and Missoula. On the Anaconda pages, there would be short briefs from the column “About the City.” These papers covered news of individuals, clubs, schools, and churches. My great-aunt, Ethel Sullivan, who was the next youngest of five children of John H. Sullivan and Anna M. Gleeson, was mentioned several times in this newspaper, sometimes with her younger sister, Anna Sullivan. Below are excerpts of articles found about her as a child and teenager. In June 1902, she was part of the celebration of Corpus Christi Day at St. Paul’s Catholic Church. It said the girls wore whi...