My Trails into the Past

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

I have completed one hundred ninety (190) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week was spent mostly at home except for going to the History Center and Train Club show. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings This week I met with Jacqueline and we discussed possible homes in Oregon . At Amigos, we discussed what we would prepare for meals at our November writing retreat. Monday, I hosted the CCCGS roundtable meeting where everyone shared what they were working on. The RootsMagic SIG was hosted by Stewart and me. He covered how to create or edit fact sentences, and I covered how I use the free-form source citation template, which is not really a template, but I showed how I use it as such. Genealogy Writing The only writing I did this week was the blog posts I published this week and a couple that I will schedule for next week. I did some research for my Tierney family in newspapers and discovered that more of them had immigrated to the United States. Time to do some census work. ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  Where did your 16 2nd great-grandparents live and die?  What are their birth, marriage, and death dates, and locations? Here's mine: These sixteen 2x-great-grandparents are for my daughters, as I research both my ancestors and my husband’s ancestors and report about them on my blog. Due to time and space, I have left off source citations. Please contact me for any specific source. The Paternal Line Amos Gorrell was born on 12 February 1837 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. He lived during his life in Ross County, Ohio, and Cooper County, Missouri. He died at the age of ninety-one on 31 March 1928 in Cooper County. He married on 6 February 1866 in Ross County, Ohio. Catharine Elizabeth Shotts was born on 18 February 1835 in Ross County, Ohio. She married (1) Lemuel Sayre on 14 January 1857 in Ross...

Some advice I like to give in my genealogy classes is to dig a little deeper. Each document that we find on genealogy websites tells us more than what is on the surface. Yeah, that 1900 census gives us the names of everyone in the household along with their birth month and year and their occupation. There are twenty-eight columns plus the information written at the top of the page. About Their Address For example, my great-grandparents are listed on the Anaconda, Deer Lodge County, Montana 1900 census page as living at 709 West Commercial Avenue. [1] What can I do with that information? I can start by using a Google Map and see what that address is today. [2]   I can search in newspaper databases for the address, as I have done here. This is a notice from an 1896 newspaper about a lost or stolen sorrel mare with a complete description. [3] I am not sure if the owners are my Sullivans, as there is no name attached to the notice.   Number of Children Let’s dig deeper int...

I have completed one hundred eighty-nine (189) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I remained masked at medical appointments (blood draws and vaccinations), and in the airport and on flights to and from Salt Lake City. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings I met up with BCG associates this weekend in Salt Lake City. It was great seeing people in person!  Saturday evening, I had dinner with genealogists Helen (from Australia), Judy, and Linda at the Blue Iguana. Genealogy Writing I worked on my research report for my renewal while at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City and got a lot done. I sure enjoyed working on their computers (they have Microsoft Office!) and being able to look up documents in the catalog as I needed them. Blog Posts: Friends and Classmates of Margaret T Gleeson at Mitchell High School 1892 . I used Newspapers.com again to locate newspaper articles about my great-grandaunt, Margaret T. Gleeson, and her friends. I turned over a photo from an album an...

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-Musings : 1)  Have you created a Problem report from your desktop genealogy software program?  Tell us which software you're using, how you found the "Problem Report," and your results using it. Here’s mine: I’m in Salt Lake City on a short research and writing trip, and am getting to this Sunday morning. It’s been very pleasant here in the 70s. I am a member of the RootsMagic SIG at the California Genealogical Society and we had a discussion about the Problem Search tool a few months ago. I ran this tool and fixed a few items. I was curious about what new items I might find now a few months later. Here are the items I am having the tool check: Here are the results. I remember now that for some of the items, I did not have enough information to make a correction, for example with a woman who was 52 ye...

I have a wonderful album of photo cards of both the Gleeson and Tierney families, some taken in Canada and some in Mitchell, South Dakota. Because the index at the front is written in Muriel Gilbert’s hand, I suspect that she put the album together. Muriel was the daughter of Mary Martha Gleeson. One of the photos fits this theme well. There are six young ladies pictured together. The index says Margaret T Gleeson and friends. However, when I removed it so I could take a photo of the image, the back said “M.T. Gleeson, High School Class of ’92 Mitchell, S.D.” M.T. Gleeson is written in pencil and the rest in black ink. Curious about who her classmates and friends had been, I checked the Mitchel Daily Republican and found an article about the class of ’92. “At the Rind Opera House Monday evening will occur the graduating exercises of the High School class. The class numbers six, all young ladies, the gentlemen not being in it this year. Following is a list of the graduates: Rosa ...

I have completed one hundred eighty-eight (188) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We traveled aboard the Amtrak Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland, Oregon, arriving on time and then on the Starlight to our home, arriving on Thursday morning. The only other time out was to the celebration of life for my niece on Saturday. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings None this week, though I tried to attend the Certification Discussion Group, but the wifi in the Amtrak waiting room in Portland could not handle the Zoom meeting. Genealogy Writing I continued adding the newspaper information found the previous week into my RootsMagic database as I was without wifi most of the time on the train except when we stopped at stations. Hopefully this week, I can get back to working on the writing of my element for my recertification. Blog Posts: Locating Newspaper Articles to Document Carrie Hork’s Travels . I used Newspapers.com to locate newspaper articles about the many travels my maiden...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!!   Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1) Have you helped someone (a friend, a colleague, someone you did not know, etc.) with their genealogy and family history?  Genea-blogger Ellen Thompson-Jennings wrote on this topic last month in  Have You Helped Someone With Their Genealogy?  on  Hound on the Hunt . Here is mine: I have tried researching for others (i.e., having clients) but I did not really like doing it. I hate taking money for something that I cannot solve. I do lookups and record pulls—that is okay, no pressure there. For my husband’s friend, Rod, I have researched pro bono his Hulaniski, Kerr, Lewis, and McCalla families. His immigrant ancestor, Julian Hulaniski, was supposedly exiled and deported to America from Poland for his participation in the insurrection against Russia. His son, Julian, claimed he los...

My great-aunt, Carolyn Hork, also known as Carrie, never married. She lived in Hamilton, Ravalli County, Montana and worked in the local mercantile store as a saleswoman and buyer. Because Hamilton was a small town and neighboring small-town newspapers documented the everyday activities of their area residents. I located many articles about Carrie’s activities in newspapers from Hamilton, Anaconda, and Missoula. The articles named some of friends and described some of her travels. Visits to her sister, Susan The first such article found was her trip to Missoula to visit her older sister, Susan, who married Andrew Edward Hart. [1] Two years later, she visited her sister again in Missoula. [2] There were more that I could have documented. Visits with her sister, Ida In 1908, she took a longer trip to Oakland, California, to visit her sister [3] . Her sister was not named in the article but it was Ida Colmann, who may have moved temporarily to Oakland after the San Francisco earth...

I have completed one hundred eighty-seven (187) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We’re still on vacation and our time in Maine has been either traveling in a rental car, by bus, or by train. I tried to wear a mask when there were crowded conditions. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings None this week. Genealogy Writing I worked on extracting information on the Hork family from Missoula newspapers recently added to Newspapers.com. Blog Posts: Who Lived to Be Over 100 . My children have several ancestors who lived long lives. For week 40, I named three on my mother’s maternal side:  my grandmother’s uncle Huts who lived to the age of 104;  my first cousin four times removed Drew Oliver Welch who lived to 103, and  my second cousin three times removed Thelma Gladys Welch who lived to 102. I met her when I visited Texas with my grandmother in the 90s. SNGF: Which Ancestor Lived the Shortest Life ? My great-grandmother, Nell Hutson, lived the shortest life at thir...