My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Here is our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings :   1) Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year? Here’s mine: To be honest, I did not receive any genealogy gifts from my family, because I had just purchased a few items before Christmas for myself. This made it easier for my husband, so he did not have to go searching for something for me. Recent books Visiting Your Ancestral Town: Walk in the Footsteps of Your Ancestors (3 rd ed) by Carolyn Schott. The first half of the book is about researching to locate the ancestral town, and then tips about going to visit it. Our Quaker Ancestors: Finding Them in Quaker Records (2 nd ed) by Ellen Thomas Berry and David Allen Berry. I teach about church records but I know nothing about Quakers, so I want to learn! Germans in America: A Concise History by Wal

As the year is ending, it is time to look back on which of the goals I have accomplished. This past year, I had not posted them on the bulletin above my desk, so they were not regularly consulted. As a result, I did not fare well with them. 2023 Goals Create new presentations for societies : I created one new presentation called How to Leave Your Genealogy, recycled one from a course I used called Researching in Church Records, and one 12-hour course for AppGen called Using Probate Records. Write research reports and/or proof summaries for my mother’s side of the family . I wrote a research report for my certification renewal but it was my father’s side of the family. Choose one family to write a KDP genealogy . I started a KDP for the renewal but switched to the research report as it got too tedious. Someday, I will finish the story but probably not as a KDP. I’ll just create a nice story with photos, though I will cite all the work. 2024 Goals Now that the recertification por

Jill Ball of GeniAus has had this meme since 2012 and I have discovered it today from Linda Stufflebean’s post. I shall attempt to answer some of these questions. 1.  On revisiting some old research I found I realized I hadn’t written anything about that research. So, for my BCG renewal, I wrote up the research that helped me round out the family of John Gleeson of Ontario, Canada. 2.  In 2023 I hooked up with a new (to me) living cousin. I did not meet a new cousin, but did reach out to an old cousin about some possible WWI military record that is available at the South Dakota Historical Society that only a direct family member can get. I haven’t heard back yet, but I hope she can obtain the record. 3.  I'm pleased I replaced a tool I had been using with.   I don’t use many fancy tools, but did discover some uses of ChatGPT after taking a course from NGS. It is very useful for sorting through text to give a summary. 4.  My sledge hammer did great work on this brick wall.

The following is the start of the story of my life, written last year during a writing retreat. It is currently six pages long and tells my story up to about sixth grade. Below is the introduction. I do need to finish this and it shall be one of my 2024 goals. Early memories of our lives are hard to define. Do I remember that event or are the photos in a photo album defining my memory? My earliest memories are from my fifth year. I had scarlet fever while in kindergarten. Bits and pieces of memory about that time are the doctor coming to our house and nearly gagging me with that tongue depressor. I have hated that part of doctor’s appointments since. I think that our house was quarantined with a paper at the front door. I also remember my father bringing home Silly Putty, though I do not remember whether it was for this illness or another. But there are no other memories of the illness. When I returned to school, I had extra milk to drink from when I was away. Perhaps my parents

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

I have completed one hundred ninety-eight (198) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week is a break from most of my volunteer jobs. I operated at the San Ramon Valley RR again at the museum in Danville. We had a larger crowd that day—lots of little boys to see the trains.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings I met with Jacqueline, who is now in Oregon and because the new house is being painted, she was in her motor home. Genealogy Writing/Research I have switched to working on Rod’s genealogy and have his dad’s story nearly completed. Next up will his dad’s parents and his mother’s parents. However, I got distracted by some Ancestry hints (28 pages worth) that revealed some documents that I did not have and then it got me researching other stuff. I wrote up the research report for Thomas J. Haley’s life. Although I tried, I couldn’t find the date of death. I could narrow it down between 1889 and 1891. Likely he was buried in an unmarked grave in Dallas, Texas. I also found

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment this eve of Christmas Eve from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1) Pick out a genealogy-oriented Christmas gift for someone you know, admire, appreciate, or love. It could be for a family member, someone in the genealogy community, or a friend or colleague. Describe your genealogy gift to them. Here's mine: Since the time our family got together at the Spaghetti Factory and showed them the article published in the Pittsburg Post-Dispatch of my mother standing next to Louis Armstrong, who came to perform for a Junior Woman’s Club benefit for purchasing an electrically controlled bed for the Pittsburg Community Hospital. My nephew, Ryan, thought it so cool and said I should write up a family history to share with the rest of the family. Since that time, I have been meaning to, but it seemed so many other things got in the way. So, if I had time between no

Researching our family trees brings me great joy when I find extended cousins. The best way to discover these third, fourth, and even fifth cousins is to put your genealogy out there. I do that by having a tree on Ancestry and by writing about family on my two blogs. I have two trees on Ancestry. One is private and is a complete tree that I uploaded several years ago. The other tree is a public tree of my direct lines to be used for DNA matching. I should probably upload a new private tree because I have made changes and additions. I have also uploaded a direct line tree for my husband’s DNA matching. Cousin Bait I primarily use Ancestry to access the wonderful records and only occasionally look at other members’ family trees. But that can be a mistake. Looking at their trees helps you connect with cousins, cousins who might have photos, documents, letters, and other interesting items about the family. Back in 2019, I reached out to a member who had Davey names in her tree. I a

I have completed one hundred ninety-seven (197) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I was out way too much this week and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t get sick.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings There was no meeting with Jacqueline this week due to her packing and moving duties. I attended the Kinseekers Military SIG meeting and it was nice to hear some of the members’ success stories. Stewart and I were the only ones at Amigos and we got caught up on our activities since the retreat. I attended the last thirty minutes of the monthly OFSC staff meeting because I lost track of time. I also hosted the monthly CGS Roundtable meeting solo but we had eight people. Lastly, the 5 genie ladies met at a restaurant and we have decided to meet like this quarterly. Genealogy Writing/Research I continued working on my WWI Study, still focusing on Harold R Gleeson. I contacted one of his heirs about trying to obtain a military record at the state historical society that is res

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our theme this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to: A)  Linda Stufflebean sent in an update to her "December Meme" from last year.  Copy them to your own post and write about them. Here are the 20 Questions and my answers : 1.  What is one genea-accomplishment in 2023 of which you are proud? I finished and turned in my renewal portfolio to the Board of the Certification of Genealogists. 2.  Which (realistic) genea-gift would you most appreciate this year? 3.  What item on your not-so-realistic wish list for Santa would you most appreciate this year. The names and resident locations of the parents of Samuel Johnston and Rebecca McCormack who were somewhere in South Carolina. 4.  Have you written any genea-books (with mostly text) to give as holiday gifts? Not this year. Maybe next year. 5.  Have you created any photo family history books to give as

I have completed one hundred ninety-six (196) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I was out much more this week which I will discuss more below.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings Jacqueline and I met for a quick hour and she caught me up on the packing for the move.   Sunday was Book Club. I hadn’t attended in months and this month we were to share books we have read. We missed Gena and there was a Zoom snafu so I sent out a Zoom link so we could meet. I shared five books and got some ideas for books from the others. Genealogy Writing/Research I started working on my WWI Study this week. I have a list of family members from both sides of my family and my husband’s family who were of the age to serve. The first hint of service is their name in the Veterans Administration Master Index which is a database found at FamilySearch. This week, I was working on Harold R Gleeson, who enlisted in a South Dakota National Guard unit before the draft. This unit was called up and they trained

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 tell him about our Christmas weather experiences:  1 )   What Christmas-time weather have you experienced?  Does it snow at Christmas-time where you live?  What are the likely temperatures at Christmas time?? Here’s mine : We have lived in California all our lives, so the worst weather we would have had on Christmas Day would be rain. However, I do not remember any rainy days on Christmas, or at least the rain did not negatively affect our day. Weather in December can range from cold, below 30 days in the morning when there is a thin layer of frost on the ground, fences, and roofs to balmy, sunny days of temperatures in the high 60s or low 70s. These latter days were the best when Santa had brought toys that were best played with outdoors. In between these two extremes might be overcast, foggy days where the fog nev

Like most American families, our Thanksgiving dinners were filled with traditional dishes. Besides the turkey, we had dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams, peas with pearly onions, and pumpkin and pecan pies for dessert. All were prepared by my mother except the pies which were brought by my grandmother, Mam-ma, and my great-aunt, Bev. Since our family was large, my mother cooked a twenty-five pound or larger turkey, beginning the process about nine o’clock in the morning. The previous evening, she baked a batch of plain, unsweetened, cornbread in one of Nana’s large cast iron frying pans and hardboiled some eggs. On the day of Thanksgiving, she put together the cornbread dressing by first filling a bowl with cubed bread she purchased from Kilpatrick’s bread company that came with a seasoning packet. She added chopped onions, chopped celery, chopped parsley, and chopped hardboiled eggs. She then added melted butter and chicken or turkey broth to the consistency wanted.

I have completed one hundred ninety-five (195) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. My only forays out of the house were two trips to the History Center, one trip to the OFSC, and a stint with San Ramon Branch of the SP exhibit at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley.    Genealogy Genealogy Meetings The only meeting I had this week was a quick hour with Jacqueline and I got caught up on the Covid and their packing adventures. Genealogy Writing/Research I had to take a trip to the Oakland FamilySearch Center to look at a locked film so I could finish up my research report. This means I finished up my portfolio work for my BCG renewal. I turned it in and now I have to wait for it to be judged--likely two to three months. I expire on February 22. I’m not sure what my next project will be. I have so many unfinished projects, that I need to just pick one. Will it be writing up my parents’ story, my own story, or work on my WWI California soldiers study? Perhaps I’ll work on all th

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-Musings : Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him your Christmas genealogy-oriented wish list: 1) Write your 2023 Genea-Santa letter. Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy? What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list? They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue in your ancestral quest. Here's mine: Santa, I have been a good Genea-Girl this year. Here’s what I did in 2023: I hosted monthly roundtable talks via Zoom for both the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society on the fourth Monday and the California Genealogical Society on the second Wednesday. Other volunteer activities included creating a library database and writing fin