Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night again
-
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings asked us, “Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.”
1) Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted an interesting question last week in Best Genealogy Find of 2023.
2) What was your very best genealogy finds in 2023? Elusive ancestors? Hard-to-find records? Family photographs? Family stories? Family artifacts? New cousins? What else?
Here’s mine:
I’m at the point in my genealogy research that I don’t find
much new information. I have not found any new ancestors, still stuck on
several brick walls. What I find now from looking at newspapers is news about
my various family members. Here are some highlights that I remember:
My grandfather, Cyril W. Hork, served in the Navy during World War I. I learned he was stationed at San Diego for training from his service record. From a Los Angeles Times newspaper, I learned he signed up to play baseball at the Naval Training Station in San Diego. Back home in Hamilton, Montana, he was a pitcher. I wrote about my findings here.
For years, I have lectured about creating research plans and used my 2x-great-uncle William C. Gleeson, as an example. This past year, I realized I never sent for his death certificate so I did that. I was amazed and saddened by the cause of his death. I wrote about that here.
Lastly, I learned that my father-in-law, George J Gorrell, was the executor of his former landlady, Mrs. Annie G. Hardin’s estate. I wrote about it here.
I should keep better records of my findings. I keep a log of
my blog posts and used that to find the above posts, but I may have found other
interesting things about ancestors that I posted to my RootsMagic database but
have already forgotten about.
How cool that your grandfather played baseball in the Navy! What a great discovery! But so sad about William Gleeson. Is he buried the Mount Calvary that's in Portland?
ReplyDeleteYes, I was sad to read his death certificate and I now wonder what was going on his his life. He is buried at Mt Calvary. The family must not have told them how he died.
DeleteYou are at the same place in your research that I am at. Not too many new ancestors to discover because of a lack of records and the high numbers already found. Everyone once in a while, I come across a suicide, too. It is really sad.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I have a whole bunch of southerners that I cannot find their parents, plus another branch in Ireland where there a no records.
DeleteNewspapers are such a rich resource - nuggets like your granddad playing baseball at the Naval Training Station are priceless! And learning about death by suicide is never easy... Sounds like you had a good year - here's to more discoveries in 2024!
ReplyDelete