My Trails into the Past

We took a family vacation to Southern California, with plans to visit the Huntington Library in Pasadena, Disneyland, the Getty Villa, and Chinatown. While there, I wanted to visit Calvary Cemetery and photograph some of the grave markers of my family buried there. I had already written to the cemetery and received the burial locations. Section N, L76. These are siblings. Elizabeth Gleeson, 1865-1942 Frank T. Gleeson, 1877-1942 Helena M. Gleeson, 1867-1950 Section G, L1009. This is a family. Warren E. Gilbert, 1857-1930 Mary M. Gilbert, 1863-1962 Muriel M. Gilbert, 1895-1956 Section R, L634. This is a couple. Effa L. Sullivan, 1892-1951 John C. Sullivan, 1887-1978 Section E, L2970. This is the infant who lived only one day. Annabell Hork, 1927-1927 Once at the cemetery, we checked in at the office and received a map of the cemetery. Find a Grave has over 80,000 memorials for the cemetery. Luckily, the office marked the map with the general area where we’d find the b...

My outside activities this week included a trip to the History Center, doing phenology, and hiking with my walking group. Outside, I started cleaning up some leaves before we go on our vacation. It is still fire season here, and we want to make the area around the house safe. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: Tuesday, I volunteered at the History Center, where I entered accessions into PastPerfect and descriptions into the library database. Thursday, our writing group discussed Nancy’s article in the New Mexico Genealogist and Jacqueline’s experiment using AI to assist with her blog writing. Genealogy Meetings:  Jen and I were the only accountability members to meet on Monday. The Roundtable group met, and most discussed what they were working on. Jacqueline and I met briefly and got caught up with our activities since our last meeting. At RootsMagic SIG, Keith discussed new features of RootsMagic 11, as well as the report functions. Genealogy Writing/Research :  ...

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)  Genealogy can be really fun.  Please create, or have Artificial Intelligence create, a genealogy-related joke or funny story. Here's mine: Since I don’t want a made-up story about my ancestors on my blog, I decided to look for some genealogy jokes. The website Joke & Pun has lots of jokes arranged by categories, and the genealogy category can be found here: https://jokeandpun.com/jokes/genealogy-jokes/ . Some are groaners, but I have collected a few of my favorites here. I hope you enjoy them. 8. Why did the skeleton skip the family reunion? He had no body to go with. 9. How do genealogists stay in shape? They climb family trees. 19. Why are genealogists great leaders? They understand deeply-rooted issues. 20. Why did the genealogist never write fictional stories? She only dealt in factual ma...

Sunset from Pixabay My 3x-great-grandparents, Robert Hutson and Amanda Davis, were last known to be living in Cherokee County, Georgia, in 1860. Also living with them were assumed children: Thomas, Asberry, Peter, and Margarett. These children were 13 years old and younger. My 2x-great-grandfather, Peter, was seven. [1] The 1860 census was the last enumeration I have found for Robert, his wife, and any of his children. They may be in the 1870 and 1880 censuses under completely misspelled or garbled names. So, I have no death date for Robert or for Amanda. I have another child for them: Victoria S., who was born in 1863. She married J. B. Williams in Hunt County, Texas, in 1881. [2] Her daughter, Della, named her parents Bob Huston and Amanda Davis. [3] Della was born in 1885 and likely did not know her grandparents, which may explain the misspelling of her grandfather’s surname. [4] Research Ideas What might be the next steps to locate what became of Robert Hutson? Below are som...

My outside activities this week were numerous. Some will be mentioned below. I spent the weekend at the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society, where we had an open house. I was a trackwalker from the setup area, which meant I spent a lot of time crawling under the layout and climbing ladders to reach the track in the mountains. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I volunteered at the History Center on Tuesday and the Oakland FamilySearch Center on Wednesday. I took minutes for the historical societies board meeting. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I met briefly and got caught up with our activities since our last meeting. We attended the Kinseekers Military SIG, and the discussion was about the morning reports located at the NARA website. I also attended the OFSC staff meeting on Friday and met with the certification peer group, although only Josh popped in. Genealogy Writing/Research : I continued working on the Colman family in Alaska and California, using the full-te...

Updated 10/2/25 We have had only Australian Shepherds as pets, as they are my husband’s favorite dogs. Our youngest daughter loves dogs of all kinds. Sidney. He was our last dog. He came to us when he was about 9 months old. He had been living his entire life alone in a backyard, so he was not well-socialized. He would bark at anything, especially things with wheels, though not at cars. Whether it was a bicycle, skateboard, stroller, or motorcycle, he would go wild with barking. He was also very hard to control when going for a walk. My husband was careful to keep away from other people and not let anyone pet him. One day, he was not well, and the vet told us he had a larger tumor in his abdomen. It was a sad day for all of us, especially our daughter, with whom we facetimed, so she could say goodbye to him. The photo is Sidney’s last visit at the vet. Toby. He was a red-merle and very beautiful. Many people commented on him. He and I took walks every morning before I went to work...

My outside activities this week were numerous. I volunteered at the History Center on Tuesday, had eye surgery on Wednesday, and had a follow-up eye appointment on Thursday. On Sunday, I attended a presentation by the Martinez Historical Society. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I sent out the press release for the upcoming BCG-sponsored webinar. At the History Center, I worked on new accessions, and then, with the intern, we added descriptions of books in the library to the Excel database. Genealogy Meetings:  I attended the renewal accountability meeting and submitted the first proof summary about the first person in my KDP I’m working on. I got good feedback. Later, I attended the Kinseeker’s Military SIG, where we discussed the WWII morning reports. Jacqueline and I also met to discuss ways to use AI. Genealogy Writing/Research : This week, I worked on Ida (Hork) Colmann, my grandfather’s sister, and her husband, Martin J. Colmann. I found deed records in Los Angel...

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) Check out  Top Five Surprises  by D.M. Debacker on the  Gathering Leaves  blog. 2)  What are your top five surprises you have found in your genealogy research and family history work?  Here's mine, gleaned from 30+ years of genealogical research: I research both my side of the family and my husband’s side (i.e., my children’s ancestors & collaterals). I have not found much surprising information. 1. I was not surprised that some of my mother’s southern ancestors held enslaved people. However, none had big plantations. 2. I was not surprised that no famous people are among our ancestors. We’re just plain folk. None of the family stories appeared to be true: that we were descended from a Native American, or related to Will Rogers, Adolph Coors, Lyndon Johnso...

Last week, while searching for articles about school census records, I discovered an article about Pleasant Grove School for the 1884-85 school year. Pleasant Grove School was in LaMine Township, Cooper County, Missouri. Amos Gorrell’s children attended the school. The newspaper article gave great information about the school and the top students who attended during that term. The term lasted six months. Fifty-one students were enrolled. Grades The most interesting part of the article was the posting of the students’ grade standings. Two of Amos’s daughters, Lou Gorrell and Linnie Gorrell, had the highest standings at 98. Their sister, Ada, had 95, and their brother, Joe, had 90, and finally, their youngest brother, Arthur, had 80. [1] In 1884-85, these children were the following ages by 14 March 1885, the end of the term. Louella, 18 Linnie Sarah, 17 Ada Leah, 12 Joe, 16 Arthur, 9 The term ended earlier than it does now, probably so the children could be of use at h...

My outside activities this week were eating out at two restaurants in Florence, Oregon, walking on the beach, and collecting shells and rocks. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I worked on the press release for the upcoming BCG-sponsored webinar. Genealogy Meetings:  none this week, does this retreat count? Genealogy Writing/Research : During the retreat, I spent time inputting data into RootsMagic and then filing the documents into family folders. Some of it involved looking up the record again on FamilySearch so I could get the correct URL, the IGN number, and the image numbers. Some of the documents I already had had that information because I had downloaded them recently. I now work with a Word document open when I use full-text search at FamilySearch . This way, I can capture all I need for a source citation, which I create while viewing the document. Families I worked on: Fred J. Davey and his daughter, Dorothy Davey. I found many newspaper articles about the...

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)  Linda Stufflebean posted  "Essential Tools For Today's Genealogical Success"  recently, and Teresa Basinska Eckford followed that with her list in  "Essential Tools for Genealogists."   2)  What are your essential tools for doing your genealogy and family history work? Please list five or more of your essential tools so that readers may find tools that may help us do our work. Here’s mine: I use very few tools, but I will justify my tools here. 1. Word . I primarily work in Word. I keep track of my findings and report my analysis and conclusions. I find it easier to create source citations as I’m researching. There is a lot to capture when finding documents of interest, especially at FamilySearch: the URL, IGN number, image number(s), record type, and the lo...

In Silver Bow County, Montana, the school districts took a census of children in their community. They counted children as young as infants up to twenty years of age. This helped them determine the number of classrooms and teachers needed. Here is the page from the 1910 school census for School District No. 1, where my 2x-great-uncle, Michael & Sarah Sullivan’s children were listed. [1] The bonus in this school census for me is that the published census included each child, their birthdates, ages, parents’ names, and addresses. I can use this information to support the birth of the child and their parentage. Of course, this derivative record is not as reliable as a birth certificate. Still, if no birth record was created or the birth record is not available due to access restrictions, then this is a suitable alternative, as the parents likely gave the information. Finding School Census Records In checking the FamilySearch catalog using the keyword search of “school census,” I ...