My Trails into the Past

We completed our second week of vacation. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I did not volunteer or work this week. Yeah, I’m on vacation! Genealogy Meetings:  I attended no meetings this week. Genealogy Writing/Research : During one day when I recuperated in my hotel room after a day of 15k+ steps, I worked on future blog posts and researched the Coor family using full-text search. I also watched a few webinars. Blog Posts Published: From Rural to Urban Life: The Davey Family Moves to London.   For the theme of “urban,” I wrote about the Davey family moving from rural Cornwall to London. SNGF– Create a 500 Word Biography Using AI from Genealogical Notes or Timeline .   We were asked to use AI to write a biography of an ancestor. How to Deal with a German Civil Marriage Record that is in French . For Webinar Wednesday, I had viewed Ute Brandenburg’s webinar titled,   The Emperor’s New Code , and knew I had a few civil records that were created duri...

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)  Select an ancestor, and a genealogical sketch (or research notes, or a timeline, or Ancestry Member Tree profile, etc.) for that ancestor, and create a PDF of the sketch/notes/timeline/AMT Facts page/etc.   2)  Go to one of the FREE AI Large Language Models (LLM) like  ChatGPT ,  Claude ,  Gemini ,  Grok , etc., and write a prompt (create your own, or modify mine below) for the LLM to create a biography of that ancestor in, say 500 words.  If you want something longer, ask for more words. Here’s mine: Off the bat, I prefer to write my own ancestor biographical sketch, but I will give it a try with ChatGPT and Claude and compare the two. I will use the same prompts as Randy. ChatGPT "You are an expert genealogist. Please create a draft biography w...

The Legacy Family Tree Webinar’s presentation, given by Ute Brandenburg, titled The Emperor’s New Code was about the implementation of civil records in some of the western parts of Germany that came under Napoleon's rule, beginning in the 1790s. Previously, most vital records were kept by the priests in the Catholic or Lutheran churches. After Napoleon’s fall in 1814, many parts of Germany returned to the churches recording vital records, but other parts retained the civil registration. My husband’s paternal ancestors were from Kusel in the Pfalz. There is a gap in church records found on FamilySearch that coincides with Napoleon’s rule. Sure enough, I found civil registrations of marriages and deaths for several Wollenweber and Emerick families. But They are in French I do not know how I found some records many years ago. I don’t have access to my notes. I took photographs of the microfilm, locating the records probably by looking page by page for the two surnames. However, ...

My husband’s second-great-grandparents, Thomas Davey and Mary Nicholas, lived in several small villages in County Cornwall after marrying in 1832 in St. Agnes. [1] Census and baptism records of their children help document their moves. St. Agnes Parish St. Agnes is a town on the north coast of Cornwall, about five miles north of Redruth. The mines in the area produced copper, tin, and arsenic. Besides mining, there were iron foundries, a smelter, and a stamp mill. As a blacksmith, Thomas may have worked at one of the mines or other industries. The first two daughters, Elizabeth and Susan, were born and baptized in St. Agnes Parish. [2] Constantine Parish Their first son, Thomas Nicholas Davey, was born in Bridge in the Parish of Constantine in County Cornwall, as well as their second son, Edward Nicholas. [3] Constantine was on the other side of the County Cornwall. The mines in the area extracted copper, tin, and iron. Bristol Mary Jane was born in Clifton, Bristol, in County ...

We completed our first week of vacation. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: I did not volunteer or work this week. Genealogy Meetings:  I attended no meetings this week. Genealogy Writing/Research : During free time on the train, I worked on some future blog posts and researched the Rodgers, Hutson, and Wollenweber families whenever I had access to the internet. Blog Posts Published: Substitutes to Fill in for a Military File that Burned. | For the theme of “fire,” I wrote about how to locate other records to fill in a WWI military service because of the loss from the 1973 fire at NPRC. Highlighted on 52 Ancestors email. SNGF – Your Most Recent Ancestor with No-Name Parents I have a bunch of people in my database with no parents, especially on my Irish and Polish lines. Webinars/Courses Viewed : None this week. Other: We arrived in Chicago on Tuesday and stayed at the Palmer House for one night. The next day, we took the Lakeshore Limited to New York City,...

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)  Sometimes we don't know the full names of both the parents of an ancestor.  In our family tree, those ancestors with unknown parent names are the end of the line, at least as far as we know. [Some researchers call them "brick walls."] 2)  Tell us about several of your ancestors who have no known-name parents,  3)  When was the last time you looked for these unknown parents? Here's mine: My RootsMagic is set up with my daughter as no. 1, so I have both my genealogy and my husband’s genealogy in the same file. For his line, the first unknown parents are the parents of his 2x-great-grandparents, Anders Petersson and Anna Larsdotter. I know through patronymics that Anders’s father’s first name would be Peter, and Anna’s father’s first name would be Lars. I bet my...

On 12 July 1973, a fire broke out at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, destroying 80 percent of Army personnel files and 75 percent of Air Force files. [1] I submitted an order for my great-uncle, Jack C. Sullivan’s file in 2017, and received the dreaded letter that there was no record for him. I have, since that time, worked at discovering substitute records to tell the story of his military service during World War I. [2] What You Can Get from the NPRC Although there was no personnel file for Jack, I did receive the final pay voucher for ten men who were discharged at Fort D. A. Russell in Wyoming on 6 August 1919, and he was included. He was listed as: Jack C. Sullivan, Sergeant, 568973, enlisted 4 June 1917, from Anaconda, Montana. He was part of Detachment 4th Engineers. He received $153.41. The net pay was $112.76 plus a $7.00 insurance premium allotment, plus $40.65 for travel pay. It included his signature. [3] Later, I visited the NPRC and viewe...

We began a three-week vacation on Thursday. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: On Tuesday, I volunteered at the History Center. I spent time clearing off the accession's desk so there will be room for donations in the next three weeks. We also got a couple of queries, and I took care of those. I sent out the press release for the upcoming free BCG-sponsored webinar. On Wednesday, I gave a presentation to the Genealogy Club of Newtown on researching using church records. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I got in an hour or so call on Monday, but I missed Amigos due to giving the presentation to the genealogy club. Genealogy Writing/Research : I wrote a couple more blog posts to be published later while I’m on vacation. I have done no additional research this week as I prepared for our vacation. Blog Posts Published: On the Waters of Paint Creek For the theme of “water” I wrote about my attempt to locate Frederick Bishop’s land in Ross County, Ohio. This was highl...