My Trails into the Past

An interesting article was published in the Chillicothe (Ohio) Gazette in 1893 that gives a story of an old powder horn owned over the years by three men. [1] One of the owners was Daniel Shotts, my husband’s 3x-great-grandfather. He had received the deer-skin covered powder horn in 1825 from a hermit named Hewitt, who lived many years in a cave. In those early days, hunters used a long-barreled, muzzle-loading rifle. This powder horn was described in the article as made of “cow’s horn” that later was “mended by drawing over it the skin from a deer’s leg, hair out, which has hardened until it is as firm as metal, holding the horn so that it is impossible to move it. The larger end is filled with a smooth wooden stopper with a swivel in it, so that a strap could be passed through it. The small end is stopped by a wooden peg.” After Daniel used it, he gave it to Martin Haynes in 1835. The article went on to say that it was now (in 1893) in the possession of Martin’s grandson, C.M. ...

The theme for this week’s 52 Ancestors is “A Small Detail I Love.” I discovered a small detail that warmed my heart. My grandmother, Anna Marie (Sullivan) Hork registered to vote in Los Angeles, California, as a Democrat. Her husband, William Cyril Hork, registered as a Republican. [1] She chose the party that matched her convictions and did not just follow her husband’s advice. In fact, this could have been the start of their disagreements about things that later led to their life-long separation. #52Ancestors: Week 36 – “A Small Detail I Love” This is my ninth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow ( https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/ ) at Generations Cafe . I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. [1] "California Voter Registration 1900-1968," digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com), 1...

This post will double as a 52 Ancestors and a 12 for ’26 post. This month, I’m studying the Shotts and Bishop families, beginning with Amos Gorrell’s wife, Catharine Elizabeth Shotts. Elizabeth was born on 18 February 1835 in Ross County, Ohio, to Daniel Shotts and Mary Ann Bishop. [1] She was the second child of six. The family lived in Huntington Township and Daniel was a farmer. Even though Daniel could not read and write, his children were all attending school in 1850. [2] When she was 22 years old, she married Lemuel J. Sayre on 14 January 1857. Rev. William Morris officiated. [3] Lemuel was a 21-year-old Virginia-born farmer, the son of Squire and Lydia Sayre. [4] They had three children. Mary Adela Sayre was born on 29 May 1857 and she died 11 November 1858. [5] She is buried in the Denver Cemetery, Ross County. Her death date was calculated from age at death: 1y 5m 13d. [6] George Sayre was born on 3 August 1859 and he died on the same day. He is also buried in the D...

Sometimes our genealogy database is not completely clean and tidy. I might know a fact’s date down to the minute. I might not know the exact place an event took place. Different records that name our ancestors might give us different answers to a research question. So, what do we do? Enter all the different dates into our database? Pick the best one and ignore the rest? This is where following the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) helps us answer this. [1] For a reminder, the GPS asks us to first do reasonably exhaustive research, while recording source citations for each item we find. We also must analyze each document and the information we find in the document to understand the source of the information. If we get conflicting information, and that is common when we find different dates for an event, we work at resolving the conflict, hoping to get close to the correct answer. And lastly, we write up our conclusions and share them. [2] When we have multiple information pieces tha...