My Trails into the Past

My great-grandfather, Johan Anton Hork, appeared in just two U.S. census records: 1880 and 1900. He arrived in the United States in November of 1870, so missed that one. He likely appeared in the 1890 census, but that one does not survive. He died in 1906. 1880 Census The 1880 enumeration was conducted in Aurora, Kane County, Illinois. [1] The surname is indexed on Ancestry as Hark, but the vowel could easily be an o. His wife, Julia, and their first four children are listed in the correct order. Mary, who was born in 1873, is 7 years old. Ida, who was born in 1875, is 5 years old. Susan, who was born in 1877, is 3 years old and listed as Susie, a close enough name to Susan. And Albert, who was born in 1879, is listed as 10 months old. His wife, Julia, who was born in 1854, is 25. So far, these facts match with what is known about the family whose last name is Hork. Anton’s age of 36, suggests a birth year of 1844. That matches the age he put down on his marriage record when stating...

Here is a photo of the John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney family at their home in Portland, Oregon. They lived in Portland from about 1901 to 1920 when Margaret died. According to records, they lived first at 486 Burnside. [1] Later, they lived at 410 Ross Street. [2]   The photo is undated. In the photo is John and Margaret with four daughters or perhaps a few granddaughters. In 1910, the following were living in the household of John and Margaret, living at 410 Ross. Elizabeth, daughter, 34 Helena, daughter, 32 William, son, 30 Margaret, daughter, 28 Frank, son, 26 [3] These daughters were single. John and Margaret had two daughters who were married. Mary Martha lived in Los Angeles and Anna lived in Anaconda, Montana. By 1912, two of Anna’s daughters, Loretto and Ethel, lived with John and Margaret after Anna died. They, too, were living at 410 Ross. [4] The dark-haired girls could be Loretto and Ethel. Another of the girls was likely Margaret, as she lived with her paren...

Many years ago in 1997, a kind church secretary sent me the page from the St. John the Baptist Church in Joliet of the marriage of my great-grandparents, Johan Anton Hork and Julia Ann Sievert on 6 June 1872. [1] It was the breakthrough I needed to research my German ancestors in Germany. This record named both Johan Anton’s parents and the place where they were from in Germany. The writing was hard to read but with the help of an online Westphalia Rootsweb group, we figured out the town he was from was Oberhundem in the District (Kreis) Olpe. Today, the church records of that Joliet church are now on Ancestry and I have found the records of all their children, Julia’s aunts and uncles, and cousins. I might find more when Ancestry’s full-text search includes these records. [2]   Finding German Records While researching in 2010 at the Family History Library, I used the catalog to find church records from Oberhundem. Oberhundem is in Kreis Olpe, and part of Westfalen, Prussia, ...

I have no one story that means a lot to me. I have many. Each story adds on to another story. My children’s ancestors were not famous. They did not do super remarkable things that made the history books. We have no Mayflower ancestors. Likely no Jamestown either. Our families came later to the United States, some in the late 1600 and 1700s, many in the 1800s, and a few in the 1900s. Some came from Britain, some from German States, and a few from Ireland and Sweden. They settled in the South, Midwest, and the West. We do not know their reasons, except those who came to the US from Sweden, as they came later and left a few stories. But most likely came for the same reasons other families came: opportunity, for something that might be better than where they were, whether for better jobs or for land they could own. Most of our ancestors were farmers. Later comers had factory jobs and trade skills such as blacksmith, machinist, electrician, or tailor. Some were entrepreneurs, owning a poo...

My grandmother, Anna Marie Sullivan Hork, was born 15 October 1892 in Anaconda, Deer Lodge Co, Montana, and died on Valentine’s Day, 1979 in Santa Clara, California. [1] I remember because my parents had a party for the immediate family and Dad got the call from one of his sisters that Nana had died. The funeral was a few days later at St. Matthews Catholic Church in San Mateo, California. [2] Afterwards, we went to my Aunt Virginia’s house where the after gathering could have been called an Irish wake. We all spoke of the great memories we had with our Nana. She was buried next to her husband in the Los Angeles National Cemetery. [3] She had married William Cyril Hork in Butte, Silver Bow County, Montana, on 30 November 1922, which was Thanksgiving Day. [4] They had five children, four who lived to adulthood. Cyril had problems with alcohol, so she left him and took her children to Napa, California, to live with her sister’s husband and start a new life. After working in his co...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. Here's your chance to tell us about the neat genealogy and Family history gear you received over the holidays. 1) Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year?   Here’s mine. I did not receive any genealogy-related gifts from Santa, but rather from the director of the Oakland FamilySearch Center when he scheduled the Center to be open 4 days during the break for staff to come research. I took advantage of two days this past week to do some scanning. First, I scanned four Creative Memories scrapbooks. Two were ones I created for my youngest daughter and two were ones I had created for myself. I also found some old photo albums that I scanned. First, I’d scan the whole page and then each individual photo. I also fo...

My father-in-law, George Gorrell’s first cousin, Dorothy Davey Borst, was a pianist and teacher. [1] She was born on 25 June 1910 in Springfield, Missouri, to Fred James Davey and Alice C. Pfotenhauer. [2] Her father was a musician who played the trombone in bands and a music teacher who taught out of his home. So, there was music in her home growing up. Childhood By age ten, she was performing in piano recitals. In 1920, she took lessons from Miss Gladys Deaton and played Gypsy Rondo by Haydn. [3] Later that year, she performed “Faust Waltz” by Gounod Lang. [4] She performed a piano solo at the parent-teacher meeting at Weaver School in December 1920. [5] A recital held in July 1922 featured Dorothy Davey and Henryetta Looney, both students of Miss Deaton, and each played seven pieces. [6] She performed for a Kiwanis luncheon the following year. [7] She won the first-place prize in a piano solo contest of Southwest Missouri high schools in May 1924. “She was said to be the...