My Trails into the Past

Do you always get all the clues from a document the first time you view it? Or do you just record the main information and move on to the next document in a broad search? I admit that I have done that. I might locate a document that gives me the answer to my research question, such as the date of a marriage or the place of residence from a census. I would record that information in my genealogy database. I may not always read the whole document carefully or transcribed it completely. Those were my baby genealogy days. I try hard not to do that anymore. I spend time with the document, recording the full citation right then as I have the document on the website and can get the full URL and other details I need. I then read the entire document, and either fully transcribe it or take careful notes about all the important information. I’ll look at neighboring documents, or if a census, neighboring entries, and make note of them. But what about those documents I have collected years ag...

Father Albert Hork, my great-grandfather’s brother, was a Roman Catholic priest. He was assigned to many parishes in Nebraska, Arkansas, and Oregon. He served in Nebraska between 1888 and 1904, when the communities were small and the areas just being settled. He tended to serve those communities with German immigrant settlers. Learning about his service from diocese records only gave the facts of locations where he served and dates of those services. Newspaper articles tended to fill in the rest of what I know. Sometimes he served as the parish priest of one church and the roving priest for neighboring church whose parish were not large enough to support a full-time priest. He was assigned as the first full-time priest at Frances Church in Randolph, Nebraska. Before his arrival, visiting priest served the parish on an irregular basis. They might say a mass once a month, baptize any children born since the last visit, and then come back again in a month. The first priest who did tha...

This month, I am working with my Tierney family, who are of Carleton County, Ontario, specifically Nepean, which is now part of the Municipality of Ottawa. John Tierney and Ann Murray had a large family of eleven known children. The youngest, Mary Martha (1857-1950) entered the Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns of Ottawa) at the young age of 16 years, 5 months on 24 December 1874. Three years later, she made her profession on 13 December 1877. [1] She was known as Sister St. Melanie. I have written about her before: Spirit – Mary Martha Tierney & her Spiritual Connection to God as Sister St. Melanie . After reading Sunny Jane Morton’s book, Searching for Sisters: A Guide to Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States (Genealogical Publishing, 2026), I have not been able to put her out of my mind. My cousin was named after her, and I took Melanie as my confirmation name. So, I feel a connection to her. I have a photograph of her as well as a couple of obituaries, which can he...

I have a census enumeration that has puzzled me for years. The head of the household in the 1900 Mitchell, Davison County, South Dakota, census is John Gleeson, my 2x-great-grandfather. With him in the household is his wife, Margaret, and children, Martin, William, Margaret T, and Frank T. Gleeson. These people are known to me and their information is consistent with other sources I have. There are also a woman and two children, Mary Frink, May Frink, and John Frink, listed as daughter and grandchildren, but I am not sure who these people are. Gleeson, John, w, m, Jan 1834, 66, mar. 40 yrs, b. Can, parents IR, imm. 1880, 20 yrs in US, no nat., rents, house.    Margaret, wife, w, f, Apr 1836, 64, mar, 10/10, Can, IR/IR, 1880, 20 yr    Martin, w, m, 21, son, Jan 1861, mar, 7 yr, Can, Can/Can, 1880, 20 yr, farmer,    Willie, son, w, m Jun 1874, 25, sing, Can, Can/Can, 1880, 20 yr, rr laborer    Margaret T, w, f, dau, sing, Jul 1876, 23, sing,...

On a trip in the Spring of 2024, I made a research trip to Texas, spending time researching my mother’s family in Comanche, Dallas, Erath, and Rockwall Counties. This was my second trip to Texas. I had previously made a visit to Stephenville in Erath County with my grandmother in the late 1990s, and had taken photographs of resting places of her side of the family. This trip, I spent time visiting the cemeteries in Comanche County for the gravesites of my grandfather’s side of the family. Most of the Johnston family were buried in Hazeldell Cemetery. There is a discrepancy about the spelling of the name. The sign at the entrance spelled it Hazledell Cemetery. [1] Hazeldell Cemetery, Comanche Co, Texas Find a Grave spells it as Hazeldell or Hazledell Cemetery. [2] Wikipedia has Hazel Dell Cemetery. [3] This is probably the original spelling and the sign is just missing the extra space to support it. Hazel Dell was a small community in southeastern Comanche County. It had a schoo...

Last year after attending the National Genealogical Society’s Family History Conference, my husband and I visited Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, to locate the gravestones of his Voehringer/Vohringer family members. I had a list created from their Find a Grave memorials and stopped by the office. I am glad I did, as I received paper copies of the cemetery records. He also marked on a map where the locations of the stones were. That cemetery is huge and it is easy to get lost. The marks on the map were in the general location but I still had to walk around a bit to find them. Yellow marks the spots Mary Agnes Vohringer, born 3 Aug 1811 and died 25 Dec 1898. Her stone is shared with her bachelor son, Fred Vohringer (1849-1895). [1] She was born Mary Agnes Reiff, and is my husband’s 3x-great-grandmother. [2] Mary and Fred were not the only people on this stone. On the opposite side was the surname Nolting. [3] On the side was the name: Rosina Nolting (1843-1915). [4] ...