My Trails into the Past

I made a research trip to the Beaver County Genealogy & History Center in Beaver, Pennsylvania [1] on July 2, 2016. They have great records: books, maps, microfilms, tax records, and vertical files. In the vertical file for the surname GORRELL, I found several queries and submitted genealogies. To my surprise was a letter written by my husband’s aunt, Ada Thomason, in 1975. I knew she was interested in family history but I didn’t know she wrote letters of inquiry. 1975 Letter from Ada Thomason to Beaver County Historian Actually the letter was written to the historian, county clerk, or other official in Beaver. Beaver is the county seat for the county of Beaver in Pennsylvania. She stated the information about the family as she knew it: parent’s and children’s names, birth, marriage, and death dates, and then asked a specific question. She wanted to know if there was an epidemic in 1841 that caused the death of the four oldest children...

  I know very little about the parents of Amos Gorrell (1804-1890). They were James Gorrell and Sarah Milholland. I first learned their story in a little book called Gorrell Family History by Joseph J. Gorrell. [1] This little book has no source citations and is a genealogy of their seventh son, Joseph. All I have is a photocopy of the book that I received from my father-in-law, George J. Gorrell, when I started researching my husband’s lines. So what was said about James in this book? That he was born in 13 Mar 1770 in Ireland. James and his brother, William, were sons of Oliver Gorrell and were soldiers under Robert Emmet, the Irish insurrectionist. They were captured by the English and exiled. William, the younger brother, settled in Virginia and James, the elder, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. It said he married Sarah Milholland but gave no date. She was born 5 Apr 1771 in Virginia. They had 21 children, with 19 growing to adulthood. The children listed were: “James...