My Trails into the Past

When I last wrote the post about platting Amos Gorrell’s land using DeedMapper (see link ), I had found the piece he bought and then how he sold the land in three pieces. They fit together nicely. We learned in the Metes and Bounds class how to place a USGS map into DeedMapper and then plat the land onto the map. I first went to the GIS webpage for Beaver County to see if I could figure out how the land might fit on a current map. I knew that a boundary for each of the three pieces was on New Lisbon Road, and that his land straddled South Beaver and Ohio Townships. I used that to orientate the land. I also knew, they were not far from the Ohio border. I showed that portion of the map in the previous post. The next step was to obtain the correct topo map for the area. It turned out that the portion of the west part of Beaver County was on the East Liverpool North Quadrangle that showed Ohio and portions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I pulled the 7.5 Minute Series map into D...

Outside activities included a week at GRIP in Pittsburgh, the flight home, and train club show over the weekend. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work:  None this week. Genealogy Meetings:  None this week. Genealogy Writing/Research : I did work on Amos Gorrell, Sr. this week, writing the 52 Ancestors post and creating another about the platting I did in class at GRIP. Blog Posts Published: Trying to Understand a Tax Record in Beaver County, Pennsylvania For the theme of “A Source I Want to Understand Better,” I wrote about the tax records from Beaver County and how I found the law that explains them. Highlighted by Linda Stufflebean and 52 Ancestors. Land Platting Amos Gorrell’s Beaver County, Pennsylvania Land (12 for ’26) I wrote about the deeds I platted in Deedmapper concerning Amos’s land. SNGF: Your Farthest Flung Ancestor We had to figure out the ancestors that came from the farthest. Courses Attended :  Metes & Bounds: Land Platting at GRIP ...

This week, I’m taking the Land Platting class at GRIP (Genealogy Research Institute of Pittsburgh) now run by NGS. This course is taught by Jerry Smith, Kimberly Powell, and Sydney Cruice. We have learned lots of skills, platting, placing our plats on topo maps, and solving problems. In my spare time, I have platted the four deeds concerning Amos’ land in Ohio township. The first piece of land was described as follows: On 13 September 1836, Amos purchased 124 acres of land situated in South Beaver and Ohio Townships with a mortgage of $496 from the Famers and Mechanics Bank, land described as: “Beginning at the southwest corner at a post, thence by land of said Bank N89E 159 perches, 5/10 to a post, thence by land of William Shearer, N148 perches to a post, thence by land in the possession of Jacob Todd S80W 165 perches to a white oak grubb, thence by land in possession of same, S1W 116 perches to the place of beginning, containing 124 acres and allowance (being part of a larger ...

This week I am taking a military class virtually at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) called “Answering the Call of Uncle Sam: Research in Military Records,” with instructors Sandra Rumble and Jonathan Deiss. [1] So far, it has been wonderful. Tuesday, we’re explored examples of Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) and I thought I would locate a file for someone in my family tree. There are some complete files digitized on Fold3 . The best way to find these records is to use the browse function. I click Civil War (Union) and then browsed to find Civil War Service Records (CMSR) – Union and the state of interest. Once there, look for the military unit, and then the first letter of the last name. Most of my known Civil War soldiers served out of Ohio and unfortunately, there were only index cards for Ohio soldiers. I did find a Missouri soldier with a complete file: Andreas Pfotenhauer. He was the grandfather of Fred James Davey’s wife, Christine Pfotenhau...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy Education The major education event this past week was attending GRIP (Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh), where I attended the class, “Tools and Strategies for Tackling Tough Research Problems , ” coordinated by Kimberly T. Powell, and along with additional instructors, Angela McGhie, Karen Stanbary, and Karen Mauer Jones. It was packed with lots of tools and ideas for researching and keeping track of our research results. I will now consider lists, timelines, charts, tables, and spreadsheets to manage all of the data I will accumulate with researching my ancestors’ FAN club. I might even give Scrivener another try. Check out the blog post linked below, where I describe my takeaways from the class. I traveled to Pittsburgh with m...

I became a Certified Genealogist® officially on December 22, 2018 and will hold the certification for five years. I was so excited when I got the news. I submitted on October 5 and waited (not so patiently) over two and half months. What helped, was I started working on another project: looking for the father of Samuel Johnston. To become certified, I had to submit a seven-part portfolio to the Board for the Certification of Genealogists that demonstrated my ability to follow the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). [1] It really was the culmination of many years of research practice, several years of education, and then putting together the portfolio. This portfolio was then judged by three competent genealogists who use a rubrics to determine whether I have met the standards of the GPS. Education was a major factor in helping me prepare for certification. I had started conducting genealogy research as a self-taught researcher. I read The Source and attended presentations b...