My Trails into the Past

Our family is fortunate that Amos Gorrell kept a yearly diary, at least from 1861 through 1872. Those are the years that we have transcribed. The early diaries are of his time during the Civil War, though 1862 & 1863 are missing. He might have lost them sometime in battle. They picked up again in 1864 and continue yearly through 1872. Like many farmer diaries, they are full of weather observations, purchase and sales figures, and the work he did on his farm or a neighbor’s farm. When I share entries during a talk I give about researching our farming ancestors, I point out that these need to be read over a period of time to get an understanding of their life. However, today, I shall share a few entries from 1866. I have not read these in a long while and I might pick up something I hadn’t realized earlier. That’s a good thing. Read diaries more than once. You’ll notice different things at different readings. These diaries I'm working from are transcribed. The originals were ...

In my last post about Andreas Pfotenhauer, I found his Civil War Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) on Fold3 . You can view it here . These records gave some information about his service such as location, illness, and finally death. In this post, I’ll add to the knowledge about Andreas’ service by accessing the information about his regiment and his individual unit. These records can often be found with the CMSR in the same location on Fold3 . To locate these cards, I start by using the Browse feature. Next, select which conflict/war and I select Civil War (Union). Under publications, I search for the “Civil War Service Records (CMSR)” for the state I know my soldier served with. Andreas served in Missouri with the 4 th Missouri Infantry. The 4 th Infantry has two categories and normally I’d look for Andreas in the Ps, but for the unit information, I will choose the first category, A-J. Record of Event Cards The Unit tab will have many compiled cards. These cards were co...

I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (April 2016) , where we write 26 blog posts featuring each letter of the alphabet. J is for Joseph Norman Gorrell, the lineman Joseph Norman Gorrell was my daughters’ great grandfather, born 19 May 1869 in Blackwater, Cooper County, Missouri to Amos Gorrell, Jr. and Catherine Elizabeth Shotts. [1] The first record I found for Joe where he was not in the household of his parents was the city directory for St. Joseph, Missouri. Joe was listed as a lineman for the Missouri & Kansas Telephone Company. [2] He worked for the company for several years. Later he worked for the Empire District Electric Company and was honored as a 25-year employee at a Christmas party in December 1941, marking his hiring in 1916. [3]   ID card for the Empire District Electric Company, 1942 He served on the Webb City board of electrical inspection [4] and he had also been a member of the International Brotherhood of ...