My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!!   Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of  Genea-Musing : 1)  Do you remember your favorite songs in your high school graduation year?  Please tell us all about it.  [Note:  Wikipedia has the Billboard Hot 100 list for each year; Billboard has weekly Hot 100 lists for every year since 1946.] I checked the Wikipedia page for the top songs of 1971 and 1972, since the senior school year covered the end of 1971 and the beginning of 1972. I do not remember some of the songs, but here are the lists: 1971: Songs I remember are "Joy to the World," "Go Away Little Girl," "Take Me Home, Country Roads," and "Knock Three Times," 1972: Songs I remember from this chart are: "Alone Again, Naturally," "American Pie," "The Candy Man," and "Lean on Me."  Here is the list for the top ten songs the week I graduated. Furthe...

Fred James Davey, the great-uncle of my husband, and older brother of his grandmother, Matilda Pearl Davey Gorrell, was born 27 November 1878 in Louisville, Kentucky to Frederick Henry Davey and Matilda “Tillie” Wollenweber. [1] He was the oldest of four and was just eight years old when his mother died in 1885. Not much is known about Fred’s early life until his marriage. He married Laura Hollowell in Joplin, Missouri on 16 March 1898 with his father giving his assent to the marriage. [2] Machinist Two years later, he is found living at 904 Main Street, Joplin, living with his mother-in-law, Medley Hollowell. He worked as a machinist, Fred likely following in his father’s footsteps. [3] Laura had died on 29 Jan 1899. [4] A 1906 directory in Springfield, Missouri, showed he was a machinist with Frisco Systems shops. [5] The same year, he married Alice Christine Pfotenhauer on 19 June in Joplin at the First Christian Church. [6] He continued working as machinist in Springfie...

This is my fourth year working on this year-long 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. There was always music playing on the radio. Mom liked listening to the current hits and as a very young child, when we still lived in Pittsburg, California, I remember my mother demonstrating how to do The Twist to my father. She said to “act like you’re putting out a cigarette with your toe while you’re drying off your bottom with a towel, twisting your arms back and forth.” We thought it was great fun trying it out. Later, we moved to Walnut Creek, and our school program in fourth grade taught us to read music using black plastic song flutes they loaned out to us. I don’t remember the details except I wasn’t very good at it. But my brother, Jon and sister, Danna, must have because they...

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 Blog Writing : I wrote the following blog post this week: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For week 14, our theme was Brick Wall. I wrote about trying to find the father of David Shotts, my husband’s third great-grandfather.   Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   “One Touch Genealogy” given by Thomas MacEntee at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. He had great pointers about culling all of the information you can from a document and to place “to do” items that you think of onto a separate sheet so you don’t get distracted until you are done. In my Thursday evening certification study group, we spoke about transcriptions to abstracts. It was a good discussion and I shared my homework from Chap...

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Pas t . I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. Who is or was musical in our family? My daughter, Margaret, plays the piano, sings, and dances, as well as acts. Her favorite music is show tunes. In junior high and high school, she played percussion instruments. Her grandmother, Thelma, sang in the St. Stephen's Church choir for over fifty years. She also loved classical and opera music. She had such a strong diaphragm from singing that she could blow up air mattress in no time at all. My father-in-law’s uncle, Fred J. Davey, was a music teacher who played trombone and led the church orchestra and the Odd Fellows band in Springfield, Missouri. My paternal grandmother, Anna Sullivan, was in her college Glee Club. She later was ...

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 At the History Center , I attended the presentation on our new database program, PastPerfect, given by Scott to all of the volunteers who could attend. They have made good progress so far—the maps have been added so far. A new query came in about the history of her house in Kensington. Will work on that next Tuesday. I contacted a previous client about permission to use the research report for the certification portfolio and she has given me permission. I have just one more element to finish. Yeah! It would be nice to finish it up and send off before our trip to England. I attended two webinars live this week: The first webinar of the new Virtual Genealogical Society : “Future Trends in the Genealogical Industry,” by Thomas MacEntee. ...

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My aunts all married, so I have no maiden aunts, though one had no children. However, my grandmother, Anna Sullivan, had three aunts who never married: Elizabeth M. Gleeson, Helena M. Gleeson, and Margaret T. Gleeson. One thing these sisters had in common was they were school teachers. In 1900 in Anaconda, Montana, Helen M., Elizabeth M., and Margaret Gleeson were living together at East 5th Street. Helena was the school superintendent, while her sisters were teachers. [1] City Directories give more detail: Helena M. was principal at Bryan School, located at 4th Street at the southwest corner of Washington, and Margaret was a teacher at Prescott School, located at Park Avenue at the southwest corner of Elm, in 190...