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-Musings :  1)  Almost all genealogists have family photographs and/or home movies of their ancestors, relatives, and friends handed down over the generations.  2)  What steps have you taken to obtain, save and pass on those photographs or home movies to your family members? Here’s mine: I have received photos or copies of photos from many of my ancestral lines and my husband’s lines. For my paternal line of Hork, Sullivan, Gleeson, & Tierney, I have received photos from my father’s sisters and from my father’s cousins. I wrote previously about the Gleeson family photo album here . One of my father’s cousins, Marjorie, sent me photos of the Hork family so I have photos of my grandfather, whom I never met, as a young boy and in his Naval uniform. There are not many photos of my maternal side, though my grandm...

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)  How many ancestors do you have photographs of?  What is your oldest ancestor photo (the year it was taken)? 2)  Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post. Here’s my side first. A total of 23 ancestors. Parents: William Joseph Hork & Lela Nell Johnston. I have lots of photos of my parents as children, young adults, and as a family. Paternal grandparents : William Cyril Hork & Anna Marie Sullivan (Nana). I have some photos of young Cyril Hork and lots of Anna as a young girl and older adult. Maternal grandparents: Tom J Johnston & Pansy Louise Lancaster (Mam-ma): one shot of Tom as a child, lots of photos as adults. Paternal Great-grandparents: Johan Anton H...

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. I have completed twenty-seven (27) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I did phenology at the meadow. I took some things to Hospice. I went to volunteer at the History Center on Tuesday and Saturday. The air became clearer on Thursday and I shot some photos at the Martinez Marina for my new photography class. Genealogy Blog Writing : Blogs posted this past week: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 38: On the Map— Communities in Erath County, Texas Where My Ancestors Lived.   I wrote about the communities in Erath county where my ancestors lived. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Moving On Out We wrote about our first place we lived after moving out of our parents’ house. Study Groups Attended:     I attended fewer study groups this week d...

It's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is:  Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to: 1)  What are the oldest family photos that you have?  Can you date them?  Do you know who is in them? 2)  Show us one or more of your oldest photos and provide a date and the subjects. 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook. Here's mine: My Gleeson family passed down a wonderful photo album full of photos of the Gleeson and Tierney families who lived in Ontario, Canada; British Columbia, Canada; and South Dakota and Oregon. The album has numbered slots for photos and a key at the front where the photos were labeled. These photos appeared to be labeled by my first cousin 2x removed, Muriel Martha Gilbert. She made very distinctive Ms and Ns. It also fit that wh...

This is my third year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This is a tough one, as I have many favorite photos. I have shared some of them in the past on this blog but probably didn’t identify them as a favorite photo. This photo of my two grandmothers doting on the newborn baby (me) is a favorite of mine. This photo shows both grandmothers, Pansy (Lancaster) Johnston on the left, and Anne (Sullivan) Hork on the right. They both look like they are proud grandmothers. I think the photo was taken at my parent’s house (35 Wharf Dr, West Pittsburg), probably late March 1954, though it is possible that it was taken at Pansy’s home (307 Nancy Lane, Pleasant Hill). The amount of items on the wall point more to my parent’s home and the metal plate looks familiar ...

It's Saturday Night , time for more Genealogy Fun !! For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to: 1)  Show us one of your favorite photographs of your family - a group, yourself, your mom, your dad, your sibling(s), your grandparents, etc.  Tell us about it - the date, the event, the setting, the persons in the photograph. 2)  Share it on your own blog, in a comment on this blog, or on Facebook. I have many favorite photos and hope to someday put together some family books so I can use them. In particular, I like this one photo. I think because it has that hippie and groovy vibe. It was one of the last times we visited our cousins as a complete family. After this, we would sometimes have other activities or job responsibilities and we couldn’t always go together as a family to other cousin events. These are my parents, Lea and Bill and their children: Lisa, Steve, Jon, Danna, Sabrina, and Renee. The occas...

This is my second year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. I have shared many family photos on my blogs, so trying to find one that has not been shared before was tough. Nils Malkom Nilsen was my husband’s great-grandfather. He emigrated to America in 1889. [1] He married his first wife, Ida Christina Svensson in 1890, [2] but she and her young son passed away in 1891. [3] He returned to Sweden and returned to America with Hulda Charlotte Anderson-Carlson, to whom he married in Youngstown, Ohio, on 20 May 1893. [4] They had six children: Nils Arthur Nathaniel, Carl David Harry, Joseph Andrew Walter, Ernest Gedion Ferdinand, Berger Malcolm Sylvania, and Esther Hulda Victoria. This photo was probably taken in Hilmar, California, where Nils Malkom was pas...

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’sSouthern Family  or at  My Trails Into the Past . I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This week the theme is "Favorite Photo." I don't know how anyone can pick just one favorite photo. I'm a photographer and I have many favorite photos that I've taken. I could never pick just one. I also have a large collection of photos taken by other family members. There are many favorite photos among those, depending upon who is the subject. I could write dozens of posts entitled "My Favorite Photo of XXX." (Hmm, now that might be a very good idea....) So for this week, I'm choosing one of my favorite photos taken of my youngest daughter and me. I'm not in many photos, since I'm usually the photographer. I have to remember occasionally to hand the camera to someone els...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another great assignment for us. 1)  Do you have photos of all of your ancestors back to the 1850 time frame?  Which recent ancestors do you not have a photograph of?  2)  Review your files, and list the ancestors for whom you want and/or need to find a photograph.  Also list where they resided and where they died.  Where would you look to find a photograph of them? 3)  Share your answers on your own blog post (and leave a comment here with a link), or on Facebook or other social media. So here’s mine: I have photos of my parents, my four grandparents, and seven out of my great-grandparents. I have photos of  ten out of sixteen great-great-grandparents. And I have only two out of thirty-two 3X great-grandparents. Of my great-grandparents: I have not found a photo of Johan Anton Hork (1843-1906). Of my great-great-grandparents: I need a photo of Vincent Sievert (1823-1890) & his wife S...