My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings tonight is to:  1)  Do you collect maps of the places where you have ancestors or family?  I do!  I love maps.  And have so many places! 2) Tell us about a recent map find for your genealogy and family history (it could be any time), and where you found it.  Here’s mine: Funny how this subject came up today. I just wrote a post about my progress in researching my ancestor, NHO Polly. Part of what I need to do in analyzing the other Polly men in Lewis County, Kentucky where I first find NHO Polly, I need to study some maps. Some Polly men lived on the Cabin Creek watershed and NHO Polly lived on the Kinniconick Creek watershed. One question would be: how close where these two creeks? It hasn’t been easy locating contemporary maps. These men lived there in 1840. I can ...

Since before my research trip to Texas last May, I have been working on my mother’s family line involving N.H.O. Polly. He is her third great-grandfather. His daughter, Martha Jane, married George W. Lancaster. Part of the goal of the research trip was to locate more documents about him at local historical societies and archives.  Timeline Family trees online name NHO’s parents, but I am not yet convinced. So, what I am doing is writing up what I know into a report. I am also creating a timeline of the events in his life and the source citations to those documents. This timeline is mostly of deed transactions, tax lists, census enumerations, and court records. I have added some historical events to put the times into context, such as the start and end of the Civil War, the formation of new counties, and the births and marriages of his children. Adding the source citations has been tedious. Some of the documents were found years ago on microfilm at the Family History Library in Sa...

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. P is for Martha Jane “Mattie” Polly Martha Jane Polly, called “Mattie,” was born to Nathan H.O. Polly and Lydia Margaret [--?--]  in Texas. She was my third great grandmother. She was born in August, though the year is not certain. Early census records give ages that make 1854/55 being likely, [1] but her later census records indicate a later date around 1856/57. [2] Her death certificate gave her birth as 26 August 1856. Her family was living in Montague County in Texas in 1860, but since her father was a minister, they might have been living elsewhere.  She was the third daughter of seven children, with only one boy. At the age around sixteen or seventeen, Martha married George W. Lancaster in Kaufman County, Texas on 25 October 1871. [3]   1871 Marriage between George W Lancaster & Martha J Polly They would ...

Here is our assignment: 1) Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation? That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor." When was that second ancestor born? 2) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a status line on Facebook or a stream post on Google+. I tried this with both my father's line and my mother's: 1. My Hork-Sullivan-Gleeson line : My paternal great grandaunt,  Loretto M. Sullivan Patterson (1885-1972) held me (born in 1954 in Concord, California). She definitely knew her grandmother, Margaret Tierney Gleeson (1835 in Canada, d. 1920 in Portland, Oregon) because she lived with her grandparents after her mother died in 1912. Me with Aunt Loretta - 1954 Loretta with her Aunt and Grandmother - 1913 or so 2. My Hork-Johnston-Lancaster-Polly line : My grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster Johnston (1913-2013) knew her great-grandfather, Geor...

Thomas MacEntee asked bloggers to list their surnames and ancestor they most wanted to find. So I decided to write about my mother's side of the family. I have several roadblocks that I'd love to get past and maybe someone will find my blog post and help me. How The Meme Works To participate, do the following at your own blog and post a link back here in the comments: 1. List your surnames in alphabetical order as follows: [SURNAME]: State/Province (county/subdivision), date range 2. At the end, list your Most Wanted Ancestor with details! 1. My Entries COOR; Texas (Erath Co) 1880-present, Mississippi (Lawrence Co, Copiah Co) 1820-1880, North Carolina (Wayne Co, Sampson Co) pre-1800  HALEY; Mississippi (Rankin Co), 1820-1870, North Carolina 1770’s-1820.  HUTSON; Texas (Comanche Co, Hood Co) 1880 to present, Georgia (Cherokee Co, Chattooga Co) 1800-1880, Virginia prior to 1800.  JOHNSTON; Texas (Titus Co, Comanche Co), 1870-present; Mississippi (Yalob...