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, is to: 1)  Are there ancestor's occupations that you know nothing about? 2)  Pick a great-grandparent or earlier ancestor who held an unfamiliar job (cooper, cordwainer, hostler, etc.). Look it up and write a short description of what their daily work life might have been like.  Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this week's SNGF challenge! Here's mine: One of my husband’s family kin, Joseph McFall (1836-1908), was married to his great-grandfather, Frederick N Davey’s, sister, Catherine Rose Davey. On the Civil War draft registration, Joseph was listed as a caulker. [1] He lived in Jeffersonville, Clark County, Indiana, which is located on the Ohio River. There is a wonderful website, “Dictionary of Old Occupations: A-Z Index,” on Family Researcher ( https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dicti...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  Determine where your ancestral families were in May 1876 -- 150 years ago. 2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).   Here’s mine: I tried to get RootsMagic to put out a report, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I had to work this out by hand. Since I research both my lines and my husband’s lines (or more simply put, my children’s lines), I’ll list both sides of the family. The bold names are direct lines. Husband’s Paternal Line My husband’s 2x-great grandfather, Amos Gorrell, Jr. (1837-1928) was living in Cooper County, Missouri, with his wife, Catherine E. Shotts (1835-1918), and children, Louella R (1866-1938), Linnie Sarah (1868-1950), Joseph N (1869-1960), and Ada Leah (1872-1967), and Catherine’s son, Ma...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun! ! Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1)  What automobile models did your ancestors have?  Pick an ancestor and share something about their cars. Thank you to Lisa Gorrell for this week's SNGF challenge topic. Here's mine: I created a book about our parents, Bill & Lea Hork, and gave it to all my siblings and their children. This is an excerpt from the book about the cars they owned. We were not well off and rarely had a new car. I remember some of the cars Bill and Lea owned but I do not have photos of all of them. I located photos online for illustration. Chevy When our parents were married in 1952, Bill was driving a 1948 Chevy. Here is a shot of them leaving on their honeymoon. Leaving on the honeymoon in the 1948 Chevy Chevy Wagon Sometime before 1963 or 64, they h...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  Who is Ancestor #50 in your Ahnentafel list?  What were his birth date and place, his parents, death date and place, spouse's name, marriage date and place, and how many children they had, and which of his children do you descend from?   Thank you to Lisa S. Gorrell for this week's SNGF challenge topic. Here's mine: Today, I’m focusing on ancestor number 50 in my husband’s family, which is Lars Michäelsson. He was born 6 November 1795 in Åsenhöga, Jönköping län, Sweden to Michael Larsson and Martha Mänsdotter. He was baptized on 15 November 1795. He married Cajsa Svensdotter on 8 February 1795 in Åsenhöga. They lived at Ingarp Södegârd where he was a farmer. They had nine children. Lars died on 9 August 1873 and his wife, Casja died on 12 September 1874. My hus...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, is to: 1)   Do you have an ancestor with no defined birth and death dates or places?   2)   This week, please tell us about that ancestor and what clues you used to estimate a birth and death dates and places. Here’s mine: I have not blogged about these ancestors of my husband yet, but James Gorrell (1770-1826) and his wife, Sarah (1771-1849), lived in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. I have dates of birth and death for them, though no marriage date. Also living in Beaver County were James, Senior, and Elizabeth. James Senior disappears after the 1806 tax record, with Elizabeth being listed until 1810. She also appears in the 1810 census. In 1800, James and his wife are over 45 and in 1810 Elizabeth is over 45. I have not put in a birth date for either of them, though I ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! O ur assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  Family stories are often about "Turning Points" and "Major Decisions."   2)  This week, please describe a "Turning Point" in the life of one of your parents (or for both of them, or for grandparents).  Describe the decision, and discuss the outcome of it. Here's mine: A turning point in my father, and his sisters’ lives was when his mother and father separated sometime in the 1930s. They were living in Southern California. He was probably five or six, maybe even seven. I don’t know what year the split was. The 1937 Pomona city directory lists his dad, William Cyril Hork along with wife, Anna, at 215 ½ N. Euclid Avenue in Ontario. [1] By the 1940 census, they were listed apart. She lived at 236 East Foothill Road in Cucamonga, [2] while he lived at 215 ½ N ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings , is to:  1)  March 21 is National Memory Day.  How can we celebrate, and participate, in the day?  I asked AI tool ChatGPT how, and it suggested "Capture a Memory Before Its Gone;" "Rescue and Identify Old Photos;" "Record an Oral History;" "Organize One Small Thing;" "Share a Story with Family;" and/or "Visit or Virtually Honor Ancestors." 2)  For SNGF this week, do one or more of those tasks or some other related tasks of your choosing. [Thank you to Genea-blogger Janice Sellers for telling Randy about the National Memory Day and suggesting this topic.] Here's mine: Surprisingly, this is a tough challenge. I did capture a memory this week in the 52 Ancestors challenge, writing about my childhood home. Check out “ 130Paulson Lane: A Family Home that the Fr...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  How was your genealogy day?  Tell us about it - what genealogy-related activities did you do today, yesterday, or another day this past week? Researching, summarizing, transcribing, analyzing, writing, etc. Here's mine: I shall also select Friday, March 13, 2026. My day started at 8 a.m. with a writing accountability group where we get together to write for an hour on whatever genealogy topic we are working on. I set up the meeting but no one came. I started a new article about full-text searching for George Wilson Lancaster at FamilySearch. A 10 a.m., I joined the first session of the Writing for Discovery course I’m taking where we had 90 minutes of writing time. We first explained what we’re working on, then we wrote leaving our cameras on, and then checked in at the...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  RootsTech 2026 just finished today.  Did you watch any classes online?   2)  Which online class was your favorite, perhaps the most informative, most helpful, or most entertaining, for you?    Here's mine: I viewed 6+ sessions at #NotAtRootsTech2026, watching the online presentations live. I attended the conference in person last year, but arrived home from vacation only a day before the conference started. I wasn’t ready to hop on a plane yet. Angela McGhie hit a homerun with her presentation “The GPS in Practice: Examples of Reasonably Exhaustive Research,” held first thing on Thursday morning. Her handout has two checklists: one showing what constitutes reasonably exhaustive research, and the other a list of records to consider when doing reason...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  Do you know what activities one of your ancestors/relatives engaged in?  How much detail do you know about those activities? 2)  Use the FREE artificial intelligence tool  Google Gemini 3  to describe what your ancestor or relative experienced in his/her activities (e.g., military service, a ship they migrated on, an occupation, an office they held, etc.).  Here's mine: I started out stating the following to Google Gemini 3: “My father-in-law was landing gear specialist during WWII in the Army Air Forces in England, stationed at Burtonwood. What would his job have been like?” The AI answer is this: That is a fascinating bit of family history. Being a landing gear specialist at RAF Burtonwood during WWII meant your father-in-law was at the absolu...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  What are your major genealogy challenges - the family mysteries that you haven't been able to crack to date?  2)  Tell us about five of your real genealogy challenges with a short paragraph, and link to blog posts if you have written about them. Here's mine: 1. I would like to know the origins of Samuel Johnston and his wife Elizabeth McCormack , both of South Carolina. I have them firmly in Yalobusha County, Mississippi, and many of their children were born in the 1840s somewhere in Alabama. The issues are I have no idea where in South Carolina they came from, Johnston is a common name, and South Carolina didn’t require marriage registrations until the 20th Century. I have written about them here and here . 2. I would like to know the origins and parents o...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)  It's Valentine's Day - a day for lovers! We all have hundreds of love stories in our ancestry. 2)  What was the great love story of the ancestors in your family Tree?  What wedding had a great story in it?  Choose one ancestral couple. Share how they met (if known), when and where they married. Note how long they were married. Highlight something that suggests affection or partnership. Here's mine: I have written about my parents a few times before. My paternal grandparents split up after 15 years or so. My maternal grandparents had issues but stayed married until my grandfather died. My grandmother lived another 40 years. I shall write instead of my husband’s parents: George Joseph Gorrell and Thelma Marie Nilsen. They married on 6 October ...