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) Pick a great-grandparent of yours - any one of your eight. Tell us three (or more) things about him or her. I have selected my paternal great-grandmother, Anna Marie Gleeson. She was born 13 February 1860 in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada, to John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney. She came to the United States with her parents and nine brothers and sisters around 1879. It is likely the family came to Dakota Territory because of the draw of free land through the Homestead Act. Four of the Gleeson family obtained land: her father, John, her brothers, Martin and John James, and Ann herself. She received a patent for 160 acres in Davison County, Dakota Territory. She purchased the land for $200 at $1.25 per acre. Because she was a single woman, she was allowed to petition for the land. This land was located the northeast quarter o...

I have recently returned from a twelve day vacation to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, Mitchell, South Dakota, and Stanton-Red Oak, Iowa. Conference In Minneapolis, I attended the three-day International Germanic Genealogy Conference hosted by the local society, Germanic Genealogy Society. This was the first conference and in 2019, our local society, Sacramento German Genealogy Society, will be the hosts! I met lots of genealogists from around the country and the world. Especially exciting was meeting in person, Ursula Krause from Berlin. Some of the classes I attended: “Finding Your Ancestors in German Directories” – Ursula C. Krause “World War I Era U.S. Alien Registrations” – Paula Stuart-Warren “Meyers Orts Gazetteer” – Fritz Juengling “Die Pfalz: Understanding and Researching in Palatine Records” – Richard Haberstroh “Baltimore: The Golden Door for Immigrants” – Debra A Hoffman “Pioneers and Colonists: Background of Germans in Eastern Europe” – James Beidler The conf...

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. G is for the Gleeson Girls John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney had ten children, five sons and five daughters. [1] All ten children lived to adulthood. The four eldest children married and had children. Two sons also married but had no children. Today’s post is about the five Gleeson girls: Anna Marie (my second great grandmother), Mary Martha , Elizabeth M , Helena Mary , and Margaret Teresa . Here is a shot of the five girls. Five daughters of John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney I am not sure which girl is which. The youngest, Margaret is likely the girl on the right. Anna, the oldest is could be the girl at the top, but I am not certain. Any of the three girls in the center could be the oldest daughter. I have a wonderful photo album where this photo came from. The pages have holes where the photos were placed and ...