My Trails into the Past

I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers. I appreciate all my readers. I am very thankful for my family, our health, and the wonderful ancestors I get to research daily.  The card below was purchased from one of the wonderful postcard collectors. I wish I had cards sent to my ancestors and am envious of those who do have them. What wonderful treasures. Copyright © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

Like most American families, our Thanksgiving dinners were filled with traditional dishes. Besides the turkey, we had dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams, peas with pearly onions, and pumpkin and pecan pies for dessert. All were prepared by my mother except the pies which were brought by my grandmother, Mam-ma, and my great-aunt, Bev. Since our family was large, my mother cooked a twenty-five pound or larger turkey, beginning the process about nine o’clock in the morning. The previous evening, she baked a batch of plain, unsweetened, cornbread in one of Nana’s large cast iron frying pans and hardboiled some eggs. On the day of Thanksgiving, she put together the cornbread dressing by first filling a bowl with cubed bread she purchased from Kilpatrick’s bread company that came with a seasoning packet. She added chopped onions, chopped celery, chopped parsley, and chopped hardboiled eggs. She then added melted butter and chicken or turkey broth to the consistency wanted. ...

May your day be filled with family and love, along with great food and conversation. Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

It's Saturday Night -   Time For More Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: A)  We all need to document some of the special moments in our lives so we can recall them, or our descendants can learn more about us.  Today's question is "What was your Thanksgiving Day like this year?" Here's mine: This year, Thanksgiving was uneventful for me. I woke in the morning with a sore throat, though I tested negative for Covid. Our plan was to spend the day with our daughter, Elizabeth. We had most of the fixings: the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gingerbread muffins. We prepared the muffins the day before from a recipe adapted from a Southern Pacific Railroad chef that served the muffins aboard the Sunset Limited in the 1940s and 50s. They tasted pretty good. I also baked a batch of gluten-free cornbread for the dressing. On Thanksgiving, I prepared cornbread dressing with oversized bread cubes, cornbread, onions, cel...

This year, we're spending it with our daughter in California, but likely will video chat with our daughter in New York. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, kale, and ginger muffins. Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

It's  Saturday Night  - Time For More  Genealogy Fun ! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to: A)  This is a fun meme from 2016, thanks to Suzanne McClendon on the  P.S. Annie  blog for the links. B)  Fill in the blanks for these four statements:       1. One Thanksgiving tradition I have is __________________________.       2. Black Friday ______________________________________________.       3. The best part about Thanksgiving Day is _______________________.       4. One Thanksgiving, _________________________________________. C)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Here’s mine: Well, it’s not Saturday night, but Sunday morning, after being up super early due to the end of Daylight Savings Time. 1. One Thanksgiving tradition I have is fixing stuffing/dressing made of cornbread and bread c...

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 thirty-seven (37) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I did phenology with Shirley at the meadow as usual. I went to the bird store for bird food. We went to our daughter’s for Thanksgiving. We went on two walks to the mailbox. Genealogy Blog Writing : Blogs posted this past week: Putting Names to the Enslaved from Jemima (Porter) Coor’s Estate in Copiah Co, Mississippi . I wrote about the inventory and sale of the enslaved people listed in her estate in 1839. 52 Ancestors: Week 48: Gratitude—Thankful For My Grandmother’s Interest in My Family Research. I wrote this week about deeds that are full of family genealogy.    Online Study Groups Attended:   I attended Monday Morning on Monday, as well as meeting with...

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 : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 48—Thief. I could not think of  post to write using this theme, so didn’t write one. This is the only one I have missed in two years. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     I attended no webinars or study groups this week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Client Work : No Work this week. Volunteer Work : I did work at the History Center this week, still opening up the center and working on special collections that need to be processed or put away. I managed to file away some items into the subject/town files in the library. Own Work: I worked on the Gleeson family this past week, mostly working on land records from Carleton County, Ontario, Canada. My 3x-great gran...

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 Family Research . This week, I’ve been working on my Coor family, especially James Madison Coor, my 3X-great-grandfather. I have been checking the digital images I have in my folders against what events I have recorded in my genealogy program, RootsMagic. Sometimes, something gets missed. Also looking at the RootsMagic events, I could see possible missing events, so I then would go on Ancestry or FamilySearch to see if I could find them, such as a census, marriage, or cemetery record. I started with trying to figure out when James M. Coor left Mississippi and went to Texas. He owned land, so I focused on finding the land that was sold so he could move. I also discovered many other land transactions for him and others in his family. Lots more to do!...

Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is a great one today. Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1) This is a fun meme co-hosted by McGuffy's Reader and 15 and Meowing (thanks to Suzanne McClendon on the P.S. Annie blog for the links). 2) Fill in the blanks for these four statements: 1. One Thanksgiving tradition I have is __________________________. 2. Black Friday ______________________________________________. 3. The best part about Thanksgiving Day is _______________________. 4. One Thanksgiving, _________________________________________. 3) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. Be sure to drop a comment to this post if you write your own blog post and link to it. Here's mine: 1. One Thanksgiving tradition I have is making cornbread stuffing. This was always the kind we had while growing up. My mother and her mother were f...