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)   Today's challenge is to answer the question "Who Is the Earliest Ancestor in Your Paternal Tree? [thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]  Here's mine: Most of the 4x-great-grandparents on my father’s side named only with few sources. One I’ll select is: Denis Tierney was born about 1777 in Ireland and died before 29 January 1856 in Carleton Co, Ontario, Cananda. He was the father of John Tierney who married Ann Murray in 1832. At this writing, the only record I have for him in my genealogy program is his St. Philips Church in Richmond burial record. The priest recorded his interment at the cemetery of Napean on 29 January 1856. His sons John and James were present.[1]  The Find a Grave memorial has no marker photo and states “headstone no longer existing, but church records indic...

I have previously written about my 2x-great-grandaunt, Mary Martha Tierney, who entered the Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns of Ottawa) in 1874 and professed her commitment on 13 December 1877. Since that post, I have learned more about Sister St. Melanie. She was born on 25 July 1857 in Fallowfield, Carleton County, Ontario, to John Tierney and Ann Murray, the last of eleven known children, and was baptized at St. Philip Church in Richmond. [1] Previously I had written that she was baptized “Mary Martha” but the baptism record supports only “Martha” as her name. Teaching Years She taught school in the old grade school at St. Mary’s Academy in Ottawa. She was later transferred to Buffalo and taught at the Holy Angels Academy. In Lowell, Massachusetts, she taught at the Immaculate Conception High School. [2] I attempted to locate city directories to support the above bio from her obituary. Searching in Ancestry for nuns is difficult. How do we know how the directory recorded their ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing : 1) Do you use Timelines to help you in your research?  Create a Timeline (a chronological list with dates and events) for one of your ancestors that includes their parents, siblings, spouse(s) and children.  Tell us how you did it, and show us your work. 2)  Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post. I use RootsMagic as my genealogy software program and there are two ways to show a timeline. The first is to create a report from Reports > Lists > Timelines. One can make an individual timeline or one from people in a list. I’m not sure how to create a list of people, so here is the individual timeline for Honora (Gleeson) Douras. There is not much in her timeline—only birth, marriage, and death inf...

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...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has a new mission for us: 1) Which of your ancestors were born on this day, 31 March? How can you find out? Tell us how you did it. 2) If you don't have an ancestor born on this date, then select another date in March and list those. 3) Share your findings in your own blog post, or in comments on this blog post, on Facebook or Google+. I have no direct ancestors with a 31 March birthdate, but there were quite a few people in my RootsMagic database who were born on this date. I left off those who are still alive. My Husband's Line Elizabeth Bishop was born in 1769 to Heinrich Bischof and Catherine Schreyer and the sister to  Norman's direct ancestor, Frederick Bishop. She was likely born in Pennsylvania or Maryland. She was his third great grandaunt. Carolina Samuelsdotter was born in 1826 in Tidersrum, Östergötland län, Sweden to Samuel Persson and Maja Stina Jonasdotter. She was the sister of Norman'...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another challenge for us today: For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:   1)  Determine what is your longest unbroken line of ancestral gravestones - how many generations can you go back in time?  Do you have photographs of them? 2)  Tell us and/or show us in a blog post of your own, or in a comment to this blog, or in a Facebook status or a Google+ stream post. This is a very interesting project. I worked on my father’s line this week and found four generations of female ancestors where I have tombstones. Thankfully either I took the photos or they were photos that my friends took for me. My grandmother, Anna M. Sullivan Hork, was buried at the Los Angeles National Cemetery. [1] Los Angeles National Cemetery - photo taken by L. Gorrell © Her mother, Anna M. Gleeson Sullivan is buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Anaconda, Deer Lodge Co, Montana. [2] Mt. Carmel Cemetery, photo ...

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. I is for Ireland One fourth of my ancestry is Irish.  This comes from my father’s side of the family. Here you can see his ancestry on his mother’s side of the family. My father's maternal Irish ancestry Irish surnames I am researching: Gleeson Tierney Murray Sullivan Sheehan The Gleeson , Tierney , and Murray families ended up in Ontario, Canada. Some of the Gleesons moved to the United States. I think the Tierney and Gleeson  families came from County Tipperary, near Nenagh. County Tipperary The Sullivan and Sheehan families were from County Cork near Castletown Berehaven, which on the map below is near Schull. The Sullivans arrived in the United States in the 1860s.  County Cork I hope to someday visit the land of my Irish ancestors, both in Canada and Ireland. Copyr...

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 ...

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. F is for Frank Gleeson Francis “Frank” Thomas Gleeson was my paternal great granduncle, and the younger brother of my second great grandmother, Anna Gleeson who married John H. Sullivan.  Francis Thomas "Frank" Gleeson He was born 29 December 1877 in Ontario, Canada, the tenth child of John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney, and baptized at the Basilique Notre Dame in Ottawa on the 1 January 1878. [1] Until yesterday, I wasn't sure when he was born and didn't know where he was baptized. He didn’t appear in the baptism records of St. Philip Church in Richmond, Ontario, where the family was living and his older brothers and sisters had been baptized. His parents moved the family to Dakota Territory around 1879-80. It was possible they had moved a little earlier and he was born during the travel or in Dakota Territory...

I found a reference to a database being kept by Judith Irons on the construction workers of the Hoover Dam. I remembered reading that one of my grandmother’s uncles worked on the Hoover Dam. So I contacted Judith to inquire about the CD database that is for sale, wondering if he was on it. She had no reference to Frank but asked me to give her a biography and the source of the work for the Hoover Dam. So here is the story of Frank as I know it from research I have done. Francis Thomas Gleeson, my great-great uncle. Frank was born Francis Thomas Gleeson on 29 Dec 1878 in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada to John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney. He was the youngest of ten children who included 5 boys and 5 girls. His oldest sister, Anna was my great-grandmother on my father’s side. His siblings were all baptized at St. Phillip's Church in Richmond but there is no record for Frank.  The family arrived in the United States through Port Huron sometime in 1879. Perhaps they wa...

I am accepting the 3-2-1 RAGU Challenge of Dear Myrtle : Take three sources and write two paragraphs about one event. This is a great challenge. Instead of just inputting the information found from a single source (like a birth certificate) into the genealogy program (I’m using RootsMagic), I’m taking the information found from multiple sources and correlating them. Through writing the paragraphs, I can explain my reasoning as to why I think the information is probably correct for the one event. However, I don’t think I can write this out in only two paragraphs. The three sources would need a paragraph each, at least. The birth event is for my great-grandmother, Anna Marie Gleeson Sullivan. She was born 13 Feb 1860 in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada.  The first source for her birth is the baptism record from St. Phillips Church in Richmond, Carleton County, Ontario, Canada. [1]  This source is the parish records where baptisms, marriages, and deaths were recorded...