My Trails into the Past

In the 27 October 1825 issue of the Scioto Gazette , a newspaper published in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, there was a notice put in by the administrator, Daniel Shotts for the estate of David Shotts, late of Huntington Township in Ross County. [1] Scioto (Chillicothe, Ohio) Gazette, 27 Oct 1825, p. 3 The administrator of the estate was responsible for collecting any debts owed to the estate and any debts that the estate owed to someone. This newspaper ad, that was likely in several consecutive issues, was asking that anyone who has a claim against the estate to “present them within one year” and that those who do owe money to the estate were “requested to make immediate payment.” This is also a clue to me that there should be probate records concerning this estate. So on to FamilySearch.org to search for a probate record for David Shotts around 1825 in Ross County, Ohio. The records are online there but are browse only records.  David Shotts was my daught...

This Christmas card is from 1970 and is a part of the Gorrell Photo Collection. George and Thelma Gorrell with their five children. I don't know the history behind the photo, but it looks like it was taken in a photo studio by the plain grayish background. The color has held up pretty well, though I tweaked it a bit in Photoshop Elements. Merry Christmas from the Gorrell Family! Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

The standard records told the life story of Joseph Norman Gorrell.  Census records said he lived in Blackwater, Cooper County, Missouri as a child and Webb City, Jasper County, Missouri as an adult where he raised his four children. A marriage record indicated he lived in Kansas City, Missouri because he married his wife, Matilda Pearl “Tillie” Davey there in 1900. City directories confirmed some other locations in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, where he worked in the telephone industry as a lineman. However, an autograph book that I scanned this week, told of another tale of his life before his marriage. I have a couple of these books in my collection, where friends and family signed pages with little poems, scripture, or hopes for their future. What is so precious about these pages is having the actual handwriting of your ancestors and their friends. Joe’s autograph book is missing the first page. I can see where it had been torn our. This might have been a page that ...

I made a research trip to the Beaver County Genealogy & History Center in Beaver, Pennsylvania [1] on July 2, 2016. They have great records: books, maps, microfilms, tax records, and vertical files. In the vertical file for the surname GORRELL, I found several queries and submitted genealogies. To my surprise was a letter written by my husband’s aunt, Ada Thomason, in 1975. I knew she was interested in family history but I didn’t know she wrote letters of inquiry. 1975 Letter from Ada Thomason to Beaver County Historian Actually the letter was written to the historian, county clerk, or other official in Beaver. Beaver is the county seat for the county of Beaver in Pennsylvania. She stated the information about the family as she knew it: parent’s and children’s names, birth, marriage, and death dates, and then asked a specific question. She wanted to know if there was an epidemic in 1841 that caused the death of the four oldest children...