My Trails into the Past

Three Gleeson sisters were school teachers. Elizabeth (1865-1942), Helena Mary (1867-1950), and Margaret T. (1873-1941) grew up first in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada, and then moved to Davison County, Dakota Territory in 1879. By the 1890s, Elizabeth and Helena were living in Anaconda, Montana, and worked as school teachers. Margaret arrived before 1900 and followed in their footsteps. None of these women married. Helena and Margaret taught school for their entire life. Elizabeth had other adventures after teaching for a few years and ended up being a landlord in Los Angeles. However, what do school teachers do in the summer months? Take trips. Newspapers reported on these trips, so it is interesting to see where they traveled. Summer of 1899 “Miss Elizabeth Gleeson left last evening via the Northern Pacific for South Dakota on a visit to her former home.” [1] Her parents still resided in Mitchell. The Northern Pacific Railroad line traversed from Seattle to Minneapolis. A ...

I have completed one hundred seventy-two (172) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We’re still on vacation and while in New York City, I have been wearing a mask on the subway, which is the most crowded place we’ve been. Genealogy Blog Writing : Cyril Hork Was a Pitcher Throwing Fastballs I wrote about my grandfather playing baseball in Hamilton, Montana as a young man. There were many newspaper accounts of the games. SNGF: What Do You Wish You Had Done I wrote about some of the things I wished I had done in my life, yet I have no regrets. Genealogy We are still on vacation this past week, so I attended no meetings. I watched two webinars: Finding Your One Among Millions, Methods & Tips for Urban Research by Amy Garner Giroux (BCG-Legacy) and What’s the Evidence? How to Probe Documents Beyond the Obvious by Elizabeth Shown Mills (Legacy Best of ESM). I also worked on my KDP for the Gleeson family while on board our train from Philadelphia to Chicago and from Chicag...

I have completed one hundred thirty-five (135) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We were on vacation this past week, traveling from New Hampshire to Chicago on our way to Los Angeles. However hard we tried to avoid crowds, I still tested positive for Covid on Tuesday. I am not sure where. It could have been in shops in Portland or the restaurant in Plymouth, New Hampshire the group had lunch at. Genealogy Blog Writing : Preservation: Writing the Story Preserves it for the Future . I gave reasons for writing about our family history to preserve it. It’s Been Nine Years . I wrote about the anniversary of my grandmother’s (Mam-ma) death. Webinars Viewed : None. Vacation : On Monday, the Special Interest Tour took us to North Conway, NH, where we had two train rides. The first one was short to Conway and back. The second one was much longer. We had a box lunch and traveled through the Crawford Notch where the fall color on both sides was spectacular. I took lots of photo...

I have completed one hundred thirty-four (134) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. We were on vacation in New York City, Portland, Maine, and New Hampshire this week, so we were not on any lockdown, but whenever we were in crowds, on the subway, or indoors, we wore our masks. By Wednesday, we began our week-long tour with Special Interest Tours. Genealogy Blog Writing : Last week, my New to Me post was highlighted. Road Trip—Taking Mam-ma to Stephenville, Texas . I wrote about my first road trip for genealogy: learning about where my mother and grandmother were from. Webinars Viewed : "Fair Use and Foul Balls" by Judy G. Russell. Vacation : Monday : We went to Governor’s Island on a ferry and rode bikes and walked around. Had great tacos from a stand. Afterward, we ate dinner in Brooklyn, taking a Lyft there but riding the subway back. Tuesday : We had brunch at Tea & Sympathy, an English café, and then walked around the Little Island at Pier 55. Din...

The 2022 conference of the National Genealogical Society ended at 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I attended five days of presentations given by genealogy experts from around the country. The conference was held at the SAFE convention center in Sacramento. This was the first in-person NGS conference since the beginning of the pandemic. The ground rules by NGS for attending made this conference feel pretty safe. We had to show our updated vaccination cards to receive a wristband and wear a mask the entire time we were in the convention center unless eating or drinking. The rooms were large enough that people could sit in every other seat and have that comfort of distance. The presenters took off their masks while presenting but they were far from the first row. There were fewer people than expected, so the halls and restrooms were not too crowded between classes. When we picked up our badges, we were given the option to place colored dots on our name badge to signify our comfort level...

I have completed eighty-two (82) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. This past week we were on board trains from New York to Chicago, then from Chicago to Los Angeles, and finally from Los Angeles to Martinez & home. We wore our masks aboard the train except when we were in our sleeping car room.   Genealogy Blog Writing : Even though I was on vacation, I wrote both the 52 Ancestor and the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun blogs this week. 52 Ancestors—Week 40: Preservation—Canning Tomatoes . I wrote about my mother’s and our efforts to can excess tomatoes from our gardens.   Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Ancestor Photographs . We listed the ancestors that we have photos of. I made two lists, one for my ancestors, and one for my husband’s. We have a total of 47 persons with at least one photo. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended:   I attended the AppGen meeting on Friday after getting home and got caught up on institute business. We had our...

I have completed eighty-one (81) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. This past week we were in New York City where masks were required indoor everywhere and vaccination cards & photo ID needed to eat at restaurants inside. Many restaurants had outdoor seating on sidewalks or in the street taking up parking places. With indoor eating available now, many are doing double what they did before the pandemic.   Genealogy Blog Writing : Even though I am on vacation, I wrote both the 52 Ancestor and the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun blogs this week. 52 Ancestors—Week 39: Steps—Lovetta Loveless at Club Med I wrote about my grandmother’s cousin who visited Club Med in Mexico.   Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Favorite Songs in Your HS Graduation Year . I wrote about the top songs in late 1971 & early 1972. I liked listening to Neil Diamond, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Carpenters O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: ...

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) Tell us about a memorable summer vacation when you were a child. What are your memories of summer vacations with your family? Did you travel? How? Did you visit extended family? Who? 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. Here’s mine: The summer in 1969 was between my freshman and sophomore year. My grandmother, Anna M. (Sullivan) Hork, who we called Nana, wanted to go down to Pomona, California, and spend some time with her older sister, Loretto (Sullivan) Patterson. After three weeks, there would be a trip down to San Diego to visit with her daughter, Lorene (Hork) Waldron. She had done this trip many times and in 1969 I was invited to accompany her. I was both excited to make this trip with her, and equally scared. T...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing's assignment for us tonight: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1.  Does your genealogy management software (e.g, Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Reunion, Heredis, Family Historian, etc.) create a "Fact List" report (or something similar) - a list of the profiles in your family tree that have (or don't have) a specific Fact (e.g., birth, death, burial, immigration, etc.)? 2.  If so, run a Fact List to determine which people have a specific Fact (or don't have a specific Fact) and share it with us.  3.  Share your results with us in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Leave a comment on this post with a link to your results. Here’s mine: I, too, use RootsMagic and found all the people wh...

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 : I was busy with other activities I didn’t get a post done this week. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I attended one webinar, entitled “Meaningful Tables and Graphs for Correlation in Family History” by Ruth W. Craig, CG. I attended the Thursday evening study group and we discussed a bit about the APG-PMC that three of us had attended. I attended the Sacramento German Genealogy Society meeting with Mike. Shirley Riemer was the host of a “game show” where we reviewed some concepts of German genealogy. Client Work : I had some court record retrievals to get in Solano County and additional ones in Contra Costa County. Own Work: I spent the day with my husband’s aunt and cousin on Monday. We interfiled m...

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  For the “comedy” theme, I wrote about several family members who performed in comedies. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun  We wrote about what youth organizations we were in during childhood. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I attended no webinars this week nor did I check in with either of my cert study groups due to being in EDT and traveling. Own Work: In my spare time, I have entered data from my download folder to RootsMagic database. I worked on the Quigley family as I found funeral home records for John Vir Quigley, his parents James and Ellen Quigley, his brother, George, his niece, Doris, and his sister, Margaret. These records helped fill in some vital re...