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 tonight is to:  1)  Do you collect maps of the places where you have ancestors or family?  I do!  I love maps.  And have so many places! 2) Tell us about a recent map find for your genealogy and family history (it could be any time), and where you found it.  Here’s mine: Funny how this subject came up today. I just wrote a post about my progress in researching my ancestor, NHO Polly. Part of what I need to do in analyzing the other Polly men in Lewis County, Kentucky where I first find NHO Polly, I need to study some maps. Some Polly men lived on the Cabin Creek watershed and NHO Polly lived on the Kinniconick Creek watershed. One question would be: how close where these two creeks? It hasn’t been easy locating contemporary maps. These men lived there in 1840. I can ...

Last night, Melinda Kashuba gave the first of two presentations to my local genealogy society, Contra Costa County Genealogical Society , about using maps for genealogy. It was recorded and members will be able to view the recording on the website. She will give part two next month. If interested in seeing part two, register using the link above. The presentation was wonderful as she explained about cadastral, fire insurance, bird’s eye view, and other types of maps. At the conclusion, she gave us homework to do before the next session in June. We are to: Construct a timeline for one ancestor Find a gazetteer for one place in the timeline Find two historic maps for that one place She gave us several places to search for these resources. Timeline for the life of Julia Sievert (1854-1928) who married Johan Anton Hork : [1] Julia was born in Joliet, Will County, Illinois on 31 October 1854 She lived with her parents, Vincent & Susanna (Raduntz) in 1860 in Joliet. Her fath...

I have a genealogy presentation about discovering records to document farming ancestors. In that presentation I discuss Amos Gorrell, my husband’s great-grandfather, as he had a farm in Cooper County, Missouri, and kept a journal about his farming activities. It is really cool to find a map that shows your ancestor. Amos’ land, though not very large, can be seen The Illustrated Atlas Map of Cooper County, Missouri, published in 1877. [1] Deed records gave me the land description, so I knew I would find his land in section 2 of Township 48 in Range 19 west. [2] His journal mentioned he worked often clearing the land of trees for Daniel Clark, and there on the map we can see that Amos’ land adjoined Clark’s and we can see where the trees were located, too. These illustrated maps are very helpful in see a bit of the landscape. Another map that is helpful is a soil map. The Historical Soil Survey Maps located at alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/soilsurvey, cover all of the states in ...

  It's  Saturday Night  -  Time for more  Genealogy Fun!  Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:   This SNGF is based on the Migration map that my friend J. Paul Hawthorne  made on Facebook on 18 November.   He used Birth dates and Places for his paternal line.  1)  For this week's SNGF, make your own migration map for whichever surname or ancestral line you want.  Use a World Map or a country map.  Choose birth, marriage, death, or migration year to put the spots on the map and label them with the year. 2)  Share your map with all of us by writing your own blog post, writing a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it. Here's mine:   I created my map using PowerPoint as well. I highlighted all of the elements and grouped them and then right-clicked to save as an image. The first one is of m...

Last week, I wrote about Amos Gorrell, Jr. being enumerated on the 1870 agricultural and population schedules. See this post here. The ag schedule indicated he had 25 acres of land. The population schedule did not indicate that he owned real estate. The conclusion from that would be he was renting the land he was living on. However, I have found a land transaction where he purchased about 24 acres of land from James & Virginia Staples in Cooper County, Missouri on 6 Aug 1869 and it was witnessed by W. L. Scott, the Justice of the Peace. [1] This piece of land was located at the Southwest fractional quarter of the Northeast quarter of Section 2, in Township 48, Range 19. I wanted to know where this was and used Randy Majors website where I could map the section, township, and range, and it would appear on a Google map. [2] From RandyMajors.com Because he purchased only a fractional quarter of a quarter, or less than 40 acres, I don't know exactly where i...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. I love maps. I have had a love affair with maps since that wonderful day in 5th grade when Mrs. Griffin, our teacher, gave each of us a folded travel map from a local gas station. We first learned how to unfold and refold the map properly. Then we completed exercises about the symbols in the key, and how to use the map to get from one place to another. From ebay:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Vintage-California-Gas-Station-Official-Road-Maps-1964-1971/183791501448?hash=item2acad3c088:g:vYEAAOSwEflcxgBP I totally understood the map! It was the first time that I totally “got” what a teacher was teaching, and I “got” it before many of the other pupils. If I had known sooner that I could have majored...

#SLIGExperience The theme for our Land class today was online maps. We learned about many different websites that house lots of images of maps. Some great sites are: Library of Congress National Archives National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Bureau of Land Management USGS David Rumsey’s Historical Map Collection to name a few good sites. State archives, libraries, and historical societies are also other great sites for historical maps. Screen shots of two sites we visited in the Family History Library lab: David Rumsey's Map Collection BLM website Here’s a map I found that was interesting—wish I noted which site I found it! This depicts the San Francisco Bay Another classmate and local genealogy society (California Genealogical Society). Laura Lee and me   I’m so excited by what we’ve learned so far! Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My ...

#SLIGExperience My syllabus and name tag along with this year's lapel pin I’ve completed first day of Advanced Land Records: Maps with Rick Sayre as the Coordinator. We also met our other instructors: Melinda Kashuba, Kimberly Powell, and Jerry Smith. The morning was an overview of what our week will be, plus Rick gave us an introduction to mapping America and a lesson on land division. After lunch we headed via bus to the Utah State Archives, where Melinda led a discussion about how to read maps and then we met in small groups to look at and analyze a few maps. Luckily we received a list of what to make notice of and to think about how the maps could help us genealogically. My team: Linda & Jane One of our maps we analyzed It was much fun seeing the variety of Utah maps that the archives have in their collection. I really love hands on activities. Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.