My Trails into the Past

In the late 2000s, I approached my husband’s aunt about writing a book about her ancestors, the Nilséns. She supported the idea, supplied funds to research at Ancestry , bought a new scanner and printer, and put up the money for the printing of the books. I ended up writing about the four immigrants who came to the United States and two of their following generations and included a chapter about the two siblings who remained in Sweden. The direct ancestor of his aunt and mother was Nils Malkom Nilsén, the eldest of the children of Jonas Nilsson and Marta Larsdotter. Nils changed the spelling of his surname while in the seminary due to there being too many Nils Nilssons. The children who came to America also used the new spelling while the children who remained kept the surname Nilsson. Nils was a minister in the Swedish Mission Church and served in many locations in the United States. To discover which churches he where served, I had to locate the churches in the various towns and ...

  Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of GeneaMusing has our assignment for today: 1)  We're all familiar with Timelines - date, location, event, etc. - for events in our lives.  This week, create a Place Line for your life, or for the life of one of your parents or grandparents - your choice! In that Place Line, tell us the location (address if possible), inclusive dates (if possible), and events. Consider topics like residence, schools, churches, employment, etc. Here's mine: Residences: * After my parents (William J Hork and Lela Nell Johnston) were married on 19 April 1953, they lived with his mother at 3418 Wren Avenue, Concord. I cannot show a photo from Google Maps because it’s tucked into one of those flag driveways and is behind another house. * They moved to 35 Wharf Drive in the housing tract called Shore Acres in West Pittsburg (now called Bay Point). Lela’s parents g...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another assignment for us. Here is our assignment: 1)   Which of your ancestors had an unusual occupation?   2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post.   I’m getting a late start, but here it is: Most of my ancestors and their collateral relatives had regular, not so unusual, jobs. They were farmers, carpenters, tailors, mechanics, housekeepers, teachers, secretaries, and ministers. However, I do have an great-grandaunt, Coreta Hutson Speed (my maternal great-grandmother's sister), who ran for Tax Collector in Comanche County, Texas in 1928 and won. It started out a sad story. Coreta’s husband, Bert Weaver Speed, was the Tax Collector until he ran for County Superintendent of Schools in 1924. He had to resign shortly afterwards due to illness, an...

It's Saturday Night , time for more Genealogy Fun !! For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), answer the question: 1)  What were the occupations of your ancestors? 2)  Please go back several generations (say parents or grandparents or great-grandparents) and list the occupations that they had in the records you've found for them.  You could do this, say, by ancestor table number. 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook. I am also listing by ancestor number, skipping myself. Some of my ancestors were easy to document because California has both city directories and voter registrations to supplement time between census records. But my Texas ancestors have few records. I am also stopping with my great-grandparents. 2. William J. Hork (1930-2007), my father, had these occupations: 1950: Fitzpatrick Chevy Dealer as parts chaser and grease monkey 1953: Flying A Se...