My Trails into the Past

I am participating in the weekly project that lasts 15 months created by Julie Goucher from Anglers Rest. It is a great way to document my own life. Prompt 2: Your Birth Do you have any baby photos? Where were you born? Who was present at your birth? Dimensions? What day was it? Time? Did you have hair? Eye colors Are you a twin? I am the first born of six children. So there are lots of photos of me and I have my baby book to reference from. I was born in Concord, California at the Concord Community Hospital, located at 2540 East Street. [1] This hospital later became Mt. Diablo Hospital and is now part of the John Muir Medical Center, the Concord campus. [2] According to my birth certificate, I was born at 6:40 p.m. My parents at the time were living at 35 Harbor Drive in West Pittsburg (which is now called Bay Point). My father was 23 years old and a service station attendant at Mel’s Associates. I weighed seven pounds, ten ounces and had a height of 19.5 i...

This is a new project to help genealogist write about themselves for future family.  This was developed by Julie Goucher of Anglers Rest and you can find out more about it here .  There will be a new prompt each week and I have started already 4 weeks late.  I am going to play catch-up now. Prompt 1. The prompt for week 1 is a recognized psychology test.  Ask yourself 20 times “Who are you?” Here is my response: I am: · 59 years old · retired but busier now than when I worked · a sister to three sisters and two brothers, a niece to two aunts, a granddaughter, and cousin to 8 cousins · introverted but love to be involved in the background · a mother to two daughters who graduated from college · a college graduate with a BS degree in Biology though I never worked in the field · a player of the piano, guitar, and recorder · a photographer, birdwatcher, genealogy researcher, and writer · a wife to Norman · a lover of travel but I hate to fly · a...

Michael John Neill posted on his blog, Roots Dig , about the updated database “United States Veterans Administration Pension Payment Cards, 1907-1933” on FamilySearch.org . I knew that the two Gorrell brothers, Amos and Joseph W. served in the Civil War and may have received a pension. I decided to search for them.  These payment cards in the database were issued between 1907 and 1933 so I checked to make sure both Amos and Joseph W were alive in that time period.  Their wives, Catherine and Eliza A. were also alive, so perhaps there were cards for them as well. I found Amos Gorrell’s card first. It had the correct regiment, so I’m on the right track. I downloaded the card and then selected the next page to work my way toward the Catherine or Eliza A Gorrell. What did I find on the next page, but the back of the card for Amos! Two for the price of one.  It is always a good idea to move forward a few pages and backward a few pages if you arrived at the page via an index...

It’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun time. Randy Seaver from Genea-Musings has set out challenge for the week: 1)  We're to take the first two letters of our first name and find in our family tree database the first person in our alpha list that begins with those first two letters. 2)  Next, write about what you know about that person (even do some research to find more). Describe h ow you are related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree? 3)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post. I have the first name of Lisa, so my first two letters to begin this challenge is LI . I use RootsMagic and the first person beginning with LI is the surname Liese. Mariam Franciscam Liese was married to Johann Heinrich Sommer , my 3rd great granduncle, so I am not related to her. I have very little information about her. I know the date of their marriage on 29 Oct 1791 in Kirchhund...

Okay, have a new mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-musing.  Your mission, should you decide to accept it: 1)  Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 September 1863 - 150 years ago. 2) List your ancestors, their family members, their birth and death years, and their residence location (as close as possible). Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist? 3) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post. Here is my post: My father’s side: Maria Catharine Trösster (1813-1874) was my 2nd great grandmother. My great grandfather, Johan Anton Hork (1843-1906) was probably living with her in Oberhundem, Westfalen. He came to the US in 1870 alone. Vincent Sievert (1823-1890) and Susanna Raduntz (1832-1911) are my 2nd great grandparents, who were living in Joliet, Will Co, Illinois. I do not know where they were living. ...

Yesterday I was searching through the probate records on FamilySearch.org . I knew that Thomas Haley probably died between 1850 and 1860. He was last seen in Rankin Co, Mississippi in the 1850 US Federal census. [1] There he was enumerated as a 61 year-old farmer with his wife, Elizabeth who was 58 years old and two sons, Thomas, 27 and John, 17. Being 61 would make his birth year somewhere around 1789. The census showed he was born in North Carolina and Elizabeth, his wife was born in South Carolina, while the two sons were born in Mississippi. Why am I interested in this couple? They are my 4th great grandparents on my maternal grandfather’s side. Thomas Haley’s daughter, Amanda married Benjamin W Jones. Their daughter, Olivia Jane married Rubin M. Johnston. Their son, Thomas N. Johnston married Nell L. Hutson. These were my grandfather’s parents. The first probate file I found on Thomas Haley was the petition for administration, filed by son, Thomas J. Haley. [2] Thomas gave...

  Our mission this week, was to: 1) The year one of my great-grandmothers was born and divide this number by 125. After rounding off to a whole number, I found my "roulette number." My husband’s great grandmother, Matilda Louise Erickson was born 1871. Dividing by 125, I got 14.968 which I rounded up to 15. 2) I found the Ahnentafel number corresponding to the “roulette number” in my RootsMagic database and that person was Matilda Louise Ericksson! 3) Tell three to five facts about that person in my ancestral name list with the "roulette number." Mathilda Lovisa Ericksson (1871-1942) Mathilda Lovisa Ericksson was 21 December 1871 in Tidersrum, Östergötland län, Sweden to Karl Johan Ericksson and Stina Maja Samuelsdotter. [1] She and her sister immigrated to the United States in 1888 and settled in Montgomery County, Iowa. [2] Mathilda married Pehr Alfred Lundquist on 15 March 1892 in Red Oak, Montgomery County, Iowa. [3] Together they had three children: J...