My Trails into the Past

The Book of Me, Written by You is a blogging theme where one can write about their own life using blog themes posted each week.  More information can be found at Anglers Rest  here . This week's prompt is - Hairstyles Go on share your hairstyles over the years! Do you have regular hairdresser habits? Colour? Do you dye it? (your secret is safe with us!) I’ve never been a big fan of hair and hairstyles. I can count the number of times I have been to a real beauty shop on one hand: (1) for my 8th grade graduation, (2) trying out a styled cut by a stylist, and (3) to get a permanent (which I would never do again!).  In-between I have been to hair cutting shops to have my hair cut. As a young child my mother curled my hair. I even remember a horrible time when my grandmother gave me a permanent. Sitting still all that time was so hard when you were young but you didn’t sass Mam-ma. I was pretty scared of her then! Top: 1st grade, 2nd grade, 4th grade Bot...

Our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1) What was your father's mother's name? 2) What is your father's mother's patrilineal line? That is, her father's father's father's ... back to the most distant male ancestor in that line? 3) Can you identify male sibling(s) of your father's mother, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that patrilineal line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further. 4) Tell us about it in your own blog post, or in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook or Google Plus post. 1) My father’s mother’s name was Anna Marie Sullivan. 2) So her father was John H. Sullivan (1854-1932). His father was Jeremiah Sullivan (1811-1888). This is as far back as I have researc...

Our newest 3-2-1 Challenge from DearMyrtle is: ·          3 – Review 3 possible projects ·          2 – Submit two batches ·          1 – Write 1 paragraph about your impressions CITE! All sources, including your “personal knowledge” as the source for the paragraph you write. I won’t be able to write one paragraph about my impressions but I'm excited to get back into indexing! I had done indexing back in 2012 when the 1940 census came out. The census records were lots of fun and were not too hard to do except for reading some challenging handwriting on occasion. I had also done other projects but couldn’t remember which ones. On the tab for My History in the Indexing program, I could click on the “My Records Submitted” to see what I had done before. Some of the other record groups included Ontario, Canada Marriages; WWII Draft Registrations from Ark...

This is week 17 of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge” by Amy Crow from  No Story Too Small .  I am a bit behind but intend to catch up. Ernie & Mary  My husband’s great uncle, Ernie Nilsen and his wife, Mary, never had any children. Because of that, there are no descendants who would be wondering about Mary’s family. We’ve put together a very nice story about Ernie and Mary in the book  The Nilsen Family: From Jönköping to America, but at the time of the printing, no research had been done on Mary’s immediate family. [1] Well today, I did some poking at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org looking for some hint about Mary’s ancestry so her story could be complete. Mary Wilson McConnell was born 4 Apr 1893 in Tennessee and died 16 Sept 1986 in Los Angeles County, California. [2] That much I know from death indexes in California and the Social Security Death Index. My husband’s aunt, Bernice, is the keeper of many of the Nilsen records and she...

The Book of Me, Written by You is a blogging theme where one can write about their own life using blog themes posted each week.  More information can be found at Anglers Rest here . This week's prompt is - What's in your bag/pocket? Do you routinely carry a bag? What do you carry? Why do you carry it? What do you carry it in? Do you carry differently things on specific days or to specific places? I have never been a big fan of the “purse.” I have owned a few but usually only use them when I’m wearing nice clothes such as slacks, dress, or skirt.  My preferred bag is a backpack/knapsack. You know, the kind that carries books to school. I sling it over my left shoulder mostly, though sometimes over both shoulders if it’s heavy with too many books or the laptop. That way my hands are free. Right now I own two backpacks made by JanSport. One is navy blue and the other is brown and tan plaid. If I had my druthers, I would have lots backpacks in a vari...

Peter Hayden Hutson was my great-great maternal grandfather. He was born 22 Dec 1853 in Georgia. [1] His family was found in Salacoa, Cherokee Co, Georgia in the 1860 census. [2]   His father was Robert Hutson and his mother Amanda Davis. The next time Peter was found was in the marriage record of Peter and Sarah Helena Selman on 11 Sep 1879 in Cherokee Co, Texas. [3]  At first I wasn’t sure this was the correct marriage record, because of the name for R.H. Hudson, but looking at the image, the "R" really looked like a "P."  So P.H. could easily be Peter Hayden. And Hudson and Hutson can be easily interchanged. Plus Miss S.H.S. Selman most likely is Sarah Helena “Sallie” Selman. Marriage record of Peter H. Hutson & Sarah H. Selman, Hood County, Texas Marriages, Bk B, p 42. They were married by R.S. Proffett, Minister of the Gospel, on 11 Sep 1879. Researching R.S. Proffitt, I found he was a minister in the area and also the postmaster. Peter...

This is week 15 of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge” by Amy Crow from  No Story Too Small .  I am a bit behind but intend to catch up. Today I am writing about the oldest Hork ancestor I have found, Röttger Horoch. Notice the spelling of Hork in the earlier times? I found the spelling in a variety of ways: Horrock, Horroch, Horock, and later in the 19th Century, it was spelled Hork. These were all from German church records. I have two records found in church books about Röttger: the marriage record to Dorothea Voss and his death/burial record. From the death record, he died on the 13th day of February in 1816. [1] He was approximately 87 years old. This would make him born about 1729 plus or minus a few years. There are church records going back that far in Kirchhundem. When I get better at reading the old handwriting, I will search for his birth/baptism record. Here is the death record. Don’t you love that old German handwriting? From the wee...