My Trails into the Past

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another great assignment. Here is our assignment: 1) Remember when you were 10 or 11 years old and in fifth grade at school? Was that one of the best times in your life? Or not? 2) Tell us about your fifth grade memories and the highlights of that time of your life - in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or Google+. I attended Parkmead Elementary in Walnut Creek, California for fifth grade. Mrs. Griffin was our teacher and she was the hardest teacher I ever had. She hated our handwriting and made us re-learn cursive all over with all of the exercises. She was also one of those teachers who seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. I think we wore her out because she retired after our school year! But the best part of 5th grade was joining Junior Girl Scouts. I was part of Troop 374. [1] We met once a week in the Kindergarten room and our leaders, Mrs. Bailey & Mrs. Hanson, were teachers, I think (though ...

Today during the DearMyrtle "Mondays With Myrt" we got to talking about Toolboxes. I wanted to share a photo of the toolbox I made in OneNote and had a hard time figuring out a way to share. So I decided to write a blog post about it. I got the idea from Christine Sisko Svircev at the "OneNote for Genealogy" group on  Facebook . She posted a photo of how she created categories and sub-categories. It was colorful and that’s what attracted me to her post. I had watched Thomas MacEntee talk about genealogy toolboxes either at an in-person lecture or via a webinar. Having only bookmarks in your browser is just not practical and so hard to keep organized. Plus there was no place you could annotate what this website was all about! Enter OneNote.  I had been using OneNote off and on. I like the Notebook set-up with Dividers and Pages. It’s how I organized my paper genealogy binders. So when I first started with OneNote in my Office 2010 program, I set up Fam...

It's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun and Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has a great one. Here is my assignment: 1)  Answer these questions in my survey about your genealogy resources and usage: a)  Which genealogy software programs for your computer do you use (e.g., Family Tree Maker, Reunion, GRAMPS, etc.)? I use Rootsmagic as my primary genealogy program, but also have Legacy Family Tree and PAF loaded on the computer.  Sometimes I want to create a special report in Legacy. I also find details missing from some of my sources because of how PAF transferred the GEDCOM to Rootsmagic. So I have to go into the record in PAF and then copy and paste. b)  Which online family trees have information submitted by you - in either a separate online tree (e.g., Ancestry Member Tree) or a universal (collaborative) online tree (e.g., WikiTree)?  I have no trees online except the tree uploaded to FamilyTreeDNA profile of my grandmother. I have added info to FamilySearc...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another wonderful Saturday Night assignment: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1) Do you know which of your ancestors appears the most times in the Census records? How many years? Are there duplicate entries? 2) Describe that ancestor's entries in the records in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or Google+. I checked several ancestors who I know lived a long life. The best candidate turned out to be my daughter's paternal 2nd great-grandfather. Amos Gorrell, Jr. lived from 1837-1928. He appeared in 9 census records from 1840 to 1920. 1840 , he was just a tick mark in the Beaver Co. Pennsylvania household of Amos Gorrell (his father) as one of the males under age 5. 1850 , he was 13 year old in the Jackson Co, Ohio household of Amos Gorrell (his father) 1860 , he was a 23 year old in the Ross Co, Ohio household of Amos Gorrell (his...

Another great activity created by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings to help us share something about our families in our blog. 1) What year was one of your great-grandfathers born? Divide this number by 75 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number." 2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel" - your software will create this - use the "Ahnentafel List" option, or similar). Who is that person, and what are his/her vital information? 3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number." 4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post. 1.  Johann Anton Hork was my oldest grandfather on my paternal side. He was born 9 Nov 1843 in Oberhundem, Westfalia (Ge...

Today’s ancestor, Ira S. Hutson, was my 1st cousin 3 times removed. Our common ancestor is Robert Hutson (1821-??), who is my third great grandfather. I descend through the son, Peter H. Hutson, while Ira descended through the son, Richard A. Hutson. Ira's signature from his World War I Draft Registration Ira S. Hutson was born on this day, 10 March 1894 in Clinton, Van Buren County, Arkansas [1] to Richard Alexander Hutson and Mary S. Middlebrook. [2] He was the fourth of six known children of Richard and Mary. He married Jennie Brewer on 27 Aug 1914 in Van Buren County. Both were underage and Ira swore that the “parents on each side are knowing and perfectly willing for them to marry.” [3] He was 20 years old and she was 18. They both were from Formosa, Arkansas which was southwest of the county seat of Clinton.  Ira registered for the draft on 5 Jun 1917, saying he was married with two children. He had black hair and gray eyes, and was of medium height and b...

On this day [1] two of my husband’s aunts were born: Bertha Marie Gorrell on 4 Jan 1904 [2] and Claire Elizabeth Gorrell on 4 Jan 1917. [3] Bertha was the oldest child of Joseph Norman Gorrell and Matilda Pearl Davey. [4] Claire was the youngest. [5] With sisters having the same birthday, were there any troubles? Did Bertha get special treatment because she was the oldest, or did Claire because she was the youngest? They were thirteen years apart in age. My guess that because of the age difference, they did not celebrate together very long. Bertha graduated from high school in May 1922 when Claire was only five. [6] Then in the fall, she attended the normal school (teacher’s college) in Pittsburg, Kansas. [7] By the fall of 1924, Bertha was teaching third grade at West Side school in Webb City. [8] She also taught school in Fredonia, Kansas in 1926. [9] On 29 May 1928, Bertha married Francis Marion Smart in Webb City, Missouri. [10] They lived in Webb City, Okolona,...