My Trails into the Past

I made a research trip to the Beaver County Genealogy & History Center in Beaver, Pennsylvania [1] on July 2, 2016. They have great records: books, maps, microfilms, tax records, and vertical files. In the vertical file for the surname GORRELL, I found several queries and submitted genealogies. To my surprise was a letter written by my husband’s aunt, Ada Thomason, in 1975. I knew she was interested in family history but I didn’t know she wrote letters of inquiry. 1975 Letter from Ada Thomason to Beaver County Historian Actually the letter was written to the historian, county clerk, or other official in Beaver. Beaver is the county seat for the county of Beaver in Pennsylvania. She stated the information about the family as she knew it: parent’s and children’s names, birth, marriage, and death dates, and then asked a specific question. She wanted to know if there was an epidemic in 1841 that caused the death of the four oldest children...

Henrietta Charlotte Sievert was the sister of my second great-grandfather, Vincent Sievert. [1] He and three other siblings all immigrated to the United States in the 1850’s.  Henrietta and her husband, Joseph Feitag arrived in New York aboard the Bark Elida on 22 May 1854 and along with her sister, Eva and her husband, Christoph Winke, and her brother, Johan Siewert and his wife, Anna. [2] 1854 Ship List of the Bark Elida  for the Siewert & Freitag families In the United States, the Feitag named morphed into Fiday. There were many records with at least three versions of the spelling: Feitag, Freitag, and Fiday, along with a variety of spellings of these names. The passenger list from Hamburg had their name spelled Freytag which is pronounced the same as Freitag. Freitag in German means “Friday.” 1854_Hamburg List for J. Freytag (see last line above) Joseph Fiday died 16 Apr 1895 and was buried at Saint Johns Cemetery in Joliet. [3] Henrietta die...

It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Here is my assignment this week from Randy Seaver from Genea-Musing : 1)  The 2016 Presidential election is this coming Tuesday.  When did you vote in your first Presidential election and, if you choose, who did you vote for?  What about your parents?  When did they first vote? 2)  Share your responses in comments to this blog post, or in your own blog post, or on Facebook or Google+.  Please leave a link in Comments if you write your own blog post. My first election was in 1972. I was eighteen and was able to vote because of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution changing the voting age to 18. It became effective 7/1/1971. My girlfriend’s older brother was also voting for the first time, but he was four years older and had waited until he was 21. The two candidates were the Republican, Richard Nixon and the Democrat, George McGovern. I have to admit that I couldn’t re...

Josephine Sievert was the ninth child of Vincent Sievert and Susanna Raduntz. She was born 16 Oct 1871 in Joliet, Will County, Illinois. [1] By the time she was a teenager, she was working as a seamstress. [2] She lived where her family at 1148 N. Hickory until her marriage to Harry J. McNeill on 26 Feb 1900. [3] Here is an image of the marriage license and certificate. 1900 Marriage Record for Harry J McNeill & Josephine Seavert in Joliet, Will Co., Illinois They were married early in the year and I expected to find the couple living together in the 1900 census in Joliet. However, I could only find one couple who matched most of their statistics in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. [4] 1900 U.S. Census, Cuyahoga Co, Ohio for Harvey J. McNeill right side of the same census record of Harvey J. McNeill Analysis So let’s analyze this entry to decide whether this couple is the same couple who married in Joliet. The 1900 census was conducted on June 1. T...

Daniel Shotts and Mary Ann Bishop were my children’s third great-grandparents on their father’s side. On 28 March 1831, Daniel Shotts married Mary Ann Bishop in Ross County, Ohio. [1] They had obtained their license on the 19th of March and were married nine days later by Pleasant Thurman. 1831 Ross Co., Ohio Marriage Daniel Shotts & Mary Ann Bishop So what can be learned from this record? There were no other records with Pleasant Thurman listed on the same page. Some of the marriages on the page did identify if the officiant, perhaps as M.G. (Minister of the Gospel) or even by identifying the church. So was Pleasant Thurman a minister? He could also have been a justice of the peace. Searching in Ross County records on Ancestry.com, I found Pleasant Thurman living in the area in the 1820, 1830, 1840, and 1850 censuses. The 1850 census for Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, gave no occupation. He was sixty-six years old. [2] In an abstract of death notices from ne...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has another great task for us tonight. Here it is: 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 genealogy software. I started out using PAF. I switched to Legacy Family Tree sometime around 2005. A few years later, I read a posting by Elizabeth Shown Mills about the Research report capability of RootsMagic and gave that a try. I’ve been using it ever since. I liked many of the features of Legacy Family Tree and miss them but one program is enough for me. 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 a tree at Ancestry.com and at Family Tree DNA both for the purpose of DNA matching with others. I do not ha...

Randy Seaver of Genea–Musing has another great adventure for us. Our assignment is: 1) Review your Pedigree Chart (either on paper or in your genealogy management software program) and determine the age at death of your male ancestors back at least five generations (and more if you want to). 2)  Tell us the lifespan years for each of these ancestors.  Which of your male ancestors in this group lived the longest?  Which lived the shortest?  Here’s mine: Father: William Joseph Hork (1930–2007) – 77 years Grandfathers: William Cyril Hork (1899–1967) – 68 years Tom J. Johnston (1912–1973) – 60 years Great–grandmothers: Johan Anton Hork (1843–1906) – 62 years John H. Sullivan (1854–1932) – 77 years Thomas Newton Johnston (1885–1951) – 65 years George Warren Lancaster (1893–1964) – 71 years 2nd Great–grandmothers: Joseph Heinrich Horoch (1804–1857) – 53 years Vincent Sievert (1823–1890) – 66 years Jeremiah Sullivan (1811–...