My Trails into the Past

It's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has our assignment for this week: Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to: 1)  Lisa Alzo developed a series of Fearless Female writing prompts 10 years ago to celebrate National Women's History Month.  This year's listing of prompts is in Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Fearless Females Blogging Prompts. 2)  Today is March 14, so the writing prompt is:  "Newsmakers? Did you have a female ancestor who made the news? Why? Was she famous or notorious? Did she appear in the social column?"  If you cannot write about that prompt, choose another one from the list. 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook . Newspapers in small towns often have news about local activities of their residents, especially those of women and children. The Comanche ...

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My father, William J. Hork, was half Irish and half German. His mother, Anna Marie Sullivan was one hundred percent Irish. Her father, John H. Sullivan was born in County Cork and her mother, Anna Marie Gleeson, was born in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada to Canadian-born Irish. Her grandparents, Martin & Ann Gleeson, and John Tierney & Ann Murray were probably born in County Tipperary. Growing up, we were very proud of our Irish ancestry. We looked forward to St. Patrick’s Day when we could wear green (so as to not get pinched) and have corned beef and cabbage for dinner. Mom would make a cake for dessert, decorated with green frosting. Or perhaps we had green-frosted cupcakes at school. Peopl...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 10–Strong Women . I wrote briefly about three strong women: Mary Davey, Anne Hork, and Elizabeth Johnston who all endeared different difficulties. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – DoYou Have a Mary Smith . We were asked to search for a Mary Smith in our database and then do some additional research. I had a Mary Jane Davey who married an unknown Smith. I still couldn’t find any information about her marriages or her death after searching in Ancestry and FamilySearch in places where I knew she lived. Likely she either died at a place without death registration or married yet again. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     I attended my monthly Monday NGSQ discussion group for about fiftee...

It's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!   Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to: 1)  How many persons named Mary Smith do you have in your genealogy management program or online family tree?  How many persons named Mary Smith are ancestors? 2)  Pick out one of those persons named Mary Smith and do some online research for them in Ancestry, FamilySearch, or another set of record collections.  Your goal is to add something to your database. 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook. I have 7230 people in my RootsMagic database and only two Mary Smiths, both of whom married a Smith. Mary Jane Davey was born 23 May 1839 in Clifton, Bristol, England to Thomas Davey and Mary Nicholas. [1] She was their sixth child of fifteen and one of seven who lived to adulthood. After the family immigrated to the Uni...

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This week’s theme is strong women. What makes a woman strong? Does having more than ten children? How about losing a child or two to disease or accident? Or perhaps raising a family without a husband? How about traveling from place to place and making a new home at each? Mary Nicholas Davey had fifteen children during her lifetime, with only seven living to adulthood. I image that would make a person strong. How does one carry on after losing so many children to early childhood diseases. She and her husband Thomas had three sons they named Edward, probably after her father, who all succumbed to some unknown ailment. After that, they did not try to name another child Edward, though they lost the next three b...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy Blog Writing : 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 9–Disasters-Horoch Family Deaths in Oberhundem . I wrote three members of the Horoch family, including my 2x-great-grandfather who died from dysentery. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – RootsTech! . We answered questions about our first time at RootsTech and I wrote about my trip in 2018. On This Day: Family Members Born on February 29 . I wrote a post about an ancestor born on leap day. It turned into an analysis of conflicting information on her birth date. Webinars/Study Groups Attended:     I attended both online study groups this week, checking in with my progress on writing the Hork book and finishing up with the adult school class. I attended these webinars this week: ...

It's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing with our assignment for us: Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to: 1)  Have you gone to Rootstech? If so which years?  2)  Describe your experience. 3)  Who was your favorite speaker?  4)  Did you talk with any genealogy "rock stars"? 5)  What was something you learned that you use over and over? 6)  Describe something you enjoyed in the vendor area. 7)  Do you watch the streamed classes live? 8)  Did you visit the Family History Library?  Describe your experience. 9)  What was your favorite Salt Lake City experience not genealogical related? (A restaurant, a landmark etc.) 10)  What was a pleasant surprise about your visit that you did not expect? My thanks to reader Jacquie Schattner for creating this list of questions!! My r...