My Trails into the Past

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. I have completed thirty-six (36) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I worked at the History Center and I did phenology with Shirley at the meadow as usual. Other than that, I didn’t leave the house except for local neighborhood walks. Genealogy Blog Writing : My 52 Ancestor post about my families speaking Swedish and German at home was highlighted in the weekly email from Amy Johnson Crow. That makes it three weeks in a row! Blogs posted this past week: 52 Ancestors: Week 47: Good Deeds—The Ones Full of Family Information I wrote this week about deeds that are full of family genealogy.    Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Children Did Your Ancestors Have? We were to list our 15 ancestral couples, the number of children they had, an...

    Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing (if you choose to play along, cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 1) Thinking about your direct ancestors back through 2nd great-grandparents - in other words, ancestors #2 to #31 on your pedigree chart - how many children did they have? How many lived long enough to marry? How many died before age 10? 2) Tell us all about it in a blog post of your own, in comments on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook. Be sure to link to them in a comment on this blog post. Here's mine, starting with my daughter as #1: #2&3: Norman J Gorrell & Lisa S Hork – 2 daughters; none married. #4&5: George J Gorrell & Thelma M Nilsen – 4 sons & 1 daughter; all married. #6&7: William J Hork & Lela Nell Johnston – 2 sons & 4 daughters; all married. #8&9: Joseph N Gorrell & Mat...

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. Many deed records about land transactions do not give much information about families except for the buyer and seller. Better deeds might also include the seller’s wife name. This can help us keep same-named men separated, and also know that the man was married or that his wife was still alive at the time of the sale. The best deeds are those full of family information. These are usually about the division or sale of land after the death of the owner. The index might give a clue about these deeds, listing the first seller’s name and then “et al” after their name. Grantor Deed Index with the highlighted et al  The actual deed will list the names of all of the sellers. The cropped example below from Rankin Cou...

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. I have completed thirty-five (35) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I worked at the History Center and I did phenology with Shirley at the meadow as usual. Other than that, I didn’t leave the house except for a longer walk on Saturday with Norman. Genealogy Blog Writing : My 52 Ancestor post about my grandfather growing a beard for a contest was highlighted in the weekly email from Amy Johnson Crow. That makes it two weeks in a row! I wrote an extra blog post this week about restrictive covenants in deeds. I was encouraged to do this from members of the discussion group on the book The Color of Law . Blogs posted this past week: 52 Ancestors: Week 46: Different Language—Swedish and German Spoken at Home I wrote about my husband’s Swedish ancesto...

Calling all Genea-Musing Fans: It’s Saturday Night again Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has given us our assignment this week. We are do the following: 1) In your childhood (and into the teenage years), what did you save or collect as a hobby or interest? Do you still have them? 2) Tell us all about it in a blog post of your own, in comments on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook. Be sure to link to them in a comment on this blog post. Here’s mine: We actually did a post similar to this in 2016 and my post is here where I wrote about collecting stamps, troll dolls, and postcards. I have also collected other things. I’d say my biggest collection during my teenage years was collecting books. My friend, Beth, and I would go to used book stores once a week to purchase all kinds of books: Star Trek, Harlequin romances, young adult, westerns, and my favorite: Man from U.N.C.L.E. books. I still have some of these books. Most are in storage...

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 children have ancestors who came from countries where they spoke a language other than English: Sweden, Germany, and Ireland. And even in Germany, the Germans came from specific small lands where different dialects were spoken.  As a Community So, what happened when they came to the United States? The Lundquist family from Skaraborgs län, Sweden, settled first in Jefferson County, Iowa, where other Swedish immigrants were living. [1] This made it easier to communicate, conduct business, and attend church with others who spoke the same language. Children brought up in these Swedish communities also spoke Swedish, at least in the home, as they probably attended school where English was spoken. The men may have...

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. I have completed thirty-four (34) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I worked a few hours at the History Center. I did phenology with Shirley (masked of course) at the meadow as usual. Other than that, I didn’t leave the house except for a longer walk on Friday with Norman. Genealogy Blog Writing:   My 52 Ancestors post from last week was highlighted in the 52 Ancestors weekly email and I received way more views on it, along with some comments. Yeah! Blogs posted this past week: 52 Ancestors: Week 45: Bearded—Growing A Beard for a Contest I wrote about my grandfather growing a beard for a Walnut Festival contest. I even had a copy of the program that showed the contest judging but I have no idea if he won or not.   Saturday Night Genealogy...