My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again - time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Another fun activity from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings. “Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along - cue the Mission Impossible music!):” 1) What do you "take after" or "favor" from our parents and/or grandparents? It could be looks, traits, mannerisms, speech, etc. 2) Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Please leave a link in a comment to this post. Thanks to one of his readers, Liz Tapley, for suggesting this topic. Hair One of my biggest traits is the huge cowlick in front. I could never have bangs when all of the other girls had bangs in school. They would just stick up or flip to the side. So, I mostly wore my hair straight back in a pony tail. My brother, Jon, and my daughter, Margaret, also have these cowlicks. Jon spen...

My paternal great-uncle, Jack C. Sullivan, left for France aboard the Martha Washington from Hoboken, New Jersey. He held the rank of sergeant in the 4 th Engineers, Co. E of the Fourth Division (Regular). [1]  Now I have a new question. When was he promoted? He had to have been promoted while still in the United States. Unfortunately, his service record was part of those records destroyed in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. [2] When I requested his file, I was offered a copy of the final pay voucher for his unit. I learned he enlisted on 4 June 1917. [3] The 4 th Engineers were formed at Camp Lewis in Washington. Jack sent home a letter to his sister reporting he had enlisted. [4] FamilySearch has a wonderful database, “United States, World War I, military muster rolls and rosters, 1916-1939.” They are not indexed but each regiment is listed in a pseudo-alphabetical order, starting with the 101 st Ammunition Tr. 26 Div, 5 th Compa...

Jill Ball of GeniAus has a meme to celebrate the best of 2020. Remember to Accentuate the Positive (I deleted the items that were not relevant to my situation.) 1. An elusive ancestor I found were the father and grandfather of Amos Gorrell in Beaver Co, PA. 2. A great newspaper article I found was the 50th anniversary writeup on my great-aunt’s in-laws, that also pointed to her marriage. 3. A geneajourney I planned but didn't take was a research trip I had planned to lead to the FHL in Salt Lake City after the NGS Conference. 4. I located an important record for the marriage of Ethel Sullivan and John Vir Quigley, due to the article found in no. 2 above. 7. My 2020 social media post that I was particularly proud of was a blog post I wrote about the restrictive covenant that was part of my grandparents’ deed. 8. I made a new genimate who we meet now twice a month to discuss 20th century military records. 10. I joined several non-local genealogical societies...

This is my fourth year working on this year-long 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 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. When thinking about genealogy beginnings, the arrival of immigrant families to America could be a beginning of our family history in the United States. For some of my lines, I know who the immigrant ancestors are. Their arrival in the 19 th century were documented by ship arrival records. For others, who were here before the American Revolution, I have no idea of their beginnings. Three-eighths of my children’s ancestors fall under this category. They include my mother’s southern ancestors and my husband’s Gorrell, Wollam, Shotts, and Bishop ancestors. But I can write about the other five-eighths of their ancestors. My father’s ancestors arrived here from Ireland, Canada (who were Iris...

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 forty-two (42) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I went out more this week, but tried to stay careful. I was mostly outdoors except to run in for one tea latte at Starbucks (the first in many months). I did phenology, picked up books at the library, walked twice to the mailbox with my husband, and bird watched around the natural pond at Heather Farm Park on New Year’s Day. Genealogy Blog Writing : I published three posts this week: 52 Ancestors-Week 52: Resolution – Goal Setting 2021 . I reviewed my goals from last year and made six more for 2021. I accomplished three out six. Looking Back on 2020 . I highlighted the top-viewing posts from the past year on my blog My Trails into the Past . The Best of 2020 . I highlighted the top-v...

It's good to revisit the past year, to reflect on what worked well and what to improve on. This past year on writing posts for this blog, I kept a spreadsheet of the posts and in total, I wrote 155 posts across two blogs: this one and Mam-ma's Southern Family . In order to do some statistical analysis, I learned I need to create a couple more columns with some codes to better help with sorting and counting. Hand counting across 150 plus entries in a spreadsheet is difficult. In all, I wrote 138 posts in this blog, which fell into four categories: 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks: 38 Genea-pourri: 51 Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: 40 Family Stories: 10 The top-viewed posts by theme this past year were: From 52 Ancestors meme: Air: George J. Gorrell Served in the Army Air Corps During WWII Scary Stuff: Building the Bridge Over the Vesle (France) Winter: Freak Snowstorm in Southern California on Virginia’s 5 th Birthday Different Language: Swedish & German Spoken at Home Quite the...

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. Before setting goals for this coming year, let’s look to see how well I had accomplished of my goals for 2020. I had six goals for the year. I completed three of them. Goal #1: Write the story of my parents.  Not even started . Goal #2: Create Presentation Flyer and distribute to local societies.  Completed . Goal #3: Create Genealogy Program for Adult School. Completed, as well as ongoing . Goal #4: Finish processing paper and digital files. I have continued to process current files, but nothing has been done with older paper files . Goal #5: Finish processing and cataloguing the Hork Photo Collection. Not started . Goal #6: Keep the record keeping spreadsheets up to date.  Current . 202...