My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is: Which of your known ancestors lived the shortest life?  Consider only the last eight generations and those ancestors with a known birth and death date.  Do you know the cause of death?  Was there an obituary?  How many children did s/he have?  How did you figure this out? Here is mine: As I traveled aboard the Lake Shore Limited after leaving Boston, my first thought was to list all the infant deaths in the family but realized that none of them would have been my ancestors. DUH!  Nell Hutson Johnston did not live long but did give birth to six children, five of whom lived to adulthood. She was just thirty-one years old at her death. Nell was born on 8 February 1888 perhaps in Comanche County, Texas. She married Thomas Newton Johnston on 6 June 1907 in Comanche County. She died on 15 July 1919. [1] I...

I have completed one hundred eighty-six (186) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We spent most of last week in NYC and I wore masks indoors and on the subway. Thursday, we traveled up to Portland, Maine, on the train and I wore a mask. After that, I have not. Fingers crossed. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings None this week. Genealogy Writing This week, in my spare time (mostly while my husband slept), I worked on extracting the information from Amos Gorrell’s compiled military service record for the Civil War and his pension file. Blog Posts: William C. Gleeson’s Death Certificate and the Cause of Death . The theme for week 39 was surprise and I wrote about finally ordering William’s death certificate. I was very surprised by the cause of death, as there was no hint of it in the obituary. This post was highlighted on Randy Seaver's Best of Genea-Blogs . SNGF: Your Top End-of-Line Ancestors . I created a fan chart out nine generations starting with my daughter and lis...

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-Musings: 1)  Show us your pedigree (or fan) chart.  Who are your end-of-line ancestors?  Describe the top 5 or 10 of them. Here’s mine . I made a nine-generation fan chart from RootsMagic that has my daughter in the center. I marked out the living people for privacy. It clearly shows some of the end-of-line ancestors. I have not named them all, but here is a sampling: On my daughter’s paternal side: Heinrich Bischoff and his wife Ann Elisabetha, who were the parents of Henrich Bischof. Eventually, the Bischof name morphed into Bishop. Nils Jonsson and Kerstin Arvidsdotter, parents of Jonas Nilsson. As well as Brukaren Sven and Catharina, parents of Jonas’ wife, Stina Svensdotter. Sven Svensson and Sara Jonsdotter, parents of Karin Svensdotter. I don’t know the name of her husband, Mathes Peterson’s parents. Lars N...

For several years, I have been giving a presentation on how to do focused research. I use William C. Gleeson’s obituary as a starting point. First, create a research question and then make a research plan. This presentation is interactive and I have the audience participate by reading the obituary to discover something they would like to know, and then read it again to list the background information—those facts that the obituary is stating. Then we make a list of items to research. The research question is usually who are his parents. Always someone lists getting the death certificate as one of the first items. One day I realized I had never ordered it. I knew when he died and where he was buried, but I never took the time to get the actual death certificate. We should always strive to get every document that might have information about an ancestor. Even when you think you know everything. I know who his parents are, where and when he was born, etc. Of course, one thing I did n...

I have completed one hundred eighty-five (185) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week I went to the History Center and then we left for NYC on Jet Blue, wearing our masks. Masks on the subway but we ate indoors most of the time because it rained on the weekend. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings None this week. Genealogy Writing Besides working on my renewal, I started on a new presentation on using probate records. I’m doing a presentation for the Seattle Genealogical Society in November. Blog Posts: Adversity: Single Mothers Raising Their Families . For Week 38, I wrote about three generation of Hork wives who had to raise their family alone. This post was highlighted in Amy Crow Johnson’s 52 Ancestors email. Genealogy Volunteer/Work John helped me with the inventory of the library materials. We are almost finished but have a few books we cannot locate that had been entered previously.   AppGen meeting went over the proposals for the upcoming Spring session a...

In three consecutive generations in the Hork family, women had to raise their young children without a husband. I had not thought about the loss of the breadwinner before, but now I will. Maria Catharine Trösster (1813-1874) Joseph Heinrich Horoch, who lived in Oberhundem, in Kreis (county) Olpe in Westfalen, died on 5 October 1857 of dysentery. [1] Two other children also died two days previous on 3 October: Maria Elisabeth who was just eighteen months old [2] and Johan Joseph Carl, who was eleven. [3] Joseph was fifty-three years old and the father of at least five children. I have two more children whose baptisms I have found but whose death I have not. In 1857, at the time of her husband’s death, the five children living were Frederich, age twenty-one; Franz, age sixteen; Anton, age fourteen; Clementine, age six; and Albert, age four. What would she have done? Who would have taken care of her? The likely answer was the older boys found work to help support her. She may have done...

I have completed one hundred eighty-four (184) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Besides phenology, I went to the history center, got a haircut, and operated trains at Train club. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings There were several meetings this week:  Kinseekers Military SIG, where KB showed how to use the catalog and the History Hub on the NARA website. We saw some cool photos another member got from the National Archives of her father while he was in Vietnam. Stewart and I met during Amigos and discussed his autobiography and our plans for the upcoming retreat. I hosted the CGS Roundtable discussion groups by myself this month. Seven attended and there were lively discussions about everyone’s research. Genealogy Writing I continued working on my renewal, writing a research report. As of Sunday evening, I had seventeen pages written, not counting any images except a map and a tombstone. It’s coming along well. Blog Posts: James Sullivan: Enjoying the Prosperity He De...