My Trails into the Past

I have completed one hundred ninety-four (194) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Had a scare about Covid and was exposed on Sunday, so I stayed home Monday through Wednesday, skipping the History Center and Wednesday Walkers to keep everyone safe, although I never tested positive.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings No meetings this week. Genealogy Writing/Research I spent time working on my portfolio renewal for BCG. My research report is finished but I am still making some last-minute adjustments to the output. I hope to turn it in by the beginning of December. I did spend some time in the new interface at Chronicling America and searched for newspapers about the Colmann family in California during and after the gold rush. I found a couple of newspapers that covered the gold country and saved the many articles to my computer. Ida Hork married Martin J. Colmann. I found the birth announcement for Martin, and many articles about Colmann and Gebhardt families. Martin...

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 to: 1)  This week, let's write about "My memories of the decade of my choice."  Choose ten years and write about your memories. Here's mine: This is going to be interesting to see how much of the 80s I remember. I was working for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District as a train operator with the lowest seniority, so I never attended a bid and just asked what I got, but it was always the last job. When I first started in 1978, I got the last shift from 1930 to 0330 at Concord Yard with Tuesday and Wednesday off. I would spend the next fifteen years with seniority that never let me have weekends off at a shift at Concord Yard, which was the closest to my home. 1980 was also the year I married my husband. We married at St. Mary’s Church in Walnut Creek on 23 August. We paid for our own wedding and had the recept...

Jonas Nilsson and Marta Larsdotter, residents of Svenshult, Åsenhöga, in Jönköping län, Sweden, had seven children born between 1865 and 1877. One child, Nanny Albertina, did not survive childhood. Four children emigrated to America and two children remained in Sweden. The Emigrants Nils Malkom, Johan Laner, Sven Alfred, and Wilhelmina each traveled to the United States between 1887 and 1890, with Johan arriving first and settling in New Britain, Connecticut. Nils Malkom followed in 1889, settling first in Sheffield, Pennsylvania, where he was pastor for the Mission Covenant Church (now Grace Bible Church). Nils would live in several places where he ministered at churches in Youngstown, Ohio; Cromwell, Connecticut; Harcourt, Iowa; and several communities in California: Hilmar, Escalon, San Pedro, and Santa Cruz. Wilhelmina, arriving in 1889, settled in New Britain near her brother, Johan, who now went by John. Sven Alfred arrived last in 1890 and settled in New Britain near his sib...

May your day be filled with family and love, along with great food and conversation. Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

I have completed one hundred ninety-three (193) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Outside activities involved volunteering at the History Center, working at the Oakland FamilySearch Center, and going on a weekend genealogy retreat. Genealogy   Genealogy Meetings The Kinseekers Military SIG met this week and KB answered a WWI and WWII question. It is always a great refresher and sometimes I learn of a new resource. Jacqueline and I met later and I heard the update on her new house. On Tuesday, the Sonoma County Genealogical Society board of directors met and I took minutes. We still have no president or vice president for programs. Genealogy Writing/Research Four of us met for our yearly genealogy retreat and discovered it was our fifth anniversary of doing this. We meet in one member’s cabin in Truckee. We each have our own bedroom and we set up our laptops and spare monitors in the dining-living room area. We spend most of the day working on our projects and take tu...

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 to: 1)   Have you written or made a genealogy or family history book for your family, for eBooks, or for book publication?  How did you do it? Here's mine : Yes, I have written genealogy books about my family. The first ones started small–a few pages stapled together. Later I wrote more pages and put the results in binders to hand out. Finally, after getting a wonderful photo album of the Gleeson family, I put together a longer genealogy of the Gleeson, Tierney, Sullivan, and Hork families so I could use the photos. I sent out a survey to my siblings, father, his sisters, and my cousins, so I would have information to add about the current generations. I also asked my cousins about their memories of Nana. I made five copies, had Kinkos bind them for me, and gave them to my father and hi...

When my mother lived in Walnut Creek, California, as a young girl in the 1940s and 50s, there were not many stores in town where one could shop. Broadway Plaza had not yet been built. Instead, what people did was take a trip into the city, either to Oakland or San Francisco. It was a big deal to go into the city to shop. Shoppers would get dressed up. Some traveled there by car, some by streetcar over the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and others by bus. I never asked my mother, but we have a photo of her and her mother shopping outside stores in downtown Oakland. It was probably taken by a street photographer who left their card and for a small fee, they got a copy of the photograph. My mother looks about high school age. In Oakland, there were many department and specialty stores. Capwell’s was located at 20 th Street, facing both Broadway and Telegraph. It was a large department store with men’s and women’s clothing, household goods, and furniture.  Sears was on Telegraph at 26 th...