My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Here is our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings :   1) Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year? Here’s mine: To be honest, I did not receive any genealogy gifts from my family, because I had just purchased a few items before Christmas for myself. This made it easier for my husband, so he did not have to go searching for something for me. Recent books Visiting Your Ancestral Town: Walk in the Footsteps of Your Ancestors (3 rd ed) by Carolyn Schott. The first half of the book is about researching to locate the ancestral town, and then tips about going to visit it. Our Quaker Ancestors: Finding Them in Quaker Records (2 nd ed) by Ellen Thomas Berry and David Allen Berry. I teach about church records but I know nothing about Quakers, so I want to learn! Germans in...

As the year is ending, it is time to look back on which of the goals I have accomplished. This past year, I had not posted them on the bulletin above my desk, so they were not regularly consulted. As a result, I did not fare well with them. 2023 Goals Create new presentations for societies : I created one new presentation called How to Leave Your Genealogy, recycled one from a course I used called Researching in Church Records, and one 12-hour course for AppGen called Using Probate Records. Write research reports and/or proof summaries for my mother’s side of the family . I wrote a research report for my certification renewal but it was my father’s side of the family. Choose one family to write a KDP genealogy . I started a KDP for the renewal but switched to the research report as it got too tedious. Someday, I will finish the story but probably not as a KDP. I’ll just create a nice story with photos, though I will cite all the work. 2024 Goals Now that the recertification por...

Jill Ball of GeniAus has had this meme since 2012 and I have discovered it today from Linda Stufflebean’s post. I shall attempt to answer some of these questions. 1.  On revisiting some old research I found I realized I hadn’t written anything about that research. So, for my BCG renewal, I wrote up the research that helped me round out the family of John Gleeson of Ontario, Canada. 2.  In 2023 I hooked up with a new (to me) living cousin. I did not meet a new cousin, but did reach out to an old cousin about some possible WWI military record that is available at the South Dakota Historical Society that only a direct family member can get. I haven’t heard back yet, but I hope she can obtain the record. 3.  I'm pleased I replaced a tool I had been using with.   I don’t use many fancy tools, but did discover some uses of ChatGPT after taking a course from NGS. It is very useful for sorting through text to give a summary. 4.  My sledge hammer did great...

The following is the start of the story of my life, written last year during a writing retreat. It is currently six pages long and tells my story up to about sixth grade. Below is the introduction. I do need to finish this and it shall be one of my 2024 goals. Early memories of our lives are hard to define. Do I remember that event or are the photos in a photo album defining my memory? My earliest memories are from my fifth year. I had scarlet fever while in kindergarten. Bits and pieces of memory about that time are the doctor coming to our house and nearly gagging me with that tongue depressor. I have hated that part of doctor’s appointments since. I think that our house was quarantined with a paper at the front door. I also remember my father bringing home Silly Putty, though I do not remember whether it was for this illness or another. But there are no other memories of the illness. When I returned to school, I had extra milk to drink from when I was away. Perhaps my parents ...

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

I have completed one hundred ninety-eight (198) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week is a break from most of my volunteer jobs. I operated at the San Ramon Valley RR again at the museum in Danville. We had a larger crowd that day—lots of little boys to see the trains.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings I met with Jacqueline, who is now in Oregon and because the new house is being painted, she was in her motor home. Genealogy Writing/Research I have switched to working on Rod’s genealogy and have his dad’s story nearly completed. Next up will his dad’s parents and his mother’s parents. However, I got distracted by some Ancestry hints (28 pages worth) that revealed some documents that I did not have and then it got me researching other stuff. I wrote up the research report for Thomas J. Haley’s life. Although I tried, I couldn’t find the date of death. I could narrow it down between 1889 and 1891. Likely he was buried in an unmarked grave in Dallas, Texas. I also fo...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment this eve of Christmas Eve from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1) Pick out a genealogy-oriented Christmas gift for someone you know, admire, appreciate, or love. It could be for a family member, someone in the genealogy community, or a friend or colleague. Describe your genealogy gift to them. Here's mine: Since the time our family got together at the Spaghetti Factory and showed them the article published in the Pittsburg Post-Dispatch of my mother standing next to Louis Armstrong, who came to perform for a Junior Woman’s Club benefit for purchasing an electrically controlled bed for the Pittsburg Community Hospital. My nephew, Ryan, thought it so cool and said I should write up a family history to share with the rest of the family. Since that time, I have been meaning to, but it seemed so many other things got in the way. So, if I had time between n...