My Trails into the Past

I have completed two hundred and eight (208) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week besides the History Center, I went to the Social Security Office and Whole Foods. Otherwise, I was home or outdoors hiking. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Monday Morning meeting had about nine people and there were lots of good discussions. I shared about my great-uncle being mentioned in a comic book. Later, Jacqueline and I started a Trello board for our upcoming Texas research trip. We’re to get serious about what places we want to visit. Wednesday, three Amigos met and we got caught up with each other’s lives. Later, I joined the CGS RootsMagic SIG and Keith covered searching in Newspapers dot com and how he enters data into the program. Friday, the peer certification group met, and after congratulating Annette, we discussed the second chapter in Advanced Genetic Genealogy . I was lost after about six pages into the chapter by Blaine Bettinger on visual phasing. Geneal...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has an assignment for us tonight: What have you done at RootsTech 2024 so far (we're on the third day), either in-person or online?  What have been the highlights for you so far? Here's mine: I am one of those #NotAtRootsTech. I chose to stay home and view some of the presentations online.  Thursday, I viewed the following: “Where did you find that? Effective searches on FamilySearch.org.” This was given by Debbie Gurtler, who works for FamilySearch. She showed all the ways to search on the website and had great tips on searching, understanding the results page, and filtering the results. “Digging into Finding Aids: The Road Map to Any Manuscript Collection” by Melissa Barker, who is an archivist in Tennessee. She gave details on the parts of a finding aid and the handout included a sample. She then covered all the kinds of repositorie...

Agnes Hilma Carolina Lundquist was born on 16 July 1894 in Stanton, Montgomery County, Iowa, to immigrant parents from Sweden, Pehr Alfred Lundquist and Mathilda Lovisa Erikson-Holm. [1] Her parents were married on 15 March 1892 in Red Oak, the county seat of Montgomery. [2] Agnes was their second child. When I began researching my husband’s family, I looked for her father in ship passenger lists and found no record of Pehr Alfred Lundquist, nor his parents Anders Lundquist and Cajsa Lundquist. Two more siblings of Pehr Alfred, Johan Gustav and Ana Sophia, were also not found. I continued researching the family in US records but at the back of my mind, I really wanted to locate that passenger list. It’s the first connection to the old country. Then I remembered the Swedish naming pattern. Pehr’s name would be Pehr Alfred Andersson, being the son of Anders. Anders’ surname would Eliasson, as the son of Elias Pehrsson. Perhaps they did not come to America using the Lundquist name...

I have completed two hundred and seven (207) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week I had meals out with my sisters and with a friend of my husband. I also gave an in-person presentation in Sacramento.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I didn’t meet until Thursday when we spent an hour booking flights to Dallas, Texas in April. She is coming from Eugene and I from Oakland and we managed to locate a flight in Las Vegas that we both can transfer to! And the same with the return flight. We will be spending eleven days in North Texas doing genealogy research. Hello Dallas, Fort Worth, Stephenville, Comanche Co, Rockwall Co, and more. Maybe even a dip in Oklahoma. Genealogy Writing/Research: I spent some more time locating the 1950 census records for Whitlow, Goe, and Patterson families. On Friday, I received a land patent package from Sandy Rumble and it’s a goldmine. My 3x-great-grandfather, George W. Lancaster got 40 acres of pre-emption land and h...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has our assignment for tonight:  1)  How did your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and other greats meet each other?  Do you know any details?   Here's mine: I told the story of meeting my husband, Norman, in Saturday Night Genealogy Full – How Did You Meet the Love of Your Life? I told the story of my parents meeting in Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – “How did Your Parents Meet?” I told the story of how my maternal grandparents met in Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – How Did Your (Grand) Parents Meet? I wrote the story of Norman’s great-grandfather’s courtship in Courting: The Courtship and Marriage of Amos Gorrell, Jr. and Catherine E. Sayre in Ross County, Ohio . I have not written the story of my paternal grandparent's meeting. William Cyril Hork of Hamilton, Ravalli County, Mon...

We have several interesting items I would call heirlooms. These have been tucked away safely, but unfortunately, our daughters know nothing about them or their significance. My goal this year is to document these heirlooms with photos and stories, printed up in a Shutterfly book. Then if they decide not to keep the items, at least they know the background story and its provenance. This post was originally written for Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun in 2017. I am updating the content. Opera Glasses The first item is a pair of opera glasses that were given to me by my aunt, Virginia Gertridge, who told me they were owned by her great-aunt, Elizabeth Gleeson. Nothing was written down and I do not remember her exact words as I received the gift. It is possible that Virginia’s mother, Anna Sullivan Hork, had the opera glasses first and then they were passed down to Virginia. Clues about the glasses. They are stored in a leather case which is falling apart. Inside the lid is wr...

I have completed two hundred and six (206) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I was out and about more this week, going to the History Center twice, having lunch with genie friends, attending a Harry Potter movie in German party at our German teacher’s home, and giving a live in-person presentation to a group in Modesto.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:  On Monday, I attended Kinseekers Military SIG on Zoom and then had a nice lunch at Jack’s with genealogy friends. It was Kathryn’s birthday and we plan to meet again for lunch in late March for Sheri’s and my birthdays. Jacqueline and I led the CGS Roundtable this week and we had a lively discussion about lots of topics. I shared the story of locating my great-uncle’s comic book story. The Certification Discussion Group meeting this week was about the BCG’s announcement of a pilot program to split the submissions of a portfolio into two parts. The rubrics and judging would remain the same. So many people came, that...