My Trails into the Past

Many of the women on my father’s side were teachers. This was a common occupation for women, especially those who never married. This was the case for Margaret Teresa Gleeson, my great-grandaunt. Margaret, the daughter of John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney, was born on 28 July 1873 in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada and baptized on 24 August 1873 at St. Philip’s Church in Richmond. [1] She was their ninth child and fifth daughter. She would have one younger brother. Childhood When she was six years old, her family moved to the United States, settling in Mitchell, Davison County, Dakota Territory. The youngest three children were not listed as attending school in 1880. [2] She attended Mitchell High School. On one program held at the school in October 1889, Margaret gave a recitation titled “A Slave’s Heroism.” [3] In the next month, she recited “Spinning.” [4] During Arbor Day in May 1890, gave an essay on grasses, “showing that many plants not generally known as grasses reall...

I have completed two hundred and thirteen (213) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week besides the History Center, I ran trains at a friend’s home, stood in line for three hours at Russian River Brewery for Pliny the Younger (and I don’t even like beer), and volunteered at the Oakland FamilySearch Center. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Monday, Jacqueline and I continued discussion our upcoming Texas trip. I received some good advice about places to conduct research in Erath County and showed her some of the options. These are the same to look for in other counties. Our Cert Peer Group met on Friday and after checking in with everyone, we discussed the third chapter in the Advanced Genetic Genealogy book, the chapter on X-DNA. Genealogy Writing/Research: I continued working on documents I have found for NHO Polly and started a timeline. I will be looking for deeds and court records in Dallas County. After several emails back and forth with county officials, Ke...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  Again -  Time For Some More  Genealogy Fun!! Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings assignment for us today is:  1)  We all need, and usually enjoy, a little help from our genealogy friends.  This week's challenge is to share a time when a genea-friend helped you find a record, or even solve a mystery.  It could be a recent help, or something from long ago. Here’s mine: Like Randy, I have had many people help me, especially early in my genealogy research efforts. I have a shout out to Susan Swindell, who took me to Sutro Library in San Francisco for my first effort in census research, using microfilm. She patiently listened to my efforts after that answering my questions and giving suggestions. She also led a genealogy roundtable for many years from her house, meeting on the second Monday of the month. This was a place where we brought our successes to share and our problems to a...

As each of us married, our mother made photo album cookbooks filled with her favorite recipes. She typed up the recipes on yellow paper and decorated the pages with photos from our childhood. The best part of the album is her commentary about the dish. It’s like she’s in the kitchen with us. These recipes came from many sources. Some were her favorites, personally massaged to her liking. The chicken roll-up recipe was her “gourmet” dish which she served to company. I have made her stew recipe many times, though I substitute pork shoulder for the beef. Others came from family members. Nana’s beer pork chops were always a favorite. It’s a pretty simple recipe but very tasty. We always had it with rice. However, Nana’s meatballs were served with mashed potatoes. In her discussion about easy chuck roast, she suggested using “cheater sauce” to make the gravy dark. This was Kitchen Bouquet and was used often in her kitchen, (but don't tell anyone!). Casseroles were very common in the 1...

I have completed two hundred and twelve (212) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week besides the History Center, I ran trains at the train club show and attended the last pre-season game at the Giants. Amazing, we traveled on BART and Muni and neither of us thought to bring masks. We escaped getting COVID-19. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Monday, Jacqueline and I discussed our upcoming Texas trip. I showed her how I made a list from RootsMagic of people who had events in the Texas counties we might visit. She then tried to do the same in Family Tree Maker and had trouble. Amigos met on Wednesday and we talked on doing research for others. The RootsMagic SIG met also and the discussion centered around different fact events available as well as how to create one. Genealogy Writing/Research: This week I worked on recording newspaper articles about NHO Polly, who was a traveling minister in Texas. I found a mention of a Texas bill that was introduced in the Sena...

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)   April Fools Day is Monday.  When were you a Genealogy Fool?  What wrong, funny, or silly genealogy effort did you make? Here’s mine: There have been a few mishaps in my adventures in genealogy research. In the beginning, I only looked at census records as I moved back generation by generation. Mostly I was successful. Occasionally I chose the wrong ancestor and would feel foolish. Once I discovered there were other kinds of records, I had to lop them off the tree. I also didn’t expect to find two men of the same name when I thought the name was unusual but I did, and I had to work hard sorting the two out. I felt foolish the few times I’d get an email saying I had the wrong person. Sullivan was a pretty common name in the mining areas of Montana. It’s easy to mix up families. Also at the beginning, I...

Many years ago, when I first started genealogy research, I wrote a letter to St. John the Baptist Church in Joliet asking if they had a marriage record for my great-grandfather, John (Johan) Hork to Julia Sievert in 1872. I knew that my grandfather, William Cyril Hork, was Catholic and hoped they were married in the church. What I had for the marriage date and place was from an Illinois marriage index. Images of records weren’t online yet. I also asked about any baptisms held there for any of their children. What I got back was a taped-together page of a two-page spread from the church book. They married in 1872 and were listed on line number 9. [1] Because this was a German Catholic Church, I got more than the groom and bride’s names and the date of the marriage. I also got their parent's names and the places they came from. But I did not get the column headings and had to guess what they were. Fortunately, the priest did not write in the Fractur script, so I was able to read i...