My Trails into the Past

I have completed two hundred and eighteen (218) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I spent the week on vacation in Texas. To be safe, I wore a mask in the airport and on the plane coming home as both legs were full. Other than that, there were few crowds in North Texas. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   I hosted the APG NorCal chapter meeting on Tuesday evening from my hotel room. It went well, I think, and I had no connection issues. I skipped all my other meetings while on vacation. Genealogy Writing/Research: Research this week was mostly for Jacqueline in Fannin and Pontotoc Counties. I spent any free time processing and naming my files. I did visit the museum in Nocoma, Montague County, but didn’t find anything more for NHO Polly. On Friday, when we returned to Texas from Oklahoma, we visited Rockwall County, where their museum collections assistant brought out some items for me to view. I had seen one of the books at the Dallas Public Library but the other was n...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  Again -  Time For Some More  Genealogy Fun!! Here is our missing from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings:  1)  When was the last time you had Genealogy Fun?  It could be research, conferences, a society meeting, or just talking with friends about your research, a favorite trip, etc.  Tell us about it! Here’s mine: Here I am in the Dallas Love Field awaiting for our flights home, writing this. I have just spent ten days doing the best genealogy fun. What can be more fun than traveling around the places where my ancestors lived? I have visited Dallas Public Library where I perused books from Dallas, Erath, Comanche, Rockwall, and Montague Counties. I looked and found deeds from Dallas County as well as court records from Dallas County for NHO Polly. After leaving Dallas, we spent a day in Stephenville, recording deeds from the index, and checking both probate and district c...

I have completed two hundred and seventeen (217) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I’m on vacation in Texas. To be safe, I wore a mask in the airport and on the planes, but not anywhere since. Few crowds as we are traveling in sparse North Texas. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Jacqueline and I had a last-minute meeting to confirm a few things about our trip on Tuesday. Genealogy Writing/Research: I have done no writing except for the two blogs this week. However, I have done a lot of research. This time, the research was in person. Wednesday, we visited the Dallas Public Library and I looked at Dallas County deeds and Dallas County district court indexes. I also read through several books and took images of pages of interest. The main families I am interested in are Coor, Lancaster, and Johnston who lived in Erath County; Johnston and Hutson in Comanche County; and Polly who lived in Montague, Dallas, and Rockwall Counties. The Lancasters lived in Rockwall County,...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  Again -  Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings today is to:   1)  How complete is your family tree?  Do you have information about your cousins  - both close and more distant?  Today's challenge is to take one set of your 2nd great-grandparents and make a Descendants List (using your genealogy management program - e.g., Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc.) Here’s Mine: I am in Texas on a road research trip. So, I’m showing the top of the 6-person descendancy charts for my four pairs of maternal 2x-great-grandparents. These are the families I am here researching. I’m only showing the top because it doesn’t take long for my list to show living people, especially in the 5 th and 6 th generations. As Randy said, these will be helpful to see if I have completed down to the sixth generation so I can match up with my DNA matche...

I have completed two hundred and sixteen (216) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week I was not in semi-lockdown. I spent three days at a model railroad convention, where I attended classes, visited home layouts, and judged models. I hope I didn’t catch anything! Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   Again this week, Jacqueline and I continued discussing plans for our upcoming research trip to Texas, which we leave next Tuesday. I was too busy to meet with the Amigos and the RootsMagic SIG. Genealogy Writing/Research: I went to the FamilySearch center in Oakland to do some deed lookups in Erath County and fortunately, I was able to see the films on my computer. All my docs were downloaded and I got the citations all written. All I need to do now is the transcriptions. I did not have time to redo the Rockwall deeds I had failed to download to the thumb drive last week. I also found some tax records for Lancaster, Coor, and Welch families in Erath County. I will be lo...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night Again - Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  What newspaper article is the "best" one you've found to help you with your family history?  Tell us about it - where you found it, and what you learned from it . Here's mine: I have so many wonderful newspaper articles that have advanced my genealogy and could be called favorites. Newspapers are some of my favorite resources and I have written about many of these wonderful finds already. However, I can think of two newspaper articles that if used together, help sort out a family during those twenty years when the 1890 census is not available to us. The first is the obituary for my husband’s great-great-grandfather, Thomas Davey, who immigrated to the US with his family in the 1850s from England. He was born in County Cornwall but lived in London before his emigration. He died on 6 Februar...

I have completed two hundred and fifteen (215) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week besides the History Center, I attended a History Fair at DVC, researched at the Oakland FamilySearch Center, and worked a booth at the John Muir NP Earth Day Birthday event. Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:   The only meeting this week was our Monday meeting and Jacqueline and I worked on looking for her Griffin family without much luck. Genealogy Writing/Research: This week, I worked on several projects. One project was researching and writing about May Mansfield Sayre, the stepson of Amos Gorrell. Another was doing some more research in Ida Hork Colmann, my grandfather’s sister. Finally, I worked on creating a timeline of Nathan H.O. Polly’s life. I downloaded many deed documents from Rockwall County, Texas, from the FS website, however, I somehow did not make sure they were downloaded to the thumb drive. So if they were downloaded to the computer, they were wiped clean that ...