My Trails into the Past

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. My first foray into genealogy happened at Sutro Library in San Francisco. Sutro Library is a part of the California State Library and holds the original collection of former mayor, Adolph Sutro, who donated the collection in 1913. It also has a huge genealogical collection and the collection is now housed in the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University. When I visited the library in the 1990s, it was housed in its own building on Winston Avenue. My friend, Susan, took me there one day. I had been wondering about genealogy research. She went on a yearly trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, where she would spend six full days doing genealogy research. How could someone do t...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy I volunteered at the Oakland FamilySearch Library this week. I discovered they have NewspaperArchive.com and I searched Mitchell, South Dakota newspapers for the Gleeson family. I found quite a few about Martin Gleeson, my 2x-great-uncle, who served on the local council for several years. His brother John J. Gleeson, was a member of Ancient Order of United Workmen (AOUW). And John’s son, Harold R. Gleeson, had an for his grocery store. What great finds! I also helped a young man searching his Jewish ancestors in Philadelphia. He wanted help with naturalization records. We looked at what he had collected already and I suggested he make some timelines and other spreadsheets so he could see all the data in one place to help analyze it. We discovere...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This week we’re to select an ancestor we would like to meet. Actually, I would love to meet all of them!  Elizabeth M. Gleeson Of the ten children of John Gleeson and Margaret Tierney, four never married. Three of the daughters had interesting lives and I wish I could have met them. My father’s sisters told me they met them and I have some sense of them, along with records I have found. Elizabeth M. was the oldest, born 20 November 1865 in Carleton County, Ontario, Canada. [1] She was baptized at St. Philips Church in Richmond on 24 December. [2] The family moved to Mitchell, Davison County, Dakota Territory about 1880. [3] Elizabeth was often referred to as “Lizzie.” Lizzie and her sist...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme. Genealogy This week I spent at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) in Salt Lake City. It’s held for five days at the Hilton Hotel. My course was Advance Southern Research, coordinated by J. Mark Lowe, along with Anne Gillespie Mitchell, Kelvin Myers, and Ari Wilkins. I am ready to start cluster research on my tricky families, and to listen for the stories when studying the records. Also during the week, I saw friends from all over the U.S.  Many congratulated me on achieving certification. Others I met for the first time in person, even though I might be “friends” with them on Facebook. Then the rest were those I met for the first time. I’m great about the greeting and hugging but forget to take “selfies” with them.  I did take photos...

Four o'clock has come and we sadly finished up our class in Advanced Southern Research. It has been a great week learning about the particulars of southern research from the very esteem instructors, J. Mark Lowe, Kelvin Myers, Ann Gillespie Mitchell, and Ari Wilkins. Anne taught us about cluster research and gave us tools to help us. Ari spoke about archives and special collections that are filled with wonderful resources that might have clues about our ancestors or help us learn more about the social, economic, and political history where they lived. I learned about specific manuscript collections from Kelvin and even used the resources to look at some records in the Shane Collection. And Mark spoke endlessly about listening for the story and to be ever ready to received the story from the records we collect. My main take away from this class is to study the documents our ancestors created or were created about them. Study them deeply and listen for the stories they tell ab...

It's Wednesday and we are over halfway through our week. I'm enjoying my class in Advanced Southern Research. Our instructors have given us great resources that will help add to knowing much more about our ancestors beyond the vital and census records. Today at the Family History Library after class, I searched through some records of the Shane Manuscripts about the Chillicothe Presbytery. I was hoping to see some of my husband's ancestors' names Bishop, Shotts, and Gorrell, but these records didn't seem to cover the area in Ross County where they might have attended church. I spent time looking at some Jefferson County, Kentucky and Louisville records for my husband's Wollenweber line. I did find a few court records, one that was available only on microfilm. I did not find everything, and might have to write to the court clerk in Louisville. Today I also want to highlight some of the friends I have photographed this week. Our Certification Peer Group ...

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This week our challenge is to write about an unusual name. I decided to tackle someone in my database where I have no surname but I do have a first name. One of the most unusual names in my database is Drady. I do not know much about her, so I’ll tell you what I know and maybe ideas will come to mind for future research. What I Know I have her in one census record from Salacoa, Cherokee County, Georgia. [1] Hutson, Peter, 59, male, laborer (no values listed), Georgia              Drady , 67, female, Georgia              Alice, 15, female, Georgia Next door was someone who c...