Archives
German Migration to America: Johan Martin MOSER 1693-c.1743 Part One
Posted on January 6, 2024 3 Comments
This is the story of one of my many German ancestors. If he isn’t one of your ancestors this may not be of interest to you on it’s face. But if you have German ancestors who immigrated in the first half of the 18th century, there may be some things that you will want to […]
STARTING FROM SCRATCH: You
Posted on January 3, 2024 2 Comments
It is a New Year and I have promised my Genealogy class some beginner’s lessons. This one is an adaptation of one I did many years ago. It is a lesson in context and social history and it is about searching things you think you know but maybe don’t. Once you do this exercise for […]
Patterns & Intersections in Genealogy
Posted on December 24, 2023 5 Comments
We all have patterns and intersections in our ancestry—but we don’t always know about them. Sometimes we just stumble upon them. One of the greatest joys of genealogy is finding those connections. Below you will read a collection of such things in my research. I encourage you to be on the look-out for your own. […]
Resurrecting the Dead Part Two: Bringing them to Life “Peter P HALL”
Posted on November 28, 2023 8 Comments
With our time line in place and our research into Peter HALL’s Pension we can begin to sketch out as much as we can of Peter Hall’s life. We don’t have to start at the Beginning I jumped into a more familiar part of history and will back fill as I go. This has been […]
Writing Challenge: Where were you when Kennedy was shot?
Posted on November 7, 2023 1 Comment
One of my Genealogy class students, Frank, suggested that we write a piece on what we remember of where we were and what we were doing when President Kennedy was shot. November 22, 2023 will be the sixtieth anniversary of this national tragedy. As luck would have it they were both Wednesdays before Thanksgiving. It […]
Writing Challenge: Playing with Sentences
Posted on October 26, 2023 1 Comment
I tried this out on my Genealogy Class and the results were terrific. So I offer it up for your consideration. This is a true beginners exercise, but even seasoned writer’s can have fun with it. Ground Rules Limit yourself to one or two sentences to start You can write about anything you want. Maybe […]
Special Ancestors: Asa Ami Paden
Posted on October 7, 2023 4 Comments
I happened to think of Asa today when teaching a genealogy class. I was talking about being the custodian of historic documents and it made me think of my cousin, Nancy Black Young [my 2nd cousin twice removed], who had sent me a few years ago, documents regarding my 2nd great uncle, Asa PADEN. But […]
Fact or Fiction? A Revolutionary War soldier talked to a boy, who became a Civil War soldier
Posted on August 25, 2023 5 Comments
“There will be stories, and only some of them will be true.” DUANE F. MOSIER These words my Dad spoke after his diagnosis with lung cancer. They were words of wisdom he passed on to me and his grandchildren. In my The Challenge: Tokyo Rose I proved that a story he told about testifying at […]
We Can’t Write What We Don’t Know: A Journey from the Fjords of Norway to the Shores of New York Mid 19th Century
Posted on August 8, 2023 2 Comments
If you decide you want to write about an ancestor be prepared to go down many gopher holes you never dreamed of visiting. Almost every time I decide to dig deeper into an ancestor’s story I end up researching things I never knew anything about. My last blog post Deep Diving: Water Wheels and Papermaking […]
FILLING IN THE BLANKS: Researching the Story of How They Met
Posted on July 25, 2023 1 Comment
See How my Forty Year old Brick Wall was Broken and Locating Immigration Records for the earlier part of this story. It is amazing how much you can find to fill in pieces of the story. For this part I searched for early maps of Chicago at the Library of Congress. Searched for histories of […]
