This post is inspired by the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. The 2019 Week 1 challenge is “firsts”. There are a lot of “firsts” in genealogy … the first moment you fall in love with family history … the first time you break through a brick wall … the first unsolved mystery you uncover … then solve! There is…
Every time I go somewhere and see a pressed penny souvenir machine, I dig for 2 quarters and a shiny penny. I’ve done this ever since I was a kid. It began as a child’s fascination … sometimes a challenge to crank the machine … and is now something I love adding to my collection….
This post is inspired by the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. The week 7 challenge is “Valentine”. When JD and I were married, my dad presented me with his grandmother’s wedding ring. It was my “something old” to wear on my wedding day but he meant for me to keep it thereafter….
This post is inspired by the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. The week 6 challenge is “favorite name”. One of my favorite things about genealogy is discovering names and naming patterns that have been used throughout my family’s history. The farther back I reach, the more unique and sometimes unusual the names…
This post is inspired by the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. The week 5 challenge is “In the Census”. When I was a kid, it was hard for me to think of my grandparents as anything other than grandparents. My grandpa was 55 years old when I was born, my grandma was…
This post is inspired by the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. The week 3 challenge is “Longevity”. As defined, longevity means long life or long existence. Today, looking for inspiration, I asked Noodle if she knew what longevity meant. She just turned 11 so I didn’t expect a “yes”. I didn’t get…
This post is inspired by the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge by Amy Johnson Crow. The week 2 challenge is “Favorite Photo”. My Time Machine The hallway in my house is like a time machine. One that takes you back 150 years through family photos, old cookbooks, and little trinkets that represent various lives well…
I’m at it again this year … 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, thanks to Amy Johnson Crow. The theme for week one is “Start”. Oh, so many ways to interpret that. But we all start somewhere … The Start of it All I was 11 years old when I fell in love with history –…
Week 20 of the 52 ancestors challenge is themed “black sheep”. I come from a family of doctors, politicians, preachers, and a lot of farmers. I’ve not found a black sheep among them. Okay, the politicians might be questionable. So, instead of writing about skeletons in closets or general bad behavior of black sheep ancestors,…
I love that Amy Johnson Crow has given us themes for the 2015 52 Ancestors challenge! This week (week 15) is “How do you spell that?”. Ha! I have a lot of short, easy surnames in my family tree – Moore, Davis, Douglas, Lindsey, Jones. I also have a few like Lemaitre that have a…
Just one photo. Is that really all I get to pick for week 14 of 52 Ancestors? Too bad. I’m picking two! Each photo is of my great-great grandparents, Jake and Anna Mueller. Jacob Mueller was born in 1870 in St. Clair County, Illinois to Jacob and Dorothea Mueller. Anna was born three years later in…
“Same” is the theme for week 12 of the 2015 52 Ancestors challenge. I’m always fascinated at how characteristics and features get passed to us from our parents and grandparents. Every now and then, I come across a photo of an ancestor that sends me into utter shock because of a family resemblance. The “sameness”…
Stormy Weather is an apropos theme for the Week 10 52 Ancestors Challenge. It’s March and, in southern Illinois, we would normally be headed into spring and well on our way to “tornado season”. Not this year … our only two snow storms of the winter have happened in the last two weeks. They’ve been…
I initially had trouble deciding about whom to write given the week 9 52 ancestors theme, Close to Home. I live in the same area where my ancestors on all sides have lived for as many as 200 years … so everyone is close to home. Then it hit me. I was moving some books…
Follow my blog with Bloglovin Good deeds … the 52 ancestors week 8 theme … is an easy one for me. When my grandpa would tell stories about his family, his grandfather, Thomas James Rains, would always enter the tale. There are many characters that intertwine in stories of the Rains family, so I will…
Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small gave us a new 52 Ancestors challenge for 2015. Each week, we have a different theme about which to write. It’s quite the challenge, but I love meeting it and reading how everyone interprets each week. Week six is “so far away”. “So far away” conjures many things … the…
Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small gave us a new 52 Ancestors challenge for 2015. Each week, we have a different theme about which to write. It’s quite the challenge, but I love meeting it and reading how everyone interprets each week. Week four is “closest to your birthday.” Discovering an ancestor who has a…
Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small gave us a new 52 Ancestors challenge for 2015. Each week, we have a different theme about which to write. It’s quite the challenge, but I love meeting it and reading how everyone interprets each week. The theme for 52 Ancestors for week 3 is “strong women”. It’s…
The week 2 theme for 52 Ancestors is “King”. Gosh … my mind goes directly to royalty! Imagine that! It’s wild to imagine that a family that landed in America before it even was, then migrated from the Carolinas through Tennessee and up to Illinois would be descendant from any King, let alone Robert the…
Yikes! I just noticed the new 52 Ancestors challenge that Amy Johnson Crow gave us on her blog No Story Too Small … and I’m behind already! I love how she has added weekly themes. Week 1 was a fresh start … and that’s where I’m starting even though I’m a teeny bit late. I have…
Sophia Fredericka Arnold was barely 6 months old when she arrived in New York on June 19, 1843 from Hamburg, Germany. She came to America with her parents, Leonard and Christine; two sisters Katharine and Barbara; and a brother, George. Sophia is my maternal 3rd great grandmother. While the Arnold family is found on…
I am forever amazed at how the life of someone long passed has impacted my own … how the life and death of a man who lived 150 years ago had such an impact on my very existence, and that of my entire family. The Facts Philip Wolf was the first husband of my 2nd…
I am utterly amazed at how much information is available on the Internet, especially if you know how to dig around and find it! I have compiled stories, photos, and documents on several ancestors. Reuben Bramlett is no exception. In fact, I ran across his name on the Illinois Gen Web page for Saline County,…
Last week, I wrote about Lucy Jane Land and her long-lived life. While researching Lucy and her husband, Joseph, I found Joseph Dunn. Joseph is Lucy’s father-in-law and my 3rd great grandfather. Joseph Dunn was born around 1812 in Ohio, although various documents from census records to military records put his birth anywhere from 1809…