I've been busy cleaning up items in the Downloads folder of my laptop.  In many cases, I downloaded an image of a record from a genealogy or historical newspaper site and then used my photo editing software to make a copy of it, clip or resize it, rename it to fit my digital filing conventions, and then file it in the appropriate genealogy folder.  But sometimes I didn't delete the original image.  Other times, I downloaded an image but forgot to clean it up and move it to a folder.  My Downloads folder was very full at over 1400 items, but it is slowly getting cleaned out ..read more

Today I started a new blog. Yes, I can hear what you're thinking!  "She hasn't kept up with her original one, and she's starting another?!" Life has calmed down a bit (knock on wood) since my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2019, followed by his death five months later, caring for my mom, and a pandemic.  Several months ago, I came across the diary of my paternal grandfather's sister, Shirley Robbins, in the things we had packed up from my parents' home.  I had to share it, not just with family members and close friends, but with those who are genealogist ..read more

Seventy-five years ago today, the first anti-discrimination law was signed on American soil. It was more than two decades before the Civil Rights Act. Before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech. Before Rosa Parks's act of defiance on a Birmingham bus. And it was brought to fruition by a soft-spoken Alaska Native woman you have probably never heard of.  It's long past time to learn her story. Elizabeth Jean Wanamaker was born in Petersburg, Alaska on the Fourth of July, 1911, the daughter of a Native woman and an Irish man.  She was a member of the Tlingit nation, a tribe in Southeast ..read more

Monday, May 6, 2019:  Our third day of our trip and second full day in Michigan.  And what a day it was! We checked out of our hotel in Grand Rapids and headed to the public library.  As we were leaving the hotel, I walked across the street to photograph this historic site marker, as Grand Rapids was once known as the "Furniture Capital of America."  Several of our ancestors worked in furniture factories in Grand Rapids. (Click photo to enlarge) The downtown branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library is a beautiful building. It was built in 1904 as a gift to the city by Martin A. Ryerson.  Th ..read more

Our first full day in Michigan, Sunday, March 5, was a beautiful one.  Since the forecast was predicting rain for much of our trip, we decided it would be a good day to visit the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park while we were in Grand Rapids.  There are many gardens and exhibits, and we easily could have spent several days exploring everything; but since we had only one day planned for it, we chose the indoor art gallery, the Japanese garden, and the Sculpture Park. "Gilded Champagne Gardens Chandelier" by Dale Chihuly Gallery foyer Detail of "New World Map" by El Anatsui Gallery S ..read more

In early May of this year, my younger sister and I took a one-week-long trip to Western Michigan to visit family, do a little genealogy, and sight-see.  Both of our parents are from Western Michigan: Mom is from the City of Grand Rapids in Kent County, and Dad was raised in Coopersville, a small town in Ottawa County about 20 miles west of Grand Rapids. While not everything we did was related to genealogy, and what research we did was minimal, I am sharing our journey here, since we did a lot of follow up to some of the stories I have written about here in my blog. A little background about ..read more

(Part I and Part II) In mid-to-late 1872, Pieter and Maria (Van Klinken) Ton moved from Cincinnati to Grand Rapids, Michigan with their three daughters, Nellie, Mary, and Jennie (my ancestor), who were about 11, 8, and 5 years old, respectively. Left behind in the area were Maria's oldest daughter, Cornelia "Kate" Van Klinken and her husband Joseph Meyers, who settled across the Ohio River in Newport, Campbell Co., Kentucky. They eventually had two children, neither of whom married or had children themselves. Also left behind were Maria's sister, Adriana Van Klinken and her husband Leendert ..read more

(click image to enlarge) "Ohio, County Naturalization Records, 1800-1977," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L996-KQJQ?cc=1987615&wc=4627-BFY%3A265564801%2C265694401 : 1 May 2019), Hamilton > Declarations of intention 1860-1873 > image 150 of 306; county courthouses, Ohio. (Part I can be found here.) Life for Pieter and Maria in America as Dutch immigrants was very hard. While they had arrived in New York City, it was not their ultimate destination; rather, it was Cincinnati, Ohio. It's not clear why they and the others from the Nethe ..read more

(click image to enlarge) Manifest, S. S. E. C. Scranton, 7 December 1857, 6th page (unnumbered; contains passengers numbered 271-324), lines 29-32 (passengers 299-302), Peter Ton household; "New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 March 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication M237, roll 181. On December 7, 1857, my maternal 3rd-great-grandparents, Pieter and Maria Modena (Van Klinken) Ton disembarked from the E.C. Scranton in New York City at the Emigrant Landing Depot at Castle Garden, America's first official immigrant center, 3 ..read more