Happy Easter Postcard

This is another postcard from my dad's collection, no date but probably 1911-1914.

The back says to Claude Hansen from Aunt Fred.

Fredelene Dillingham was his moms sister and

everyone called her aunt Fred.

Wordless Wednesday Help

One more picture from my Great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album.

Saturday Night Fun Surnames in my Database

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 

1)  Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to Count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3)  Tell us how many surnames are in your database and, if possible, which Surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!  Or 10!

Well I am using Ancestral Quest and while I have never been a name collector, I just have 2070 names in the file. I could not see any way to sort by surname. so I don't have a clue how many surnames I have.

158 Hansen surnames, seems like my paternal line should have more since I have that line back to the 1600s, but because of patronymics  my Hansen surname is fairly recent. My great grandfather was Hans Mikkelsen and all his children were named Hansen or Son of Hans (even the daughters by the 1860s).
77 Dillingham my grandfather Hansen married a Dillingham and while that family is from England and back to the 1500s I have a separate Dillingham database so not a lot in my main database.
41 Soule, since the Dillinghams came to New England very early I have several Mayflower lines and George Soule is one of them.
37 Names  Yes the surname is Names and they intermarried with a bunch of my Hansen cousins.

Now to my moms side and this side has a lot of nationalities, but mainly Irish and Scotch
39 Travis my grandmothers surname
35 Forsyth(e) my great great grandfather
19 Kelly surnames 

Wordless Wednesday Sun Hat

Another picture from my great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album.

Saturday Night Fun Dinner with a Female Ancestor

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 

1)  Read Lisa Alzo's blog post Back for a Fourth Year: Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women's History Month on her blog, The Accidental Genealogist.

2)  Answer the writing prompt for 16 March:  If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead), or any famous female, who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?


1) Well there are several of my women ancestors I would like to have lunch with, but since I have to pick one I will pick Nancy Campbell.

2)  Nancy was born in North Carolina 18 Sep 1796 and she later married John "Jackie" Vanderpool and they had five kids. Both John and Nancy have been a brick wall of mine for quite a while. The Vanderpool researchers says John's father is Anthony Vanderpool, but the only reason is he fits there. I would like to know who her parents are and also John's parents.

Wordless Wednesday Group Photo

This is another photo from my great aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album.

I like the camera in the front of this photo.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Fearless Females

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 

1)  Read Lisa Alzo's blog post Back for a Fourth Year: Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women's History Month on her blog, The Accidental Genealogist.

2)  Choose one of her daily blog prompts from the list (this is March 9th, do that one if you don't want to choose another), and write about it.



Well my grandmother Cleo (Travis) Kelly turned out to be the family historian for her Travis family and also some for the Kelly family. She collected a few photo albums, and many letters from her siblings and she had a lot of brothers, sisters and half brothers and sisters. Her mom died after child number seven (but maybe a couple more as there are two big spaces that could have been children also.) Her father remarried and the second wife had ten more kids. Although Cleo was second oldest she outlived 14 of her siblings so had a lot of time to collect all the obits, and several photo albums. One is from her aunt Latisha Vanderpool and I have been posting pictures from that album.

Wordless Wednesday Woman on Sidewalk

This is another photo from my great aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album. I do not know the person in the photo, but maybe Latisha?