Wordless Wednesday Leaning Trees

Another photo from my Great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album.

Saturday Night Fun First Research Problem

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

1)  Think back to when you first started doing genealogy and family history research.  What was one of your first real research problems?  How did you attack the problem?  Did you solve the problem?  If so, how?  What lessons did you learn from this experience?


Well I knew next to nothing about either one of my grandmothers, I learned a lot about both grandfathers, my grandpa Kelly had a bible of his family and it went back several generations. We had a Hansen reunion and so I learned a lot about my grandpa Hansen, but next to nothing about his wife Anna Dillingham. So I found a Dillingham newsletter, and subscribed, and soon I found my Dillinghams were English Quakers and came to New England in 1630, bought a wonderful book called the Dillinghams of New England, it has a few errors, but mostly everything is correct.
I had asked my Grandma Kelly if all her family was Irish, and so when I started researching her I contacted the local gene society where she was born, and asked if they knew a very large Travis family, since my grandmother had 16 brothers and sisters but only 7 by her mom Donna Vanderpool. (Vanderpool is Dutch not Irish), the next 10 were by the second wife Bessie Keith who was Irish and so that is where my grandmother got that all her ancestors were Irish.
So I learned to contact a local gene society and look for newsletters researching a single surname. I actually subscribed to 7 or 8 surname newsletters at one time, but my subscribing seemed the kiss of death for newsletters as all but two quit soon after I subscribed, and now only one is left. I do research for our local gene society trying to pay back all the work I received when I was researching my grandma.

Wordless Wednesday Inside Old House

This is another photo from my Great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo Album.

Class R-1 Mallet Steam Engine Built at Hillyard 1929

I was surprised by this postcard in the mail yesterday, actually a whole group of pictures of the Hillyard area. The Great Northern owned by James J. Hill built the largest railroad yard west of Minneapolis here in Spokane and the people called it Hills Yard, later Hillyard. They repaired cars and steam engines there and later even built a few steam engines, this is a picture of an R-1 Mallet built in Hillyard in 1929.

Wordless Wednesday Bridge?

Another photo from my Great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album

Saturday Night Fun Elusive Ancestor

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

1)  We all have elusive ancestors - those persons that we cannot connect to parents or children, or a wife without a known surname.  Identify one of those elusive ancestors, and how they are related to you..

2)  Tell us what you do know about your elusive ancestor - what events, dates and places do you know for them?  Who did they marry, what are the names of their children?

3)  What research do you plan to perform to solve your elusive ancestor problem


Well our gene society has just formed an Irish research group, so I will do my very old Irish brick wall. His name is Thomas D. Kelly and according to the family bible he was born April 25, 1827 near Louisville, Kentucky, and he died at Trenton, Grundy County Missouri March 1, 1896. He married Margaret Josephine Forsyth October 10, 1854 near Ursa in Adams county Illinois.
They had six kids: Robert Forsyth Kelly (my great grandfather), John Dudly Duncan Kelly, Thomas Junior Kelly, Mary Violet Kelly, Charles Bryan Kelly and Margaret Ann Kelly. 

Margaret Josephine Kelly was the fifth child of Robert Forsyth a War of 1812 veteran and survivor of Dudlys Defeat in the battle for Fort Miegs. Notice one of the sons is John Dudly, named for the commander of the defeat of the Kentucky Riflemen. 
Margaret also inherited her fathers farm and estate even though she was the second daughter and had three older brothers. The battle for the estate is very interesting reading. 
The same bible that gives all the information on the family also documents  the family going on a wagon train to California when the Civil War started and then coming back to Illinois when the war was over, so no Civil War records for Thomas. 
I need to work on records in Illinois to see if they give any clues to the parents of Thomas Kelly.

Wordless Wednesday Behind the Trees

This is another photo from my Great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album.

Wordless Wednesday On Bridge

This is two photos from my Great Aunt Latisha Vanderpool's photo album.