Mam-ma's Southern Family

This week, I’m attended a virtual course with the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy called “Advanced Practices in Social History” coordinated by Gena Philibert-Ortega, MA, MAR. So far, it has been a wonderful experience learning about all of the sources one should consider when adding social context to our family history stories. Social history can be a broad topic. It involves economics, sociology, women’s history, microhistory, and material culture. We want to go beyond the vital record dates. We want to fill in the details the lives of our ancestors and understand their lives within their community. They did not live in a vacuum. They interacted with family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, business people, teachers, law enforcement, court system, and others. Besides working, they played, went to church, shop for food, clothing, and other necessities, and socialized with friends and family. There is so much we can learn about our families by studying the community they were a part of...

Ten years ago, I retired as instructor of train operators at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. I now had a whole new life ahead of me. One of the first things I did was take a  wonderful class at the  California Genealogical Society  given by Craig Siulinski where he taught us how to blog.  Janice Sellers  was also in the class and we support each other's writing. On this blog I write about my maternal grandmother, Pansy Louise (Lancaster) Johnston's family. We called her Mam-ma (pronounced ma'am-ma), which was the same name my mother called her grandmother. It's one of many southern names for grandmothers. This blog soon became too restricting. I wasn't able to write about my maternal grandfather's family, nor my father's side. Then there were my husband's ancestors to write about, too. So I started a second blog, My Trails Into the Past , where I do most of my blogging. However, when I have something to report on the research of my Mam-ma's fami...

Today’s lesson about railroads in the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy in the “Sea to Shining Sea: Researching Our Ancestors’ Migrations in America” course got me thinking how my Loveless ancestors traveled from Conway, Arkansas to Stephenville, Texas. Ebenezer Loveless came to Texas sometime between 31 Dec 1904 when he sold land outside of Conway, Arkansas to his son, Thomas M. Loveless [1] and 12 Sep 1908, when he married Melissa M. Blount (nee Settle) in Erath County, Texas. [2] Route to Texas By this time, railroads crossed many parts of the United States. One could travel to almost any town by rail. Using a railroad map of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad, I can find the lines between Conway and Stephenville. I used the map of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway Company found on Wikipedia. [3] Conway is not on the map but is located just north of Little Rock on the line along the Arkansas River. From Conway, he would have ridden to Little Rock. Changing trains at Little...

This week I am taking the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy’s course “From Sea to Shining Sea: Researching Our Ancestor’s Migrations in America,” lead by Annette Burke Lyttle. [1] I wanted to take this course to learn more about how my wandering ancestors got from one place to another, and perhaps try to figure out why they left or why they went where they went. Because most of them arrived to the new world on the east coast and I have ended up on the west coast, I’d say that all of my ancestors were migrators at some time in their history, though I have quite a few who were in Texas a few generations. Migration Trails We learned about trails the first day, so let’s start with what I learned about my Coor line. Daniel Coor died in 1807 in Sampson County, North Carolina. His wife, and son, John, entered his estate into probate in November of that year. [2] John must have explored moving to Mississippi because he was there in 1810. [3] He and his family were in Lawrence County from...