Mam-ma's Southern Family

Arthur N. Pauff, the husband of my maternal 2x-great grandaunt, Margaret Rose Lancaster, died on 21 December 1912 of lobar pneumonia. [1]  He was just 39 years old. The notice of his death was on the front page of the  Las Vegas Age . [2]  It begins with “The above brief announcement marks the sorrowful passing of one of the foremost citizens of Las Vegas.” This must have been a sorrowful time for the family, with just a few days to Christmas. He left a wife and two sons, Harry, 11, and Arthur, 9. He also left a thriving business, the A. N. Pauff, Men’s Clothing. An ad in an earlier issue stated how his store was preparing to be ‘handsomely decorated with Christmas trees and a wonderful variety of articles suitable for gifts.” [3] The funeral services were held Monday, December 23. As he was a member of the local masonic lodge, the Vegas Lodge No. 32, F. &. A. M., took charge. The Masonic service was held at the Methodist Church with Rev. Paul B. James and Rev. E.A. P...

Mam-ma & Tom Tom Christmas 1972 Merry Christmas!  Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

When documenting the death of my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster Johnston ("Mam-ma"), I collected many different documents. Even though I know the date of her death, as I was with her just an hour before her death, it is important to locate physical records. Locating multiple documents about an event even helps us follow the Genealogy Proof Standard (GPS). For my grandmother, I have an official copy of her death certificate. My sister is the informant and I helped her with the information. Other records we should search for include: Obituaries My grandmother’s obituary was in the East Bay Times and announced the time and place of the funeral service. In earlier times, there might be both an obituary and a funeral notice placed by the funeral home. In large cities, this might be all you find. Also, check the newspaper after the funeral for a “card of thanks” thanking the community for their support in their time of sorrow. Funeral card or program My sister designed th...

I'm making my mother's cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner. It is likely a recipe passed down from my Mam-ma. Of course, I'll be cutting this recipe in quarters, as I'll just bake it in a casserole. This is my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

I have a photo of my mother’s grandfather, George Warren Lancaster when he visited their home in Walnut Creek in California. This would have been in the late 1940s, before my mother’s parents, Tom J and Pansy Johnston, moved to Pleasant Hill in late 1949. How do I know? The background of the photo is the yard of their house in a rural part of Walnut Creek. I have other photos of my mother and my grandmother with the house in the background. This photo of Warren doesn’t show the house but it clearly shows a rural location. The Johnstons moved to a suburban tract home in 1949. I don’t know the exact location of the house. Personal records in my archives always listed their address as Route 1, Box 49 in Walnut Creek. My grandmother told me they rented the house from Mr. Ford and had wanted to buy it, but he was not interested in selling it. I did discover a 1947 directory covering Walnut Creek and Lafayette that listed Tom J. Johnston’s address as Route 1, Box 49, living on Castle Hil...

Lela Nell Johnston, 1942, Sandpoint, Idaho Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

On this day in 2013, we lost our Mam-ma, just about a month shy of her 100th birthday. The last few weeks were tough but she lived a long and active life. She raised one daughter, Lela Nell, who pre-deceased her in 1992, and out-lasted her husband, Tom, who died in 1973. She also out-lasted her partner, Ernie, who died in 2007. We six grandkids watched out for her, taking turns to visit each week, where we took her shopping, to lunch, or to doctor's appointments. My two youngest sisters took on the largest portion of the tasks and she seemed to demand more of them than the rest of us. When I visited, we often talked about my genealogy research and she was always interested in what new discoveries I had made. I regret never writing up the history for her. I'm sure in my act of writing I would have discovered more questions to ask. You are still missed, Mam-ma, but your life and ancestors live on here in this blog. Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family...

My mother died in 1992 and as I began working on the genealogy of her family, I got to thinking about where she came from. My mom was born in Stephenville in Erath County, Texas in 1934. Her mother, my Mam-ma, was still alive at age 82 years old, and in 1995, I asked her if she’d like to take a trip to Texas to show me where she and Mom lived. She thought it a great idea. I purchased our plane tickets and she made arrangements with her niece, Sandra Hall, to pick us up from the airport and stay the night with her, and then drive us down to stay with her brother, RD Lancaster, in Stephenville.  Me with Hal and Sandra We only stayed four days. In hindsight, I wished I had had time to do some real research in the library in Stephenville and check out the historical society and the library at Tarleton University in town. Since doing newspaper research, I would also go to the genealogy library in Dublin. But I was still a rookie genealogist and didn’t think of these things. However, R...

It's  Saturday Night  - time for more  Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of  Genea-Musings  is to: 1) What genealogical discovery surprised you? [Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting topics!] 2)  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook Status post or note. Here's mine: Surprisingly, I have not had a lot of surprises in my research. I have many brick walls, as we all do. There are always new parents to find for our outermost ancestors on the family tree. But I can speak about a small surprise. For many years, I could not find a trace of George W. Lancaster’s wife, Martha Polly, nor their younger children. The oldest son, William Carlton Lancaster, is the one I descend from through his oldest son, George W. Lancaster, who is my mother’s maternal grandfather. The thirty-two-year-old George W. Lancaster married Martha Polly, who was sixteen, on 25 October 1871 in Kaufman Cou...

My grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster, had two younger brothers, Rayburn Dinion “RD” and Elda Wayne “Teensy.” Both played sports in high school and college. I have found both newspaper articles and yearbook photos documenting their playing. Teensy played football and basketball and ran track, as well as being the sports editor of The Yellowjacket at Stephenville High School in Stephenville, Texas. [1] He graduated in 1945 and immediately joined the Navy. After serving in World War II, he returned to school and attended Tarleton University, Texas Christian University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Stephenville High School (1941-45) Yearbook photos help tell the story of his sports life at the high school. Here, he is shown twice: one as part of the football team and as an individual.  It’s funny that the owner of the yearbook wrote in his name as “Teensy” but the nickname listed on the individual photo is “Looch.” He was captain of the team at the beginning of the s...

Note: this post should have originally been posted here instead of at My Trails Into the Past. I have been researching my maternal grandmother’s side of the family for over thirty years. Her family is southern, through and through, and I have not figured out yet when they arrived in the United States or through which state or colony. As I started out, I used census records to work my way back. Her father was a Lancaster and her mother a Loveless. The Lancaster line was straight forward until I got to Ellis Lancaster, her great-great-grandfather, because I found two Ellis Lancasters in Kentucky and I needed to sort them out. On her Loveless side, I acquired a book,  Loveless, Shockley, Flowers, Camp and Related Families  by Sheila Britt Cameron. [1]  Like many beginning genealogists, I took that book and entered many of the people from my lines into my genealogy program. Of course, I didn’t source the book, so now when I look at the record of these people, I don’t know whe...

I had not yet had time to search at the National Archives 1950 census website for my ancestors and decided to locate the families who lived in Erath County, Texas. When I heard that Ancestry had completed their indexing project, similar to NARA’s, using optical character recognition of the handwriting, I decided to make a comparison. I searched first for my grandmother's father, George W. Lancaster, in Stephenville, Erath County, Texas at Ancestry . The first entry came right up with the correct spelling and correct wife, Lela A. [1] Searching at the NARA 1950 census website, the first return was also George Lancaster with the next person being Lela a. [2] Stephenville, Erath Co, Texas; 888 W. McNeill Next, I searched for my grandmother's father-in-law, Thomas N. Johnston, first at Ancestry and he came right up at the first entry. [3] At the NARA site, he came up as the second entry. The handwriting on these sheets is very legible, so that is likely a reason the OCR work...

I found a negative in the papers of my grandmother. The image appears to be my grandmother's parents, George W. Lancaster and Lela Ann Loveless, likely on their wedding day. I scanned the image, as you can see here. I wondered if there was a way to convert it into a positive photo using software. That way, I wouldn't have to search for a specialized photo shop, since it was a larger format than 35mm. I found IMGonline.com.ua. I uploaded the negative scan and they converted the image to this. I am glad that it has converted, but it’s not quite what I would like. Next, I adjusted the image in Photoshop Elements to get it to look better, using the Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels. I moved the sliders until I got the image looking more like a true black and white photo.  I don't understand many of the tools in Photoshop Elements. It would be nice to crop the background out and to remove the spots on their faces. I also find it odd that the color of the two don't...

Genealogy research is never easy, and when a surname can be spelled in many ways, it can make it even tougher. However, one can make it even harder if only one spelling of the name is researched. My grandmother started me on that road back when I first began researching her family line. Her mother’s name was Lela Ann Loveless. She was very insistent that it was spelled with LESS at the end and not LACE. It did not take me long to discover that her ancestors were listed in records under all kinds of spellings: Loveless, Lovelace, Loveliss, etc. I wrote about this name previously here . Recordkeepers wrote down the name as they heard it. It really depended on the education of the recordkeeper. Sometimes these misspellings can indicate how a person pronounced the name. Lela Ann was listed in the 1900 census as “Leelar” which clearly indicates the pronunciation of her name in an Arkansas accent. I can just hear my grandmother say my mother’s name, also Lela, in the same manner. On my...

I am fortunate that my Mam-ma first tested her DNA with Family Tree DNA and at the time it was only mtDNA that was available for her. This DNA covers the ancestors of our mother’s mother’s mother, etc. So far, the matches haven’t help much but who knows that someday there might be the right match. Our mtDNA line begins with my daughters. Next is me. My mother Lela Nell Johnston was born 21 Aug 1934 in Erath County, Texas. She married William J Hork 19 Apr 1953 in Concord, Contra Costa County, California. Lela's mother was Pansy Louise Lancaster (my Mam-ma), who was born 19 Nov 1913 in Erath County, Texas. She married Tom J. Johnston 15 Dec 1933 in Comanche County, Texas. Pansy’s mother was Lela Ann Loveless was born 2 Apr 1896 in Faulkner County, Arkansas. She married George Warren Lancaster 15 Dec 1912 in Erath County, Texas. Lela’s mother was Eliza A Rogers was born May 1854 in South Carolina. She married Ebenezer Loveless 19 Mar 1871 in Chattooga County...

Last week I took care of making a list of addresses and enumeration districts (EDs) for my paternal family. This week, I'm focusing on the maternal side. The 1950 federal census records will be released on April 1, but there will be no indexes yet. I need to know the address of each person in order to locate them in specific enumeration districts, where I will browse for their households. To find their address, I used city directories, voter registrations, newspaper articles, and other records that give addresses. To find their enumeration district, I used the One-Step Unified Census ED Finder at Stevemorse.org. These are the direct ancestors who I expect to find on my mother’s side of the family. Pleasant Hill, California Tom J. and Pansy Johnston were living at 307 Nancy Lane . [1] Tom would be 37 and Pansy 36. I don’t know what his job was. He could be working at the pool hall. She may have been working as a seamstress for a dress or clothing store. Their daughter, Lela Ne...