Saddleback Valley Trails
South Orange County California Genealogical
Society
P. O. Box 4513, Mission Viejo, CA.
92690
Monthly meetings are held on the third Saturday of each month from 10:00
a.m. to Noon at the Mission Viejo Family History Center Institute Building,
27978 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo, between Medical Center Drive and
Hillcrest Drive. Membership is open to anyone wishing to join. Yearly
membership fees are $20 per calendar year for individuals, $25 for joint
membership. SOCCGS is not affiliated with the LDS Family History
Center.
***************************************************
SOCCGS MEETING - August 16, 2003
Our speaker will be Nancy M. Huebotter whose topic will be
“Write the Story of Your Life.” This presentation is designed
to assist those procrastinators in starting to record a written legacy for
their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. For those who have commenced
writing their autobiography, the lecture will provide additional
information that will assist in the writing of the all-important personal
history.
Miss Huebotter has spent over 25 years conducting family history research,
ultimately tracing her direct line into the 1600s. She is an excellent
genealogy lecturer and most of us will remember her visit to our group in
2002.
SOCCGS PROGRAM CALENDAR
September 20 - Andrew Pomeroy: "Mastering Search Engines,
Internet Research Skills You Need"
October 18 - Seminar featuring Dr. George K. Schweitzer
November 15 - Nancy Bier: "Everyone Lived on the Land"
December 20 - Holiday Party
GARAGE SALE - SEPTEMBER 27,
2003
In about six weeks our Third Annual SOCCGS
Garage Sale will be held at the home of Leon and Bunny Smith. Are you
gathering up those items that you can live without? The Smiths will be
accepting items before the sale, beginning September 13. Patrick McShane
has offered to help Leon pick up items for the garage sale. In the
meantime, Jeanne Barrett has graciously offered part of her garage to store
items. As of this writing, she is a little short on space. Please do not
bring bags, boxes only. You may call Jeanne @ 830-4948 to arrange to
deliver items. Barbara Wilgus is in charge of the jewelry to be sold at
the sale. If you have any to donate please bring it to the August meeting
so she can sort, bag and price it before the sale.
SEMINAR - OCTOBER 18, 2003
The second annual SOCCGS seminar will be held October 18 in the
Saddleback Room, Mission Viejo City Hall. The speaker will be Dr. George
K. Schweitzer. Professor Schweitzer is a great speaker who uses
historical reenactment to teach genealogy. We are indeed fortunate to be
able to include his presentations in our seminar. The cost for this day
will be $20 per person plus $5 for lunch, if desired. You will find a
flyer, with registration form, elsewhere in this newsletter.
Reservations for the seminar are already coming in and we
expect a great turnout. Please, invite your friends; they can print out
a registration form from our web site and mail it in.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~casoccgs/seminar2.html
OPPORTUNITY QUILT
Opportunity tickets will be available at the
August meeting for the drawing to be held at the October Seminar. A picture
of the quilt is on our web site. The quilt is 68” x 84” in colors
of red, blues and tans. It is of a “Civil War Stars” design and
made with Civil War replica fabrics. Tickets are a donation of $1 each, or
6 for $5. Bring address labels to the meeting......makes it easier to fill
out the ticket stub. Winner does not need to be present at the Seminar.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~casoccgs/seminar2.html
GENEALOGY: A hay stack full of needles. It’s the
thread I need! JULY PROGRAM
Forty-five of us enjoyed a marvelous program presented by Barbara
Renick. She took us on a tour of FamilySearch.org and gave hints on how not
to get lost. There is so much genealogical material available on this site
that it can boggle the mind. At least mine! Thank you, Barbara.
<FamilySearch.org> And, thank you to Helen Swanson who
provided the goodies for this month’s meeting.
NEW MEMBERS & GUESTS
We would like to welcome two new members:
Francie Kennedy, searching for Taylor, Fowler, Milner, Yeaw, Kennedy,
Watson, Wood, Perkins and Young.
Barbara Bernsee, searching for Guiding (Sweden) and Grassman
(Germany-Prussia).
Guests at our July Meeting were Bobbie Kamae, Mary Philpot, Elizabeth
Munday and Mervie Beam. We encourage them to become members.
SOCCGS LIBRARY
Due to our expanding
library we have rearranged the bookshelves once again been. There are now
additional shelves under the credenza. The map boxes have been moved to the
top of the filing cabinets. Please look for the new copy of the Library
Guide on the credenza.
A recent new member, Ann Marie McCann, is our newest Docent. She
will be at the desk on Thursdays, 5:30-7:00. Another member, Ann Browning,
has agreed to donate one Friday afternoon a month. Doris Douglas has added
her name to the substitute list. Thank you ladies. We still need docents
for Mondays, 5-7 and three Friday afternoons. Substitutes are always
needed. No experience is necessary. Please consider volunteering a
little of your time. Call Janet or Mary Jo for further information.
SURNAME LIST
Members voted at the July meeting to make copies of our
Surname List available to the membership. Now is the time for those of you
who haven’t put your family names on this list to do so. Please send
your information to Herb Abrams as soon as possible. He needs Surname,
Dates, Locations ie: Sheldon, 1719-1920, CT, VT, WI, IA. You may add as
many surnames as you like. Those who have previously put surnames on this
list may update. Share your family information and you may find a cousin,
or at the very least, someone who has data to share. Ruby White and I
recently discovered that we share a three-great grandfather!! {George
SHELDON, 1803-1883, VT, WI}
GENEALOGICAL
NEWS
The Sedgwick Granger Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans is being
organized and will meet in Tustin. It has been some time since a camp has
been available here in Orange County. Anyone wishing information on
becoming a member of this group may contact Richard Raver at (949)493-4787
or RRAVER3265@aol.com.
(From Gail Gilbert via Rootsweb list) “Fellow
genealogists/researchers: Please consider signing this petition for the
protection/preservation of "Neglected, Abandoned and Unlicensed
Cemeteries in the State of Virginia", particularly if you are
researching your own genealogy originating from Virginia.” The
petition, in its entirety, with a place for signing and directions for
sending, is at the following web site:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/hnvr2003/petition.html
The Family History Alliance holds informal monthly meetings the last
Saturday of each month from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Orange Family History
Center, 674 S. Yorba, Orange. The meetings are held in the Relief Society
Room (on the south side of the building). The goals of the FHA are to
educate genealogists, officers and members of genealogical and historical
societies and librarians about the genealogy and family history resources
available in Orange County, California. Barbara Renick gives a
presentation at each FHA meeting, usually about online and computer
resources (both LDS and non-LDS) for genealogical research.
AUGUST 27 SAFARI
This month's Safari will be to the Orange Family History Center,
leaving the parking lot of the Mission Viejo FHC at 9:30 am. We have had to
cancel the last two safaris due to lack of participation and/or lack of
drivers. The OFHC is not far away and there should be no problems with this
one. Please sign up in advance, at the monthly meeting or, by calling
Janet or Mary Jo.
INTERNET
THE NGS BRITISH ISLES FORUM:
http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/audioconkonvalinka.htm
If you're interested in British research, you're in luck! NGS members
can now subscribe to a focused forum, where custom-tailored information is
provided, along with special discounts to unique products and services. The
first forum being offered is The NGS British Isles Forum. Currently, this
forum subscription is centered on genealogical interests and family history
offerings for England and Wales. Information, products and services, and
other offerings on interests for Ireland and Scotland will be added within
the next few months.
ENGLAND, SOMERSET PARISH TRANSCRIPTS. More than 7,300 baptisms, 1,000
marriages, and 600 burials for Meare, Glastonbury, Burtle, Catcott,
Edington, Shapwick, Godney, and other parishes, as well as many photos of
the churches and villages. http://genealogy.colinrayner.org.uk
IMMIGRANT SHIPS TRANSCRIBERS GUILD (ISTG) has a new URL. To
view ships, click on Table of Contents.
http://www.immigrantships.net
The Proceedings of the OLD BAILEY LONDON 1674 to 1834: A
fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the
lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over
100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org
GENEALOGICAL EVENTS
August
History 105--Family History and Genealogy. Meets Tuesdays 5:30-8:40 pm,
beginning August 26, for 16 weeks on Orange Coast College campus in Social
Sciences classroom 109. This class carries 3 units of college credit. Class
focuses on methods and basic sources for family history research for
beginning and intermediate family history researchers. Contact Doug Mason @
(714) 432-5038 or dmason@mail.occ.cccd.edu for information. To enroll, call
(714)432-5072.
September 20
Genealogy Society of North Orange County California, Yorba Linda will
hold a one day seminar. Geoff Rasmussen, Mellinnia Corp., creators of
Legacy Family Tree, will be the speaker. He will be speaking about
publishing your own family history book from a computer program. Call (714)
528-4977 for information.
September 27
Annual Kin-Dig Genealogical Fair, sponsored by the Antelope Valley
Genealogical Society, will be held at the Antelope Valley Inn and
Convention Center, 44055 N. Sierra Highway, Lancaster, CA. For information:
helemendler@earthlink.net
October 18
South Orange County California Genealogical Society Family History
Seminar featuring Dr. George Schweitzer. See information on first page of
newsletter.
October 26 - November 1, 2003
NGS 2003 Research Trip to London will include a full week of research
opportunities at: The National Archives (formerly The Public Record
Office), The Society of Genealogists, The Family Record Centre , The London
Metropolitan Archives, First Avenue House (for wills after 1858), The
Guildhall Library and Corporation of London Record Office and other
repositories, as requested. Register online at
http://www.NGSgenealogy.org/researchtrips/londonregistration.htm
November 1
Ancestry Novemberfest Family History Seminar, Redlands California
Stake, 350 Wabash Ave., Redlands, CA. Free admission. For Information: C.
Hatch: Chatch6@yahoo.com
November 15
Chino Valley Family History Fair, Chino Valley Stake,Chino Hills, CA.
Free admission.
For Information: Greg Collinwood at resOygij@verizon.net
NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY
The Library of Congress' Serial
& Government Publications Division is pleased to announce the release
of a new addition to the National Digital Library - the online collection
The Stars and Stripes: The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I,
1918-1919, available on the American Memory web site at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sgphtml/sashtml
At the direction of General John J. Pershing, The Stars and Stripes
newspaper was published in France by the United States Army from February
8, 1918 to June 13, 1919. By early 1918, American forces were dispersed
throughout the western front, often mixed at the unit level with British,
French and Italian forces. The primary mission of The Stars and Stripes was
to provide these scattered troops with a sense of unity and an
understanding of their part in the overall war effort. The eight-page
weekly featured news from home, poetry, cartoons and sports news, with a
staff that included journalists Alexander Woollcott, Harold Wallace Ross
and Grantland Rice.
On borrowed printing presses, using a delivery network that combined
trains, automobiles and one motorcycle, the staff produced a newspaper with
a circulation that peaked at 526,000 copies. This new online collection
presents the complete run of the World War I edition. The collection also
includes special presentations that discuss the newspaper's content: its
illustrations and advertising, its publication of soldiers' poetry, its
coverage of women. Brief biographies of editorial staff members, and their
later careers, hint at the level of journalistic talent within The Stars
and Stripes. A timeline and map place the newspaper within the greater
historical and geographical context of the war. The collection was
processed with optical character recognition (OCR) software to allow users
to search the full text of the newspaper for a word or phrase. This feature
expands the collection's usefulness to historians and genealogists
researching names and details that do not appear in the headlines. The
Stars and Stripes collection served as a pilot project in the development
of search and display capabilities to be utilized on future releases of
historic newspapers. (From the Rootsweb Kincaid List via Gail
Gilbert)
Please direct all general inquiries to:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-contactus2.html
AUGUST LIBRARY
ACQUISITIONS
SOCCGS Purchases:
Genealogy 101 by Barbara Renick
Donations:
THOMAS CUTHBERT: Wisconsin State Genealogical Societies, Various
Counties Information
PATRICE BENZLIK: Dille Family * Chaplin Family * Emery Family
BEVERLY LONG: “On the Banks of the Elkhorn” (Graham, Nodaway
County, Missouri)
JANET FRANKS: History of California DAR 1968-1981 * History of California
DAR 1981-1984
JAMES TOWNSEND (Through MV Family History Center)
Vermont
History of Jerico * History of Cambridge * Richmond, Bolton &
Huntington
Waterbury Sketches * Collecting Vermont Ancestors * Vermont Road
Atlas
New Hampshire
Index to Genealogies in New Hampshire Town Histories * Gazetteer of the
State of NH
Connecticut
Silver Cups of Colonial Middletown * Middletown & The American
Revolution
Middletown Terrentenary - 1650-1950
Nova Scotia
Genealogical Research in Nova Scotia * Nova Scotia Genealogist, assorted
copies
The Foreign Protestants and The Settlement of Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia Historical Review, assorted copies
Canada
“Lost In Canada?”, Canadian-American Genealogical Journal,
assorted copies
“The Genealogist”, American Canadian Genealogical Society,
assorted copies
Genealogist’s Handbook for Atlantic Canada Research: Punch
A Walk Through Old Lunenburg, Ontario * History of the County of
Lunenburg, Ontario
New Brunswick
Researching Your Ancestors In New Brunswick, Canada: Fellows
New Brunswick Census of 1851, Albert County: Fellows
New Brunswick Census of 1861, Albert County: Fellows
Marriage Register 1846-1887, Albert County
List of Resource Material on “Irish In New Brunswick”:
Huggard Acquisitions, cont’d.
Inventory of Manuscripts in New Brunswick Museum
New Brunswick Genealogical Society Journal, assorted copies
England & Wales
A Guide to Ancestral Research, London - Handy Tips For Research in
England & Wales
A Practical Guide for the Genealogist in England * Public Record Office,
England
Europe
Central European Genealogical Terminology * Handy
Guide to Hungarian Genealogical Records
Family History
Styer, Gahen & Poehnelt Families of Wisconsin, 1785-1935 -
Supplement for same
CLAUDE M. OBERER (Through Gordon Lake, MV Family History Center)
Collins County (Texas) Cemetery Inscriptions, Vol I & II * Churches
of Choctaw County, Alabama
Old St. Stephen’s Land Office Records, Alabama * Genealogical
Records from Bible Records
Historical Sketches from Northeast Georgia * Passengers to America
Genealogy In America, Vol. I, Massachusetts, Connecticut & Maine
Guide to Genealogical & Historical Research in Pennsylvania
Special Aids to Genealogical Research on Southern Families
Your Family Tree: Jordan-Kimball (Lists many family lines)
In Search of Scottish Ancestry: Hamilton-Edwards * Finding Your German
Ancestors: Hansen
Geographical Names of New Brunswick: Rayburn
BOB WEATHERLY
Periodicals: Guilford Genealogist, Tyrrell Tides, Tyrrell Branches (North
Carolina) “Yesterdays”, Nacodoches, Texas Genealogical
Society; Genealogical Society of Marion County, Indiana; Major County,
Oklahoma Genealogical Society; PEI Genealogical Society, Canada
WILLIAM H. TOSH - History of Roanoke County, Virginia: Kagey
DEBORAH CHAPMAN - The Benton County, Arkansas Pioneer, assorted copies
MARY JO MCQUEEN - Montana Cemetery Book, assorted cemeteries
TOM UNDERHILL - Save An Hour A Day On Your Computer
******Thank you to all who so generously
donate to our library.******
DON’T FORGET COMMON SENSE
When reading a family history, are there too many children
being born in too short of a time? Is the mother 59 and having twins? Is
Henry selling land at the age of 8? If a lineage or claim seems too good to
be true, then it probably is.
ON THE HIGHWAY
Pauline Patton Grahame
{The Palimpsest "Iowa Pioneers", July 1968; State Historical
Society of Iowa; Iowa City, Iowa}
Today streamlined trains whisk Iowans west for the winter, and
automobiles speed comfortably along the straight Iowa roads. But a trip in
pioneer days often meant dislocated bones, wind-broken horses, frozen ears
and fingers, stolen money, and the terrible heartsick feeling of lost
trails.
With all the hardships, however, which now seem unbearable, our
"Ioway" grandparents and great grandparents traveled, and
traveled often. Knowing nothing of macadamized roads, they did not stay at
home and wait for them. There were friends to be visited, sermons to be
preached, courts to be held, grist to be ground, fever cases to be bled,
and land to be bought or sold.
The first Iowa travelers, the hunters and the home seekers, had for roads
only the trails of the padding Indian or the hoof-marked tracks of the
buffalo, which threaded in and out through dense woods and underbrush or
wound snake-like through the interminable whispering seas of prairie grass.
They went not as the crow flies but as the wind bloweth, and it was an
intrepid, adventurous traveler who pushed on a little farther than his
tired companions and found a field more fertile, a grove more kind, a land
more Utopian.
But twelve-inch Indian paths were not wide enough for a yoke of oxen, so
the backwoods pioneer widened the trails. Nor did he long delay before
besieging the territorial legislature with petitions for roads. The
legislature responded. By 1846, when Iowa had become a state, two hundred
road acts were on the statute books. Even Congress took a hand and
authorized, in 1839, the well-known "Military Road," stretching
from Dubuque through Iowa City to the northern boundary of Missouri. So
year by year, as the surveyors blazed trees and drove stakes into the
prairie, as the ox teams slowly cut the matted sod, Iowa became
crisscrossed with highways.
On The Highway, cont’d.
But the roads were built of Iowa soil, which, combined with water,
invariably forms mud, deep and sticky. Transportation in the early spring
or during the fall rains was next to impossible. Those who had to travel
often exhausted their horses by long pulls through heavy gumbo, often had
to plank themselves into higher ground with rails carried for the purpose
or pad the deep ruts with willow twigs and grass, and usually arrived at
their destination after supper was over and the best half of the bed had
been pre-empted by another guest. The first hard-surface highways, of
corduroy or plank, were the wonder of those who saw them and the torment of
those who used them.
Another cause of delay was swollen streams. There were of course few
bridges, and fording was hazardous. At times it was accomplished by calking
the wagon boxes so that they would float better when pulled by the swimming
horses. How like boats the prairie schooners must have looked with their
puffed canvas tops! At the larger towns, ferries transported the traffic
across the deeper rivers. In the dead of winter, when the streams were
frozen, crossing was made easy by the ice. Then the rivers became highways
in themselves, forming unobstructed paths from town to town.
The means of transportation in itself were peculiar to the times. Groups
of white-topped prairie schooners, drawn by slow horses or slower oxen,
plowed up the thick dust of the road. Springless wagons jolted along with
corn to be ground or cordwood to be traded for a bolt of cloth. Horseback
riders wound in and out among the slower traffic, often with the mail in
saddle bags. And if at any time there was the loud sound of a horn around
the bend, the whole company would spread out along the edge of the road,
deferentially and for the safety of their lives. The women looked out from
the front of the wagons, the men chewed a little harder and spat with a
grandiose air. A stage was passing! Drawn by four spanking horses, the oval
black body swinging on its thorough braces and glistening in the sun, a
burly, whip-cracking driver sitting aloft on the high seat, and the luggage
jolting inside the little railing behind him or securely fastened in the
triangular, leather-covered "boot" at the rear, the stagecoach
made a spectacular appearance. The passengers waved as they went rolling
by. And after the stage had passed from sight and the dust had settled
again in the road, the ox teams resumed their plodding gait while the women
in the heavy wagons exclaimed over the bright scenes painted on the
stagecoach doors and the richness of the upholstery, and the men discussed
the network of the Western Stage Company lines that were spreading over
Iowa and the mail routes which the stages were steadily taking away from
the postriders.
When a traveler came to the larger towns he probably put up at a tavern
such as fat Bob Kinney's house at Muscatine, built two stories high, of
split logs, and with sawed lumber doors and window casings. The typical
tavern, however, was smaller and more rude. there were several beds in a
room, and they were not considered full unless occupied by two or three
people. The nearby creek often served as the lavatory.
And so it seems that pioneer travel was a procession of hardships. But
there were long, pleasant days on the road, good company in the motley
crowd who traveled it, and sound slumber at the end of the day in
somebody's close-walled, beef-smelling tavern. Many pioneer hearts were
lightened by thoughts of homes, fortunes, and future satisfaction toward
which they were traveling.
BEING YOUR OWN GRANDMA (or
PA)
Lois (Remington) Sorensen wrote in the Rootsweb Review, July 2,
2003, Vol. 6, No 27: “Here in Rhode Island, as elsewhere in the early
days of America, many families married back and forth from generation to
generation, so that it seems as if we are all somehow related to each
other. Add to that several sets of cousins marrying each other and we have
a very complicated network of relationships.
Recently I ran a kinship report in my family tree program, and learned
that my father is not only my father, but also my 7th cousin 1xr, 7th
cousin 2xr, 8th cousin, 8th cousin 1xr, 8th cousin 2xr, 9th cousin, 9th
cousin 1xr, 8th cousin 3xr, 9th cousin 2xr and 10th cousin!! It gets even
more complicated for my children’s generation because their paternal
grandparents are cousins. So, they are related to themselves many times
over!“ (Thanks to Iris Graham for sharing this.)
SOCCGS member, Leon Smith, having just returned from a family reunion in
Camden County, Missouri, now believes he is his own grandfather!
THEORY OF RELATIVITY: If you go back far enough, we’re all
related.
A family tree can wither if no one tends it’s roots!
