where2look4ancestors

  • In the Old Genealogy Days

    Today’s three-ring binder re-do project (sorting, scanning, printing, recycling, future research planning) is focused on a binder labelled “Peder Mysse Tønnesson aka Peter Thompson 03 Jun 1857 – 10 Apr 1938”. Peter is my 2nd great-grandfather. I’ve been piecing his life story together for decades,. While going through the papers…

  • A Week of Ancestors

    April 7 to 13 My mother called her grandpa ‘Boppa’. Harry Wilhelm Tolf was my mother’s maternal grandfather born April 7, 1884, in Batavia, Kane, Illinois. Harry’s parents were Swedish immigrants who raised their three children in the far west suburb of Chicago. The family was tightly knit; when Harry’s…

  • Late to the Party

    I’ve been an Ancestry dot com subscriber mostly on / occasionally off since the nineteen-hundreds. I built my tree on Family Tree Maker. Since FTM works in tandem with Ancestry, changes to one or the other was easy peasy. My free time was limited for a few of those years…

  • Family History Filing Friday

    Something wonderful is in the air ~ spring cleaning! Having recently left my 40-hour-workweek behind, I’m all about pulling, purging and perfecting my environment. My digital environment hasn’t escaped the virtual feather duster either; I’m on a mission to bring my genealogy files to a state of organization they haven’t…

  • What it Means to Me

    All of my ancestors are interesting to me: strong women, young widowers, trail blazers, determined farmers, gifted children. I love learning about the ones who overcame obstacles, those who found love, the people who traveled great distances and those who stayed put. I’m interested in the geography and history that…

  • Genealogy Binder Re-Do

    In preparation for my first WMGS DNA special interest group meeting, Johanna Christina Carlson’s binder was a good place to start my binder organizational re-do. This is a first step in determining if Johanna’s father is Karl Johan Andersson Molin (1854-1895). Johanna is my maternal grandfather’s mother. Currently the spine…

  • Distraction-Free Zone

    I blame myself. Two pieces of paper were left alone overnight and suddenly my desk was awash in clutter. Despite my ‘design for success’ plan, I hadn’t considered the genealogical documents that cannot be addressed immediately. Where do those random various-surname documents go? Certificates and notes started to collect on…

  • Delayed Gratification

    This morning I put a second coat of paint on a small shelf and a mailing tube. The shelf had been in our garage for years. The mailing tube contained a Swedish family history chart dating back to 1620, a gift from my cousin, another Tolf descendant. In its new…

  • A Place for Everything

    Over the next few months, I will drastically reduce my work-away-from-home hours. Knowing I’ll have more time to delve into family history research, sewing projects, and the next great novel, I started seeing my home office with new eyes. My family history research is in binders labeled with my ancestors’…

  • Happy New Year

    A new year. A chance to do more things. Do better things. Perhaps do more things in better ways. 2024 will be a year of change for me. My work-outside-the-home hours will be reduced by half. What shall I do with “extra” time? I started by asking myself what was…