The 1950 U.S. census is now available to view on the NARA website. An event that all genealogists, professional or not, have been waiting for! Finding the Sewards in Arkansas The first members of my family I searched for were my Mom and her parents. I knew they were living in the town of Arkadelphia…
This week I’m going to jump back into the 52 Ancestors project with the suggested theme “At the Library.” I grew up going to the library at least weekly, if not more often. We moved around a bit during my childhood so the local library was sometimes large, sometimes small, even a bookmobile (library on…
The theme for week 51 of the 52 Ancestors project is “nice.” My association of the word “nice” at this time of year is with Christmas and being on Santa’s nice list. Joan Emily Avenell, my paternal grandmother, was born to Bertrand and Emily Thomas Avenell in January 1912 in Houston, Texas. She was the…
The 52 Ancestors theme for week 48 was “Next to Last” Two of my 3rd great-grandparents on my paternal grandfather’s side, Jasper Green and Angelina Frazier had eleven children together before Angelina died sometime between 1852 and 1860. Their 10th – next to last – child was Sarah Ann Green, called Sadie or Sadie Ann….
This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is “Cause of death.” It took me a while to come up with an idea for this week, then I remembered that this year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Spanish flu pandemic. My great-grandmother Emily Thomas was born in Canterbury, England in 1879 to Henry Thomas and Minnie…
The theme for the forty-first week of the 52 Ancestors project was “Sports.” My immediate family was not very serious about competitive sports. I played softball and my brother played soccer for the YMCA. We learned to swim at young ages and that was about it. My grandmother Joan (Avenell) played basketball in high school…
One month ago I wrote about the Rev. Solomon Gleason Barber who raised my 2nd Great-Grandfather, his nephew, as his own son. Since this week’s 52 Ancestors theme is about farming, this post belongs to the younger Solomon. Many of my American ancestors either farmed as a profession or lived on small family farms while…
In celebration of Labor Day, the theme of week #36 of the 52 Ancestors challenge is “work.” I knew my Granddad as someone who could fix anything electronic. The Shell Geophysical Lab in Houston, Texas knew him as their “first radio man.” According to an article from a company newspaper he saved, he was responsible…
This week’s theme is “Family Legend.” The last batch of my family to arrive in the United States came over from England (via Canada) in 1910. Bertrand Sidney Avenell, his wife Emily (nee Thomas), their oldest son Roland, Bertrand’s parents Walter and Jane Ellen (Hagell) Avenell, his sister Eleanor, and Jane Ellen’s sister Letty all…
Theme is Military. Today is Memorial Day, made official in 1868 after the Civil War. I’ve known about two ancestors who fought for the Union for a while now; Solomon Gleason Barber, my paternal grandfather’s grandfather and Ora Butler Douglas, a 3rd great-uncle on my maternal side. Though some of my paternal grandfather’s ancestors moved…
