Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

I inherited my maternal grandmother's recipe card box after she passed away. To be honest, it's probably best served in someone else's hands. Perhaps my sister should take ownership, since I'm the least helpful in the kitchen. I have no interest in cooking or baking -- and detest the cleanup work after! My sister at least gets the urge to bake every now and then. In the meantime, the recipes all have a home in my pantry, with the exception of one that carries more weight in my opinion. My family's Chocolate Almond Bars are really just to die for.  I actually didn't think the recipe had been written down anywhere, but when I went searching through the box, sure enough, I found the card. And a few years ago, I decided it would be nice to memorialize that recipe in a special way for my mom's birthday. I was able to get it glazed onto a dish! An added bonus is that the recipe is written out in her mother's handwriting -- a very nice token to remember her by...

As the family story goes, Simon George Mills was a wife beater, and his spouse ran him out of the house because of it. Unless any court documents testifying to this fact (or contrary to it) come to light, this is the disparaging image we're left with of my 2nd great grandfather. But he probably was not brought up to act in such a manner. Simon George Mills alias George Simon Mills He was raised by parents, Lewis Mills and Ann (Jackson Smith) Hopkins, who both originally belonged to the Quaker faith. The official name for their religion is the Religious Society of Friends. It's said that the word "Quakers" was an insulting nickname bestowed upon them by others to describe the way their bodies shook while experiencing spiritual energy, but over time they've come to embrace it. Quakers believe that every individual is capable of experiencing the divine nature of the universe and receiving messages from God or finding their "inward light," even to this moder...

The days since my research trip to Dublin, Ireland have quickly slipped away, but in addition to the travel log that I already blogged about, it's important to expand upon the most exceptional discovery I made. What better time to reflect on that find than on St. Patrick's Day? For a full look at how the discovery came about, click here for Day 3 of my Dublin adventures last year in 2023. Kira D. Foltz at the National Library of Ireland, October 2023 It was my very first day of doing research in a foreign country. I was in the Manuscripts Reading Room of the National Library of Ireland, and I was digging through the estate papers of the Cole-Bowen family in hopes of finding any mention of my Keeffe/O'Keeffe ancestors of County Cork. But more importantly, I was hoping to find a map of the local area in which they lived during the famine years.  National Library of Ireland Manuscripts Room, October 2023 The smallest unit of land is called a "townland" in Ireland, b...

As I piece together the family tree, it's interesting to think about my 3rd great grandfather, Alban Francis Dimond, who worked as a blacksmith in the mid 1800s and pieced together components of wagons.  Unknown photographer, T. W. Magelssen and dairy wagon, circa 1880s. Only in recent years did I discover Alban could not have been the biological father of my 2nd great grandmother, Emma Virginia Diamond. In fact, I'm fairly certain she was unaware of this misattributed parentage also, but it doesn't mean he wasn't her dad. The Dimond/Diamond surname will always remain a part of my ancestry. What else will always remain are the patents filed by Alban in the 1870s with the United States Patent Office. He left behind a legacy of achievement in technology for his time. Initially, I only knew of two of his applications for patents via newspaper announcements: The Pittsburgh Daily Commercial , "List of Patents," 16 Jan 1875. The Tribune , "List of Patents,...

With a lot of hard work and long days, my great grandfather George LeeRoy Foltz was able to lay claim to a part of the American frontier. The Homestead Act of 1862, along with its later updates in the early 1900s, had paved the way for men like him to acquire large swaths of land outright, so long as they agreed to farm and improve upon it. George and his wife Myrtle left their home in Kansas and set out for the coastal state of Oregon. After arriving in Rainier, at only 28 years old, George submitted an application in late November 1908 to homestead 4 adjoining lots of land in the high desert of Fort Rock Valley. George L. Foltz, Fort Rock Oregon homestead application, 1908; National Archives. Bureau of Land Management, Township No. 26 South Range 14 East Willamette Meridian Oregon survey plat, 1862. Right out of the gate, he encountered a snafu. Whether an accounting error, filing mishap, or by the land agent's or his own misunderstanding, his application was initially rejected t...