Stray Branches of Our Family Tree

A stock photo that looks shockingly like the road where my maternal grandmother spent part of her childhood, which coincidentally, was around the country block from where i was raised. SO WHAT ARE MITO-MONDAYS? I realized a few years ago that my mom enjoyed talking about her childhood. In fact, she was the main reason I have gotten involved in genealogical research, but that's another story. I lived a few states away from Mom and we would talk once a week or so on the phone, for an hour or two. When I look back on it, it's actually quite surprising because I had a stroke a few years ago and talking on the phone with anybody can be quite grueling. Somehow, it wasn't with Mom. We often turned to family stories of which I started making notes. Eventually I asked her about DNA and blogging, both of which she thought exciting. So I started a blog we called The Mito-Trail. We concentrated on researching the last line I had not yet worked, because it was McMillen, M...

THE DOCUMENTED TRAVELS OF ANCESTOR ICHABOD CLAWSON - THROUGH AT LEAST SEVEN STATES - 1,600 MILES - 50 YEARS OF MIGRATION (and some biographical information). Ichabod Clawson is my one ancestor who has put the most miles under his feet here in the U.S. that I'm aware of, not including military ancestors (most never went beyond Ohio). Although I know various places he landed, I do not know what routes he traveled yet. Image above from the Library of Congress. 1) About 1780 -- Born in New Jersey according to the 1850 census. Some of his children in later census records when asked about birthplace of parents, indicated New York, among other places. With ever-changing boundaries as the country moved forward, this could have been true literally, or could have meant after it became something else.Vermont became a state (previously New York) in 1791. 2) 1807 -- Married in Fairfield, Vermont - There is a Nathan Closson listed in the 1800 census (age 26-44 age bracket) but...

MY WEST CENTRAL OHIO PIONEERS Following is the surnames of ancestors who migrated from various states and eastern or mid-Ohio counties to west central Ohio, from Shelby and Champaign Counties up to the Allen-Hardin Counties line to within a couple miles on either side of that border. I spent most of my life in Hardin County but worked and married for a time in Logan County. I now live in Middle Tennessee but 2/3 of my generation and the one below me still live in Hardin and Logan Counties - a span of more than 200 years! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Places of “From” and “To” are listed as it was at the time of the event. Some boundaries may have since changed. * Logan / Hardin Counties = generally the Belle Center but bounced back and forth across the county lines, sometimes multiple times. SURNAME - From - To Ohio County - Year CLAWSON - Franklin County VT - Shelby County - 1820 CLAWSON - Unknown ...

George Washington's Bathtub. Copied with permission from http://www.berkeleysprings.com/trail/gwtrail-5.html While I have a fairly lengthy travel-based bucket list, finding "the only outdoor monument to presidential bathing" on a website named Atlas Obscura has never been one of them... It would seem that one of my ancestors, Nicholas Fleece, and The George Washington were neighbors, of the small-town sort, in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. That's what it's called now. When Nicholas and George were there, it was Bath (or Warm Springs), Virginia. A small portion of the plat map redrawn in 1966 by Warren G. Lintz and reprinted on what I would classify as page 14B in Warm Springs Echoes, Volume One, by Fred Newbraugh, one of my early research mentors. The original was drawn in 1776 and recorded in the Berkeley County Clerks' office in 1798 according to the note at the bottom of the page. There appears to have been 131 lots on the original plat. ...

30+ LABELED PHOTOGRAPHS LOOKING FOR A NEW HOME I have been slowly going through photographs collected by members of my family over the generations. I would like to return the following to direct descendants. I believe I am fourth in line to have them in my possession. If you are interested, just leave a message. I will email you so we can discuss privately how you are connected to the person. I'm fairly certain the writing on the back of the pictures are by my great-aunt, Florence Moore who lived outside Alger, Ohio. I am equally certain that some of these pictures are connected to Florence in some way, but did not necessarily live in Hardin County. I do know most are surnames of previous Hardin County, Ohio however.  The amazing thing to me is that women in these pictures are identified my maiden and married name , and sometimes how they were related to her. We should all be so lucky! -----------------------------------------------------------------------...

What is a Lassforeel? Apparently it is a town in Vermont so my question became  where is Lassforeel? 1814 Map of Vermont, from the Library of Congress by Carey & Doolittle Digital ID:  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3750.ct000094 I like to write brief biographies of our ancestors and to do it effectively for my children, I add lots of maps, including contemporary, current, and sometimes a Google Earth shot. The above map is as close as I could get to the marriage date of ancestors Ichabod Clawson and Katherine Beden in 1807. I am particularly interested in Ichabod because he appears to have lived in several states over his 80+ year life-span. Rambling feet, our family calls it... But to be efficient, I need to be able to pinpoint their whereabouts on the map. Henceforth the story of The Search For Lassforeel. (B) Marriage record of Ichabod Clawson and Katherine Beden 23 Aug 1807  by Benjamin Wooster, Minister. Close-up. Ancestry.com's in...

IMMEDIATE FAMILY - QUAKER...OR NOT? Photograph of Sandy Hill Meeting House by author, 1979. The Meeting House with the Woodward headstones bottom center. 1979 by author. There has been much speculation as to this family's church affiliation. Some believe Hope's husband, Joseph Woodward, must have joined the Quakers after he married Hope because he is buried in the Sandy Hill Cemetery. Some have mentioned that his parents were Quaker, presumably because they came from a long line of active Quakers back in Chester County in eastern Pennsylvania. My conclusions are based on the research of records currently available online (November 2018). I believe the Shotwell and Woodward family histories, written in the latter quarter of the 1800s, were repeated on down through the years as other family histories were written. OBSERVATIONS: • I have rarely found significant errors in these early books, even though it was exceedingly difficult to find primary documentation a...