52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2020 - Week 1 - Fresh Start

I'm once again going to do some blog posts based on Amy Johnson's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompts. Thanks to Amy for developing the prompts!

The first 52 Ancestors prompt for 2020 is Fresh Start. The themes are meant to be open to interpretation :-) Perhaps you have an ancestor who had to make a fresh start after a loss or setback. Maybe you had to make a fresh start on researching a particular ancestor.

I'm going to use this prompt to make a fresh start on my genealogy goals for 2020. Every once in awhile, I refer back to a post about my 2x great-grandparents and my research progress for each line. A lot of those goals still apply and I plan on doing a more detailed update of my progress for each line as I review my research.

Here are my initial 2020 goals. I hope to apply these to each of my lines shown below.

• Review my digital files and identify information I haven't posted yet.
• Update my surname posts for each line with any new information.
• Identify areas to concentrate my research on for 2020.
• Continue with the 52 Ancestor prompts. 
• Use Family Tree Magazine's 2020 Genealogy Research Plan as a guide to setting additional goals. There are some great ideas here! 
  

The graphics below show my great-grandparents and 2x great-grandparents.

Great-grandparents for my Councill and Sparks families - Maryland

Great-grandparents for my Willis and Chilcutt families - Maryland, Delaware

Great-grandparents for my Pulskamp and Gast families - Ohio, Germany

Great-grandparents for my Creeden and Niehaus families - Ohio, Ireland, Germany

If anyone is interested in any of these lines, please leave me a comment on this post. I'd love to hear from you and would be glad to share information.

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 52 - Resolution

The 52 Ancestors prompt for this week is "Resolution". It's the time of year when many people look ahead and make resolutions. Is there an ancestor you plan to concentrate on researching next year? (Maybe that brick wall ancestor?) 

It's hard to believe we're on the last week of 2018! First of all, much thanks to Amy Johnson Crow for the 52 Ancestors prompts. I didn't have as much time as I'd like to spend on the blog this year and they helped keep me going.

I've posted previously on my 2x great-grandparents and where I'm at with research on each of them. I have more mysteries to solve on my maternal side, so plan to concentrate on that next year. Most of them are from Queen Anne's County, MD and the surrounding counties.

2x great-grandparents for my Councill and Sparks families

For my Councill and Sparks lines, I plan to concentrate on the Meredith and Godwin families. I have some DNA matches that might help with these lines, so plan to delve into that a bit more.

2x great-grandparents for my Willis and Chilcutt families

For the Willis and Chilcutt lines, I plan to concentrate on George Chilcutt. My brick wall for most of my Queen Anne's County lines is finding the evidence to link my direct ancestors with the research others have done on these families.

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

Sixth Blogiversary - January 4, 2017

Hard to believe that it's been six years since I started Kathryn's Quest! I've set a few goals for the New Year:

• Follow along with the Genealogy Do-Over with an emphasis on organizing my collection and adding sources to my family tree.
• Digitize my paper genealogy documents and post items of interest here.
• Update my surname posts for each of my 2x great-grandparents.
• Research other Creeden families in Clinton County, OH.
• Update my blog header and layout.

That's probably enough to keep me busy over the next year. Best wishes to all that read my blog for a wonderful 2017!

Motivation Monday - Researching my 2x Great-Grandparents

This is an update to my to-do list for my 2x great-grandparents. In the graphics below, I'm showing the parents for each of my great-grandparents and taking a quick look at how much research I've done on them to date.

I've made a lot of progress on my Councill families by going through land and probate records for Queen Anne's County, MD and the surrounding counties. I think Francis' parents were John Councill and Ann Baynard and I've found found several siblings for Francis. From land records, I know that Ann Baynard's father was Levin Baynard. I still haven't researched the Meredith family.

My Sparks and Godwin families are proving much harder to trace. Through land records, I know that Samuel's father is Daniel Sparks and from census records I know that Susan Godwin's parents are Samuel and Ann Godwin. I located Samuel Spark's obituary which was in an old email! I've found a few possibilities for Samuel Godwin's cousins and siblings, but nothing so far on his parents.

Next up:

• Post the land records for Samuel Sparks.
• Continue searching the land and probate records.
• Start researching the Meredith family.

Since my last update, I received some information from the Clinton County Genealogy Society on my Creeden and Matson families. It didn't provide any information on their parents, but had some interesting data on some of their siblings and other relatives. I'd still like to find an actual vital record for Timothy Creeden and find out more about Mary Ann Matson's grandparents. I haven't made any progress on finding out what happened to Anna Niehaus' brother Albert Rohrer.

Next up:

• Do a detailed timeline on Timothy and his children to see what records I'm still missing
• Organize and post my research on Timothy's siblings
• Retrace steps on Albert Rohrer and Mary Matson's parents
• Follow up on some of the Creeden mysteries (more here)

Since my last update, I made some progress on  my Schaefer and Desch families and posted the will of Catherine's father Ferdinand Desch. I haven't done too much more on my Pulskamps and Gasts.

Next up:

• Organize my Pulskamp and Gast data and see what's missing
• Continue with Schaefer and Desch research

I haven't researched my Willis and Chilcutt families since my last update, so still have a lot of research to do on these lines.

Next up:

• Organize the data I've collected on these families and enter into my family tree.
• Continue going through the probate info on FamilySearch.

Surname Saturday - 2x Great-Grandparents

I mentioned in my Gast surname post that I'd finally posted some information for each of my lines at the great-grandparent level. I've skipped around quite a bit and some posts were a lot more detailed than others, but these posts have really helped me to organize my data and see what's missing.

In the graphics below, I'm showing the parents for each of my great-grandparents and taking a quick look at how much research I've done on them to date.

I probably have the most data on the Creeden famly since they're the ones I started out researching. I'd still like to find an actual vital record for Timothy Creeden and find out more about Mary Ann Matson's grandparents. I think Timothy's parents are Patrick Creedan and Mary Coakley from Clondrohid, Ireland, but I'd like to find more evidence to back that up. The main mystery on the Niehaus side is what happened to Anna Niehaus' brother Albert Rohrer?

Next up:

• Do a detailed timeline on Timothy to see what records I'm still missing
• Follow up with Clinton County Genealogy Society. I wrote them in January to see what info they might have on the Creeden and Matson families and was contacted in March by someone that said she had information on the families. Updating to add that I should be receiving the information from the Clinton County Genealogy Society soon!
• Retrace steps on Albert Rohrer.

I've been going through the Queen Anne's County, MD probate records on FamilySearch for these families and I've found probate files or wills for Francis Councill, his wife Mary, and Samuel and Susan Sparks. I still have a lot of data to go through and posted earlier about how intertwined these families were. I don't know the parents for Mary Meredith or anything about her family, although some other Merediths pop up in the census records.

Next up:

• Organize the data I've collected recently and enter into my family tree.
• Transcribe the wills and probate info I've found on FamilySearch.

I haven't researched my Schaefer line at all and don't know too much about my Desch family. I just recently found the will of Catherine's father Ferdinand Desch on FamilySearch, so I'll transcribe that in a future post. I have quite a bit of info on the Pulskamps and Gasts, but some of it still needs to be sorted out.

Next up:

• Start researching the Schaefer line. Woot, a whole new line to investigate!
• Transcribe the will for Ferdinand Desch.

I've posted some information on my Willis and Chilcutt families, but still have a lot of research to do on these lines. I have even less data on the Adams and Covey lines. I have a head start for all of these thanks to people that shared their family trees. It is much appreciated!

Next up:

• Organize the data I've collected on these families and enter into my family tree.
• Continue going through the probate info on FamilySearch.

So that's a quick glance at where I am for my 2x great-grandparents. Looks like I have a long "to do" list!

Fearless Females - Brick Walls

March 20 — Is there a female ancestor who is your brick wall? Why? List possible sources for finding more information.

My shortest tree so far is for my Adams line. I've only been able to trace this tree back to my gg-grandmother Ruth Edna Adams Willis on the female side. She was born around 1839 in Delaware and was married to William Martin Willis. There was a Mary Adams age 55 living with Ruth and William in the 1860 census, so that could possibly be her mother. In the 1850 census, there is a Ruth E. Adams born about 1836 living with another family. There is also a Mary and Margaret Adams, both age 47 in the 1850 census in a different county than where Ruth is living. Ruth lived in Delaware and Maryland, so I need to further investigate the sources for each county that she lived in. There is a lot of information on the Delaware and Maryland GenWeb sites that I haven't fully investigated yet.

My Creeden tree stops at Timothy Creeden, born in 1846 in Ireland. I don't even have a first name for his mother, so I think this is my toughest brick wall. I posted everything I've tried so far on this tree here:
My Irish Brick Wall

My female lines in Maryland all stop around the early 1800's. There is some extensive research on some of the family surnames in that area in the 1700's, but I have been unable to hook my family up to the earlier families so far. The lines that were researched left Maryland, while my families stayed there. That applies to my ancestors in Queen Anne's County, MD in the Councill, Meredith, Sparks, and Chilcutt families.

Sources for more information:

• Organize what I already have to make sure I haven't missed anything
• Redo searches on Ancestry, FamilySearch, and other sites to see what's new
• Fully investigate sources on the GenWeb sites for counties they lived in
• Investigate the Maryland archives available online
• Investigate vital records for Maryland and Delaware
• Post on the message boards
• For my Irish line, keep up with the new records coming on line at the Irish Genealogy and the Roots Ireland sites. 
• Investigate other Creedon families living nearby in Ohio.

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Once again, in honor of  National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month..

Fearless Females - Favorite Female Ancestor

Once again, in honor of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

March 1 — Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.

It would be hard to choose between my two grandmothers-- one I knew and one I didn't. I have always felt drawn to my father's mother Anna Lee Pulskamp Creeden since I never got to meet her and she is somewhat of a mystery. I know some facts about her, but don't know much about what she was like. She died tragically on December 2, 1934, a few days after my father's birth. She was born on June 11, 1910, so was only 24 years old when she died. She was married to my grandfather Robert Creeden on December 27, 1930.

My mother's mother was Edna Catherine Willis Councill. I remember her as a very sweet, shy lady who was always nice to everyone she met. My grandparents used to come visit us in Florida and we made some trips up to Pennsylvania and Delaware to visit them, but we didn't get to see them that often while I was growing up. She was born January 12, 1905 in Queen Anne's County, MD and died in May 1973 in New Castle, Delaware. She was married to Royce Rufus Councill on June 13, 1925 and they had four daughters. Since I started my genealogy searches on my father's line and have gathered more information on his family, I plan on concentrating most of these prompts on my mother's ancestors.

Goals:

• Document what I already have
• Document stories from my Mom and aunts 
• Scan any photos I don't have online
• Redo searches on Ancestry.com and other sites to see what's new