Milling Water to the Sea

By Eilene Lyon We recently took a trip to the Netherlands and Norway, so expect a few posts on sights, scenes, and travel. But first, I want to share a bit about the Dutch genius for engineering water. It’s no secret that much of the Netherlands is below sea level. Since more and more land... Continue Reading →

Alias Addison Porter – 3

By Eilene Lyon Please read Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding. California After learning that Indiana Gov. Albert G. Porter had a black-sheep brother named Pinckney J. Porter, I got quite caught up in the idea that Pinckney was Addison W. Porter’s birth identity. Note that all Pinckney’s surviving siblings had names beginning with... Continue Reading →

August 20, 2019 0

Alias Addison Porter – 2

By Eilene Lyon Please read Part 1 before proceeding. The Second Clue After the Jefferson Zane/Zinn fiasco, I set the Addison W. Porter problem aside…until I began reading through some documents from my research trip to Idaho in June. Yep, another clue about Porter turned up. How random is that? Most of the research involved... Continue Reading →

August 18, 2019 25

Alias Addison Porter – 1

Week 33: #52 Ancestors – Comedy By Eilene Lyon This story isn’t funny-haha, but funny-peculiar. A comedy of errors, if you will. That does happen in genealogy research. Sometimes you have to come up with a hypothesis to guide you when you come to a brick wall. Then the path you take, based on your... Continue Reading →

August 16, 2019 27

The Slide Years: R & R

By Eilene Lyon Dad, who took this photo of Mom, did two tours in Vietnam during the 1960s. He was an officer and worked in the Quartermaster Corps. His job over there during the second tour (1969) was to run the PX (post exchange - the store for service members). Because Uncle Sam considered Vietnam... Continue Reading →

August 15, 2019 25

The Shrinking Tree

Or, Why Charlemagne is Not My Ancestor By Eilene Lyon My recent post, The Instant Tree, sparked a discussion with Zoe Krainik from Hollywood Genes which I thought worthy of expanding on. Zoe provided a link to this article that seems to suggest that each European today is descended from everyone living in Europe during... Continue Reading →

August 13, 2019 32

E-I-E-I-O

By Eilene Lyon I love County Fair time. It’s the only time of year I get to hang with barnyard animals – and I’m not just talking the four-legged-and-feathered gang. Since our fairgrounds are right in town, and it’s tourist season, I took the opportunity to ride my bike along the scenic river trail to... Continue Reading →

August 11, 2019 29

One Stayed Home

Week 32: #52 Ancestors – Sister By Eilene Lyon My great-great-grandfather Richard D. Halse had two sisters, one older and one younger. Richard, his widowed mother, and all his siblings moved from Iowa to Dakota Territory around 1880, except for the younger sister. Her name was Elizabeth Sorby Halse and she married a couple years... Continue Reading →

August 10, 2019 24

The Slide Years: Wedding Portrait

By Eilene Lyon Back before digital cameras, my dad wielded a 35-mm camera loaded with Kodachrome slide film. Several years ago, I scanned many of his slides (a few, such as this one, taken by another person). The quality isn't as good as I would hope (though this one was poor to begin with -... Continue Reading →

August 8, 2019 22

The Drummer

Week 31: #52 Ancestors - Brother Steven Arthur Halse (1959 - 2014) Feature image: Steve was in a marching band for one season in the fall of 1973 at Cumberland Valley High School in or near Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He played cymbals. Photo credits: Most of these were taken by Dad and are in my... Continue Reading →

August 4, 2019 40

Myricopia