Week 7: #52 Ancestors – Favorite Discovery By Eilene Lyon Back in 2011, I started writing family histories that begin with pairs of my 3rd great-grandparents, forward to present day. All fine, except I didn’t then know all my 3rd greats. One gap was the parents of Charlie Gusso. No one in the Gusso family... Continue Reading →
Did He Serve?
Week 6: #52 Ancestors – Same Name By Eilene Lyon When I put together the list of ten men who formed the Blackford Mining Company in 1851, two names made me groan: John K. Anderson and Samuel Jones. At least Anderson had a middle initial. But Samuel Jones, no middle initial? Argh!! How many men... Continue Reading →
The Asian Affair
Week 5: #52 Ancestors – So Far Away By Eilene Lyon According to Google, it is 9,079 miles [14,611 km] from Richmond, Virginia, to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. That’s how far my dad was from home in 1966. The Second Indochina War, what we call the Vietnam War in the U.S., began in... Continue Reading →
Buried in Colorado
Week 4: #52 Ancestors – Close to Home By Eilene Lyon I’ve lived in Colorado for the past 35 years, but not because of any family connection to this state. When I really started digging into my family tree on Ancestry a decade ago, I discovered that some relatives also ended up here in the... Continue Reading →
The Slide Years: The Porch
By Eilene Lyon The Slide Years is a series in which I select an image my dad took from 1957-1982 with Kodachrome slide film, then I write a stream-of-consciousness essay – a sort of mini-memoir. I found this picture in the earliest batch of Dad’s slides from 1957. This is his family’s cat from that... Continue Reading →
Koch’s Disease
By Eilene Lyon -- March 24, 2020 It felled Egyptian Pharaohs and Greek warriors. It’s likely been around for 9,000 years or more. An estimate is that one in seven people who ever lived prior to 1800 succumbed to the disease, caused by a bacterium. Is this one of those plagues that have been eradicated... Continue Reading →
Old York Road
Week 3: #52 Ancestors – Long Line By Eilene Lyon Two branches with the surname Jenkins converge on my tree at my 4th great-grandmother, Ann Widdifield Zane. She married David Jenkins, presumed from Wales, but not a Quaker like Ann. Next to nothing is known of his life or family, so this is a rather... Continue Reading →
Jenkins Cousins
Week 2: #52 Ancestors – Favorite Photo By Eilene Lyon Last fall, one of my second cousins discovered she had a trove of family photos and heirlooms tucked away. The pictures likely had not been seen in decades. Most of them are of the Ransom and Jenkins families. I chose this particular image that shows... Continue Reading →
Back to the FANs
Week 1: #52 Ancestors - Fresh Start By Eilene Lyon To genealogists, the FAN acronym stands for Friends, Associates, Neighbors - people we should be researching alongside our ancestors to provide context and clues to family connections. My knee surgery rehab time on the exercise bike prompted me to start watching some Legacy Family Tree... Continue Reading →