I’m aiming to create postings about my maternal grandfather, Wallace Betts Dingman, his twin brother Walter Chase Dingman, and their older brother Nelson Andrew Dingman. I’m starting with great (or grand) uncle Nelson for the simple reason that he died relatively young and therefore left only a limited number of records. When Nelson Andrew Dingman
Read on »My Family History
52 Ancestors – # 5: General Sherman Bosseller Becomes Sherman Volser
Parents sometimes bestow unusual names on their children, and in some cases the children change or de-emphasize those unusual names later in life. One such example is General Sherman Bosseller, who was born in November 1864, when General William Tecumseh Sherman was conducting the Civil War campaign known as Sherman’s March to the Sea. General
Read on »52 Ancestors – #4: Guy Bradley Dingman of Venango County, Pennsylvania
The subject of this blog post is Guy Bradley Dingman, born 17 Sep 1892 and died 10 Mar 1941. He is my 2nd cousin twice removed. He lived an unremarkable, even sad, life, but tracking down details of his life, using only online resources, was interesting to me as I researched in Venango County, Pennsylvania,
Read on »Ancestry DNA Results for a Niece
Just got an exciting email from a niece. She reports that she has taken the AncestryDNA test! Her results: Europe 100% Europe West 46% Finland/Northwest Russia 34% Ireland 10% Great Britain 8% Trace Regions 2% At a quick glance, this squares up with what I would expect. She has great grandparents on her mother’s side
Read on »52 Ancestors – #3: Remembering a Visit to Grandma Grace’s House in Cleveland & Her Button Collection
When I was seven years old, I visited Grandma Grace and her husband, Don Stafford, for a week at their residence at 1911 East 89th Street in Cleveland. It was really memorable to me because it was my first trip out of town, and, of course, I always enjoyed spending time with Grandma Grace and
Read on »52 Ancestors – #2: Learning About Matthias Flaugh, Revolutionary War Ancestor
Johann Matthias Flaugh (also spelled Flach) arrived in Philadelphia in 1773 as a 19-year-old immigrant from Rimhorn, Hesse, Germany. He was my fourth great grandfather, living most of his life in America in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. I started gathering information on Matthias early in my involvement in genealogical research. More recently, I have benefited from
Read on »Accepting the Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks — #1 Frank Nikkari
Today I accepted the challenge issued this morning by Amy Johnson Crow in her blog, No Story Too Small, of posting a blog once a week for a year about an ancestor. Go to http://www.nostorytoosmall.com/posts/challenge-52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/ for details from Amy. My first post will be about my uncle, Frank Nikkari, who emigrated from Finland in 1904
Read on »Ancestor’s Life Recorded in Newspapers
Nelson Dinghman (b 1818-d 1907) was my great great grandfather. When I was growing up, I never heard a word about him, even though he had lived only about 15 miles from my childhood home in Andover, Ohio. Early on in my involvement in genealogy, I looked for information about Nelson and learned that he
Read on »Vital Records Provide Background for JFK Assassination
The Ancestry.com Blog posting for Nov 20, 2013, illustrates how vital records can provide much background information for an historical event, in this case the assassination of John F Kennedy, on Nov 22, 1963. The title of the blog: “Looking Back at the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy in New Online Historical Record Collection
Read on »Where’s Otto? The Final Chapter
One year ago, I started on a journey to track down the family of my uncle by marriage, Frank Nikkari. When I started, I only had his obituary and his social security application card (I had purchased it back in the day, when it cost only $7). But there was the Internet, and Ancestry.com, and
Read on »GeneaBloggers
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