Posts Tagged: Ashtabula County

My Introduction to ChatGPT

Today, I was introduced to the power of ChatGPT by my grandson who is an IT professional. He is convinced that it is an important demonstration of the power of artificial intelligence (AI). “ He signed into it on his iPhone and asked me to suggest a question to ask. I suggested: “What is Pymatuning

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Searching for Ada in the 1950 Census

Ada Stokes was a good friend of my mother, Mary Jane Dingman Huskonen. For some reason, I became interested in trying to find Ada in the 1950 Census a couple months ago. This was more of a problem than I expected. It turns out I didn’t recollect her family name correctly. My other key fact

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I Found Myself in the 1950 Census

Today, April 1 2022, is the release day for the 1950 U.S. Census. Images of the enumeration pages were released by the U.S. Census Bureau in the early morning hours. I wasn’t one of the super enthusiasts who probably stayed up to access the census when it went live, but I did access it by

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My Family’s Connection to Cheese-making

I like cheese of all types. The other day I started researching cheesemaking and any connection there might be with that industry and my ancestors and relatives. Here are some facts I learned: My grandkids live on Cheese Factory Rd in Honeoye Falls, New York. (More about this in another post later.) My Great-Unclde Nelson

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Huskonen Family Oral History by Mary Jane Dingman Huskonen 1970

This oral family history was recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1969 or 1970 at the home of Wallace and Mary Jane Huskonen, 6644 Hawthorne Dr, Brecksville, Ohio. Speaking was Mary Jane Huskonen (born Dingman, known simply as Mary) with comments by her son, Walfrid. Mary made the recording for her granddaughter Karen who

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Mom Was Born 110 Years Ago Today

Mary Jane Dingman was born on December 14, 1908 (110 years ago today), to Wallace Betts Dingman and Grace Green Morley Dingman. She was born at the family’s home in Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio. She grew up to be a teacher, wife, and mother, then a teacher again, business manager, and finally a caregiver. Her

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She Rode to Work with Dad during WWII

At a meeting of the Finnish American Heritage Association (FAHA) at its museum in Ashtabula a couple of years ago, a friendly lady remarked to me that she rode to work with my father, Walfrid Herbert Huskonen, during World War II. They drove from my hometown, Andover, Ohio, about 12 miles south on Ohio Rt

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As Cursive Writing Becomes a Lost Art, What About Reading Cursive?

I was spurred into writing this post by a post on “Rootdig,” the genealogy website of Michael John Neill, posted on April 4, 2018 It was titled “Scripting An Answer–Palmer and Spencerian Handwriting” and was intended to give information on the timing of the two main handwriting systems that have been used in America until recently when

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Eating Pizza in a Covered Bridge in Andover, Ohio

In my quest to accumulate information about the history of Andover, Ohio, where I grew up, I ran across a Google search result for the Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor. The company’s web page provides details of its origins: At the Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor we invite you to discover a pizza parlor that gives you

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Newspaper Find from 50 Years Ago

Today I was searching in NewspaperArchive.com for any “hits” on Huskonen. I found plenty of them starting in about 1995. I was trying to go back to earlier times, specifically to see if I could find any newspaper articles about my father Walfrid H. Huskonen. What I did find though was an interesting “hit” in

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