My Story

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

Read on »

Do You Know the Origin of “Cut and Paste”?

This post doesn’t have much to do with Collecting Ancestors, but it does have to do with my own history and I want to record it here for other folks to read, especially younger ones. On Facebook today, I saw a post asking viewers if they had ever used an upright mechanical typewriter. I learned

Read on »

Mary Jane Van Court Huskonen 1938-2017

On Friday, 19 May 2017, we said goodbye to our wife and mother, Mary Jane. She had suffered from dementia as well as hip and shoulder problems during the last three years. After a brief hospital stay in April, followed by four weeks in a skilled nursing facility, she lived out her final days at

Read on »

My Military Service in the Cold War

On January 10, 1962, I boarded a Lockheed Constellation airliner at Cleveland Hopkins airport and flew to Philadelphia with a packet of papers firmly in my grasp. The packet included the one-way ticket for the flight and instructions for reporting to the U.S. Coast Guard training facility in Cape May, New Jersey. I was met

Read on »