Every once in a while I like posting photos of my ancestors that I enjoy (the photos, I mean)…Here is one of Franklin Thomas Pomeroy, my great-grandfather, since we just celebrated his 142nd birthday. So distinguished and dapper. Check out the ‘stache.
Franklin Thomas Pomeroy, 15 Sep 1870 – 4 Nov 1954
He was born 15 Sep 1840 in Paris. Well, Paris, Bear Lake, Idaho that is. He died 4 Nov 1954 at Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona. He married the middle gal in the On Granny’s Trail banner above (Sophia Isadora Morris) on 28 ar 1893 and later went on to serve as a State Senator in Arizona.
Frank T. Pomeroy campaign card, Arizona State Senate (front)Frank T. Pomeroy campaign card, Arizona State Senate (back
I kind of like the bow-tie and handlebar mustache look in his wild younger days, but he looks very distinguished as a senator, too. I think he and Dora were a great match.
Good news everyone! You are finally old enough to use a “cheat sheet” legitimately. In fact, it is one of the secrets of successful genealogists because genealogy is an “open book” test. You can’t store all the necessary information in your head, so knowing where to look for that information really differentiates the pros from the amateurs.
It is essential that you begin to create your own cheat sheets for the localities you research the most, and also for general research topics.
Family Tree Magazine has developed some handy cheat sheets for general topics and they are free.
Click this link for access to these quick reference guides. You will first need to sign up for a free account and sign in to access the free resources. Here are some snippets from several cheat sheets. I like this timeline of naturalization laws:
Part of online Family Tree Magazine “Naturalization Laws Timeline”
This war service reference guide will help you know which military conflicts your ancestor might have been a part of:
Part of online Family Tree Magazine “War Service Reference Guide”
This source checklist comes in handy:
Part of online Family Tree Magazine “Source List Checklist”
There are plenty more on Family Tree Magazine’s website, so check them out. Create a link to them in your digital genealogy toolkit, and add printouts to your reference binder, Cheater 😉
For links to this and other handy genealogy tools, click on Dayna’s Genealogy Toolkit on the menu bar above.
First off, check out the new link on the menu above for “Dayna’s Genealogy Toolkit.” This is a collection of websites I find handy for the research process. In most cases I consider these tools because they are not places to find names and dates, but instead they give me a way to better organize and analyze information. Some of them, like Linkpendium and Genealogy Sleuth are portals to database collections but I like the way they are organized. One—Railroad Employee Records—is just a cool site I didn’t want to lose track of.
Today I am highlighting the first one on the list, the Geni.com collection of genealogy acronyms and abbreviations. We come across these mysterious entries in source documents all the time. For example…
How handy to have a quick place to look up AMOS, and how exciting to learn there is an Ancient Mystic Order of Samaritans. How could the Odd Fellows have possibly made their name more intriguing?
The website includes a list of books and websites that were referenced in compiling this list. One thing I find a little off-putting is all the spelling errors and typos in the paragraph that introduces the list. (Ugh. That is a pet peeve of mine!) The list itself seems to have been compiled with greater care, however, and I find it quite helpful.
Even though I can have more fun making up my own explanation for acronyms (you mean to tell me PBA doesn’t stand for Poor Babies of America??) it is more professional to use the standard interpretation.
Today I am posting a newspaper article about my great-grandparents, Joseph Baldwin Tanner and Nora Almeda Foutz, describing the home they built and lived in, in Kirtland, New Mexico.
It appeared in the Farmington Daily Times (Farmington, New Mexico) on 14 Oct 1959, p E5. The article includes photos of the family home and a family portrait, along with wonderful biographical information.
California became a state one hundred and sixty two years ago today, (September 9th, 1850 for the math-impaired among us). I am sharing an article by Michael Leclerc posted on Mocavo’s website where he shares 5 great resources for California research.
I even learned that the first daily newspaper in California The Daily Alta Californian has been digitized. The first capitol of California was Alta, later known as Monterey—my stomping grounds.
I recommend them all and thought Leclerc did such a good job describing them it would be best to just provide the link. Happy (California) Trails!
I kind of like the bow-tie and handlebar mustache look in his wild younger days, but he looks very distinguished as a senator, too. I think he and Dora were a great match.
On Granny's Trail 