In July 2021 I worked on what had been a goal for a long time – producing a family history display on one of the blank walls in our downstairs hallway. I had found out about how to produce files on PowerPoint that could be sent to a company called mixtiles.com which turned the images […]
Family History
Posts about Genealogy projects
Lincoln’s Inaugural Journey
From February 11-23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln journeyed by train from his home in Springfield, Illinois to Washington, DC, where he would be inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4. The journey was recounted in great detail ten years ago by the National Park Service, in “150th Anniversary of Lincoln’s Inaugural Journey,” and […]
A gift of books and another military story
In May I received a wonderful gift from my third cousin Jim Varner in Ohio: three books on Civil War battles in which our great-grandfather, Peter Pelsor, fought. At the time, I was working on the narrative at the beginning of Chapter Six, “Vicksburg Campaign,” and the book Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi, […]
A 100th Birthday Salute
My wife’s mother, Margaret Catherine Stout O’Donnell, was born on June 26th, 1920, and for her 100th birth anniversary, I put together for family and friends a report on her service in the Army Nurse Corps from 1943-1945. It was enjoyable to fill in some missing details as to time and place in her movements […]
Book Progress and Descendancy Research
[A cannon stands where Pelsor’s regiment was placed at the siege of Vicksburg. Picture courtesy of Jim Varner, a descendant of Miriam Pelsor, who took the photo on a visit to the battlefield.] A few weeks back, I was wondering how I could self-publish the Pelsor Letters, making the book look elegant without having to […]
Pelsor’s Diary Adds Missing Data
Since my last post on the Pelsor Letters Project, I’ve got the narrative completed for Chapter Two and almost completed for Chapter Three; these chapters contain Pelsor’s letters from July 1861 through March of 1862, the high point being the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 7-8, 1862. But since our outside activity has been […]
The Pelsor Letters Project
My 2nd-great grandfather, Peter Dixon Pelsor (1821-1902), was from the little village of Metamora, Indiana, in Franklin County – northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. In July 1861 he joined the Union Army, 18th Indiana Infantry, along with his son Henry, age 16. Due to his age he started out at the rank of Sergeant, and when […]
New Family History Post
This category is dedicated to my family history interests. It will be a place where I will report on progress on my book of my second-great-grandfather’s letters during the Civil War, and of various genealogy projects. The picture is of my father’s parents – Swedish emigrants at the end of the nineteenth century.