Genealogical Gems

When you grow up in a small town, there are some names that just stand out throughout the generations. On This Day in 1882 the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer published a short piece on the installation of officers at Masonic Lodge, No. 417, in Christiana. Many are names that still are associated with the town. D.D.G. M. Breneman installed the new officers. Those installed were: Worshipful Master Thomas J. Marsh; Senior Warden Thomas R. Hirst; Junior Warden H.H. Hamilton; Treasurer Samuel Slokom; and Secretary Edwin Carret. Members and visitors were treated afterward to a banquet by J. Hershberger, of the Christiana Hotel. The Christiana Lodge, No 417 continues to meet and serve the community today. The Lodge is located at Slokom Avenue and Green Street in the Borough. Christiana is located in Lancaster County, bordering Chester County. Sources Lancaster Daily Intelligencer. ( Lancaster , PA ), 22 December 1882. Chronicling America : Historic Amer...

General Reynolds’ funeral was announced On This Day in 1880. As a member of the Mount Lebanon Lodge, No. 226, he would be interred with Masonic ceremonies. Lodge No. 43 and Lamberton Lodge No 476 would both participate in the ceremonies.    This General Reynolds, though not fully identified in the article, is James Lefevre Reynolds. A veteran of the Civil War, Reynolds served as Quartermaster General of Pennsylvania . He was 58 years old.   He was the brother of Major General John F. Reynolds, who was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Their brother William is a Rear Admiral in the US Navy. The brothers are buried in the Lancaster Cemetery .   Source: Lancaster daily intelligencer. ( Lancaster , Pa. ), 6 April 1880. Chronicling America : Historic American Newspapers . Lib. of Congress.       On This Day is a prompt I started this month to further explore historical events.         ...

Lately I feel like I have been running in several different directions at once. Normally I am very organized and everything has its place. However, as my life gets more stressful, my desk has become cluttered in one large pile. Friday it was cool enough to do some cleaning and rearranging upstairs. My work area is quarantined to a small section of my incredibly small bedroom. I began by emptying out everything onto my bed. My cat was not happy with me! To help organize things I put everything in its own pile: a writer's magazines pile; miscellaneous magazine and pamphlet pile; a diabetes info pile; a running and fitness pile; a church pile; a pile for my work at Hospitality Basket; and finally what was left on my bed should be genealogy related. As I'm going through the piles and piles of things I came across an article  from the NGS Quarterly volume 82 # 4 from December 1994 . to article titled " Tracking a Soldier Between Enlistment and Discharge:  the Ex...

Last month - yes I do mean November, can you believe it is December already! - we rearranged our apartment when our oldest daughter moved back in. My things literally got moved in piles and boxes so I have been looking forward to today's Sorting Saturday! First on my stack are the twins' first marking period report cards. Both did really well. I found a flyer from their 6th grade choral concert. I only found one though and they were both in it. I also found a relatively recent immunization record for my oldest daughter. Off they go to their own respective files. I came across a list of four churches in Shenandoah. These are Roman Catholic churches, one of which I am hoping to find information on my Walsh and Keating ancestors. My Keating s - specifically Anna Keating - lived in Ringtown just down the road. At some point the Keatings moved to Shendaoah where she met and married Michael Walsh. We went up to Shendoah last summer and spoke with people  at the Greate...