Eight years ago today my mom, Sharon Doerflinger, passed away at the age of 50 and my life changed forever.  In some ways, that day feels like yesterday and in others it feels like a lifetime ago.

This is my favorite photo of my mom. She always made this face when she was deep in conversation.

When I was a kid, my mom and I were very close.  She was always interested in an adventure.  I have so many memories of going camping, swimming in the ocean, walking along the tide pools, and exploring new places.  I remember going horseback riding on the beach – my first time on a real horse by myself and panicking after my horse started galloping away from the group.  My mom, having taken lots of horseback riding lessons as a child, tried to tell me how to make the horse stop but I was too panicked to do anything other than white-knuckle the horn of the saddle.  She made her horse go into a full run to catch up to us and then, while still riding her horse, reached over and grabbed the reigns to make the horse slow down to a stop.

I was a bit of an unusual child.  For example, I loved to watch “Mysteries of the Bible” on the History Channel on Saturday mornings rather than cartoons.  I loved Egyptian history and Greek mythology.  When I was 9, I dressed up for Halloween as a woman from the 1940s because I decided I loved the style.  In the 4th grade I read a story about Anne Frank and decided to explore Judaism.  I read every book in the school library on it, every book in the local library on it, and even began borrowing books from libraries farther away.  When I didn’t understand what words meant, my mother would read it to me and explain it the best she could.  When I began contemplating converting, she had me sit down with a rabbi to discuss the options.  She always supported me.

The best picture of Mom and I.

When I was in middle school, she let me invite my close friends to go out to a restaurant.  We started this tradition of eating one “course” at each restaurant – one place for appetizers, one place for food, another for dessert.  She let my friends and I sit together while she sat a few tables away reading her book.

However, things began to change once I started high school.  My mom had slipped further and further into alcoholism and our relationship started to deteriorate.  We started arguing more often and our fights became more intense.  I started staying out late or spending the night at someone else’s house to avoid her.  On the night of my senior prom, we got into a huge fight.  I ended up leaving our apartment to get ready at someone else’s house, found a separate ride to our limo meeting spot, and told her not to bother coming to take pictures of my friends and I.  I also didn’t go home that night.

By August 2009, she started showing signs of liver failure.  By December 2009, she had been in and out of the hospital.  In January 2010, we almost lost her.  When it happened again a month later, we did lose her.  She died from liver failure on February 28, 2010.

Her death launched me into adulthood.  I was 20 years old, nearly homeless, and it became clear that I was forced to get myself together.  I matured overnight and became laser focused on what I wanted in my life.

In June 2014, I married the love of my life.  It was one of the greatest days of my life.

Elyse Doerflinger marries Jesus Morales-Grace Jr. in Torrance, California on June 21, 2014.

In July 2017, my beautiful son was born.  He is the light of my life and my greatest joy.  My mom would have loved him.

My sweet, perfect baby boy.

Although I remember the night I lost my mom as if it happened yesterday, I feel like a lifetime has passed since that night.  That night changed my life and that change gave me so many blessings.

Today’s Wordless Wednesday post is this photo of my paternal grandmother, Nancy Jean Rogers.  She looks to be around 4 years old in this picture so it was likely taken around 1928 and likely in Washington state (probably the Seattle or Tacoma area).  I just love this picture of her because her hair is so curly and she just looks so happy and cute.

Nancy Jean Rogers was born on December 13, 1924 in Washington state to George Monroe Rogers and Julia Margaret Morris.  She grew up in the Tacoma area.  She later married Herbert Hoover Dugger and had four kids.  She died after years of dementia on 10 May 2002 in Torrance, Los Angeles, California.

Southern California Genealogical Society’s Annual Jamboree conference is this week!  I am so excited and I absolutely cannot wait to see everyone.  This year’s conference looks amazing and I want to share some of the classes that I plan on attending each day.

Of course, the plan could change as my plans at conferences often do.  I might decide to wander around the exhibit hall or just chat with some people.  This is a conference where I get to connect with old friends and make some new ones.

Here are the classes I plan on watching on Friday:

• The Jones Jinx: Tracing Common Surnames by Dr. Thomas Jones at 2:30 in Pavillion 1.  With all of my Rogers, Franks, and Morris lines – I need this class!  Plus, it is the amazing Tom Jones doing the class – ya really can’t go wrong!
• Methods for Identifying the German Origins of American Immigrants by Michael D. Lacopo at 2:30 in Academy 3.  This one is at the same time as the Jones one so I’m not sure if I will make it…. but with all my German ancestors, I really sure.  Plus, Michael is a great speaker!
• Debunking Misleading Records by Dr. Thomas Jones at 5:30 in Pavillion 2.  I always like to take analysis classes and this definitely falls into the category.

What classes are you planning on taking on Friday?

HistoryGeo.com is a website created by Arphax Publishing Company.  During Jamboree, I was introduced to Greg Boyd, one of the creators of the publishing company.  Greg was kind enough to show me his awesome website, HistoryGeo and the two databases, First Landowners Project and the Antique Maps Collection.  To say I was impressed with what I saw would be an understatement.

So after Jamboree, Greg was kind enough to offer me a free trial subscription so I could show all my lovely readers this awesome resource.  So let’s talk about the two databases.

The First Landowners Project is an interactive map that contains information on over 7 million landowners on 16 of the 23 public land states and Texas.  All of the information is mapped for you and allows you to track the early homesteaders.

This is the homepage of HistoryGeo.  I picked one of my surnames, entered it into the search box, and clicked “Go”.

This is the search page, sorted by state and database (listed in parenthesis).

I clicked on the Indiana search result and was brought to a more detailed search results page broken down by counties.

I clicked on Greene County, Indiana and was brought to a map that shows the townships and ranges, and a alphabetical list of all the land owners in that county.  This means that I can easily click anywhere on the map to see the owner or scroll through the list on the side.

The green number two shows the two results for the two Duggers in that area.  So I decided to click on the two and selected a result.  The result is information about a land record for Thomas Dugger.  It shows all the details related to where the land is located and has links to view this spot in Google Maps, or links to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) source and actual document.

So I decided to go to the source and view it.

How awesome is that?

Aside from what I’ve just shown you, other features include:

• County Browser – This allows you to browse by county and search the landowner indexes this way.  This can be especially helpful if your ancestor’s name was often misspelled and may not show up in the search results.
• My People – The list of people you want to keep track of.
• Markers – Think of these as annotations on the map.
• And more!

Right now, the First Land Owners Project only contains records of original land owners for 17 states.  The states my ancestors would have been original land owners in are not yet listed on the website.  But I love the potential and I see this website as a great resource for those that have ancestors in those states.

Have you tried HistoryGeo?  What do you think?

This week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is all about my 4th great grandfather, Zaccheus Downer and Harriet Thatcher.

Zaccheus/Zacheus is an interesting ancestor for me – mainly because I have been a bit stuck with him.  He isn’t a brick wall necessarily, but I have been unable to find a ton of original documentation on him.  He can be found listed in old genealogy books such as, The Downers of America or The History of the Brigham Family – and both books offer brief information about his birth, marriage, death, and children.  However, none of these books provide sources for the information.

So my hunt for Zaccheus/Zacheus has been mainly through the census records – tracking him every 10 years, from 1830 -1870, and from New York to Ohio to Indiana.  I have been unable to find a marriage record for him to prove his marriage to Harriet Thatcher (according to the censuses though, he is married to a Harriet).  Furthermore, I cannot find a will, obituary, or other death record for him either.  You can read about all my research on Zaccheus/Zacheus Downer at the WikiTree profile I created for him here.

In honor of the United States’ Independence Day tomorrow, I thought it would be appropriate to post a list of my known Revolutionary War ancestors.  So here is my list of ancestors that served in the Revolutionary War:

• Julius Dugger, born about 1760 and married to Mary Hall and living in Tennessee and North Carolina.
• Zaccheus Downer, born in Connecticut in 1755 and married to Bethiah Brigham.

I don’t have a lot of people in my direct line that served in the war but I do have a couple and many more indirect ancestors that served as well.

After watching a webinar on mind mapping given by Thomas MacEntee (of HackGenealogy and Geneabloggers fame) at my local society meeting about two months ago, I have been addicted.

I’ve used mind mapping for years for my school work and as a teacher in my own classroom, but I had never thought of using it for genealogy.  But using it for genealogy makes perfect sense – it is such an easy, visual way of laying out your research for planning, logging, or brainstorming.  You can see holes in your research must easier and you have so much flexibility to make it work for you.

This is why I was so excited to hear from Ron Arons that he has released a new book on using mind mapping in genealogy.  So while at Jamboree, I was very fortunate enough to be given a free copy of Mind Maps for Genealogy: Enhanced Research Planning, Correlation, and Analysis by Ron Arons.  (Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of Mind Maps for Genealogy at Jamboree 2014 in Burbank, CA for the purposes of a review.  As usual, these are my honest opinions on the book).

I was so excited about the book that I actually took some time to browse through it in the hotel at Jamboree.  Once I was home and had fully recovered from the three day genealogy party conference, I sat down and read the book.  I love that this book is an easy read that packs a lot of information into it.  The book is completely full color with screen shots and actual examples of mind maps.  It is also so clearly organized for reviewing specific topics.

I love that Ron has devoted a whole section to mind maps vs other tools for genealogy research – and he includes full screenshots of things like Excel tables, genealogy programs, and timelines.  It then moves into a section devoted to the basics of mind mapping complete with full color pictures.

However, possibly my favorite thing about this whole books is that there are whole sections on the genealogical proof standard, inferential genealogy, and cluster research that is all explained in an easy to understand way and with full color examples from Ron’s own family.

Finally, Ron provides how-to instruction for three different mind mapping services.  He inspired me to go out and try one of those mind mapping services and although I don’t think I’ll switch from my use of Popplet, I do appreciate the step by step instructions for using those three services.

You can order Mind Maps for Genealogy: Enhanced Research Planning, Correlation, and Analysis by Ron Arons (2014) on his website for $26.95.

My third great grandparents are Joseph Frank and Nancy Rice.  Joseph Frank was born around 1823-1824 in France.  Nancy Rice was born in October 1834 in Kentucky to John Rice and Margaret Brite.

I have Joseph and Nancy, together with their children, in the 1860 and 1880 Census in Shawswick, Lawrence County, Indiana.  I have been unable to find the family listed on the 1870 Census.

And honestly, I hadn’t really thought about Joseph serving in the Civil War until I stumbled upon his FindAGrave Memorial.  On his memorial I found a comment by a man named Bill that appears to be an obituary.  This comment/obituary says that Joseph served in the Civil War and even gives the exact company and regiment information: Company A, 67th Regiment, Indiana Infantry.

After doing a quick search on Google, I found “The history of the 67th Regiment Indiana Infantry Volunteers, War of the Rebellion” on Archives.org.  This showed a Joseph Frankle enlisting in Company A, 67th Regiment in Indiana on 19 Aug 1862.  There is nothing under the “remarks” column.

History of the 67th – Joseph Frankle

My next step was to try finding Joseph Frank in the enlistment records somewhere.  However, Fold3 does not have the Indiana enlistment records online – they only have index cards.  But I did find an index card for Joseph Frank – and his name is spelled right!

Joseph Frank – Indiana Service Index Card

My next step was to look for his pension record.  Sure enough, I found his Civil War Pension Index Card.  This time, his name was listed as Joseph Franikh.

Joseph Franikh Civil War Pension Index Card

I noticed that the Civil War Pension Index Card listed a widow’s pension, so I went off looking for that and found one for Joseph’s wife, Nancy.  She is listed as Nancy Franikh.

Nancy Franikh Widows Pension Payment Card (Front)

Nancy Franikh Widows Pension Card (Back)

The pension card reports that Nancy died 4 Jan 1910.  The day and month aligns with the death information I already have, but I have Nancy’s death as occurring in 1909.

Based on this evidence, I’m gonna make a guess and say that yes, Joseph Frank served in the Civil War.  The extent of his service, whether he was injured, and the details of his pension are still unanswered questions and avenues to explore.