Member Blogs

Its time to return to writing in a new blog with a new focus. And appropriately we begin on Memorial Day, when we honor those who served and continue to serve when our nation called. This will be my first Memorial Day without this handsome young guy in this photo. He's my Dad. We lost him last year in October after a long illness. Ray was 86 years old.

In April 1945 Dad turned 18. Hitler's Germany was about to fall and FDR had only days to live. Dad's father, my Grandpa Tony, sat his son down and

Sunday May 18, 2014 was the first public screening of my documentary, “Martin Elkort: An American Mirror” at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It showed to a crowd of about 200 people, which is an terrific turn out for an early Sunday evening, on a graduation weekend.

Anne Wilkes Tucker, The Gus and Lyndal Wortham Curator of Photography, gave a wonderful opening speech where she helped the audience to create a context of what it was like to be a photographer during that time period and how Martin

Military records are free Memorial Day weekend on MyHeritage, just visit: http://pages.myheritage.com/memorialday/

My Dad was born in Waterloo, Iowa 19 May 1913.  l believe Grandma said it was morning time.  

Births back then were normally at home with help from family.

He moved all over from the time he was small until 1948.

As his feet gathered moss, he also gained more siblings and more places to have been.

One Grandmother lived in Washburn, Iowa,  Blackhawk County. His fathers' in Chickasaw Co. north of there.

He lived in Waterloo for a period of time when his Dad shared store ownership with his brother. I do

Unfortunately my days are too busy and I've not been able to keep up with this every day.  So I'm switching to weekly posts.

Here's a photo of what looks to be a group wedding taken in Perth Amboy, NJ.  My great-grandparents John Peto and Ester (Stella) Liska/Lisko were married there in 1905 but they are not in this group picture.

For Immediate Release
May 14, 2014

FGS Hosts 2015 Alaskan Cruise, 2015 New York Regional Conference, and Celebrates Its 40^th Anniversary in Springfield, Illinois in 2016

May 14, 2014 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) is excited to announce its upcoming events lineup, which includes a 2015 FGS Alaskan Cruise, August 28^th - September 4th; a 2015 New York Regional Conference in Syracuse in conjunction with the New York State Family History Conference, September 17th-19th; a

Back in Oct. I started the "clean up" in Prep. for L#8, but due to extended  illness was only now able to complete the c chore.  Went to run an updated list but got back my Original.  The changes do show up on the families involved tho..  What did I do wrong??  Tnx for any help.

I have discovered an awful lot of Pummells in the USA, but so far they do not appear to be connected to my family. If there are any of you out there who can trace back to 1800's in Hampstead Norris (Norreys) in Berkshire, England, you could be mine! Please get back to  me. I have managed to go back to 1700, so far, by the way!

NGS honored excellence in the categories of genealogy and family history newsletter editorship and service to the Society with the presentation of several awards at the Opening Session of the NGS 2014 Family History Conference in Richmond, Virginia, on 7 May 2014. The Opening Session keynote speaker was Dr. Sandra G. Treadway, Librarian of Virginia and State Archivist at the Library of Virginia in Richmond, who spoke on the topic “The Evolving Library: Planning and Adapting to Meet the Needs of

These appear to be group wedding pictures.  They all come from Perth Amboy, NJ which is where my great-grandparents Janos (John) Peto and Ester Stella Liska were married in 1905, but we have no idea who these people are.

• More than 9,000 reformatory school records reveal criminal behaviour of kids as young as five
• Collection includes information on each crime, newspaper clippings and ‘mugshot’ photographs
• Records also detail nearly 400,000 adult convicts, with offences ranging from petty theft to cold-blooded murder

This is one of many pictures of unknown relatives we found at my grandmother's house.  This was taken in McKeesport, PA.

Grable%20Side%20Surname%20Cloud.pdf

Documents Spanning Over 300 Years Give Insight to the Presence and Influence of Quakers in American History

PROVO, UT--(Marketwired - Apr 28, 2014) - Ancestry.com today released 11.5 million new records documenting one of the most prominent groups in American history, the "Religious Society of Friends," more commonly known as Quakers. Spanning over 300 years (late 1600s - late 1900s), the collection includes birth, marriage, death, disownment, and memorial records, sourced from the Quaker's month

Historical Big Data helps users worldwide make breakthrough family history discoveries 

TEL AVIV, Israel & LEHI, Utah – April 28, 2014: MyHeritage, the popular family history network, today announced that its searchable collection of historical records has passed the 5 billion milestone. The vast digital collection, containing record archives from dozens of countries and user-generated family trees from every corner of the globe, is one of the world’s fastest growing and most internationally dive