Play ball!

Attending my first baseball game of the season (a loss, alas...) put me in the mood to dig out some more old pictures. These show my grandfather's college baseball team at Eureka (Illinois) College, around 1905-7. Grandfather is in the middle row, second from the right.

Here's another of him in his catcher's outfit:


According to family stories, he played semi-pro ball after college to pick up a little extra income in supplement to his minister's salary.

'Cabinet Card' photographs

I'd heard this expression, but didn't know what it meant. Finally googled it and found a helpful article: cabinet cards on Ancestorville.com.
Grandmother's portrait (my profile picture) is a "Victorian cabinet card." It's the only surviving picture of her as a child, and the one of her parents, taken at the same time, is the only remaining picture of them. All I can say is Thank Goodness for these sturdy cards that have withstood 125 years!

My great-grandparents:

Click on "Family Portraits, circa 1886" for Grandmother's description of the Muir's very cold trip to the photographer.

Welcome, Readers!

Welcome to my new blog!

My foray into the world of genealogy began with a project to organize my paternal grandmother's writings, mostly about her childhood growing up in rural Illinois in the late 1800's. (That's a picture of her I'm using for my profile -- more about that in a later post.) Through her memoirs, I was introduced to many relatives I never knew existed. Along with knowledge of these folks came a number of questions: where did they come from? what happened to them? what's the rest of the story?

I'll be posting some of grandmother's writings and my experiences deciphering them and following her clues; I'll also blog more generally about what it is like to get started in family research. As time goes on, I'll probably blog about the specific family lines and locations I'm pursuing. Please stop by frequently or subscribe to my blog. Thanks for visiting,

Connie