St. Louis, MO to Chester, IL On my last post, Double First Cousins, I introduced you to Dale. A few years ago he passed along three letters that were written by a common grandmother and grandfather from June of 1923. These three letters are a perfect snapshot of the life and times of the era. The letters showcase the importance…
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My father M. Neil is a double first cousin to his double first cousin Dale! Does that confuse you? Essentially it means that they are each others first cousin twice! They share grandparents on both sides of the family tree. They are double related! Their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters who just so happened to marry within…
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From St. Louis in 7 Days Day 1: We left St. Louis, MO and decided to drive straight through to our hotel near Washington DC. During our drive we stopped for a quick visit at George Washington’s Fort Necessity National Battlefield. This well planned bathroom break was the perfect excuse to take a quick walk into 1754 history. Fort Necessity…
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As I was piecing together the lives of my paternal Great Great Grandparents Ameda and Lillian (Gau) Gamache I began to focus on Ameda. I started to go through his census records and learned that in his early 20’s he was a carpenter, just like his father. By the next census he was a self defined tinner and working in…
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Soon after I started researching my genealogy a Pioneer Cemetery in rural Missouri was discovered on my paternal line. The beginning of this adventure was blogged about here and here. Now that I found this cemetery, which is filled with my Blackwell family ancestors, I was determined to clean it up. Most tombstones were leaning, broken, buried or disintegrated in…
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