ClimbingMyTree2.com

 On February 22, 1845, twin daughters, Orilla and Rosilla, were born to Abel Mattoon and Sarah Lewis Mattoon in LaGrange County, Indiana. Abel was farming there, possibly with his father Philip, and brothers. Philip died in 1846, and the following March most of his nine adult children left LaGrange County to travel to Oregon.  Abel and Sarah traveled with five children: John Prentiss age 14, Malinda age 8, Oliver Perry age 6, William Henry age 4, and the two-year-old twins, Orilla and Rosilla. Probably John Prentiss helped his father drive the ox teams pulling their wagons and Malinda helped her mother with the younger children.  The family arrived in Oregon City in October. Abel received a land claim by 1849, in an area that came to be known as Hardens Precinct of Clackamas County. His brothers and sisters and their families settled nearby. Probably Orilla and Rosilla had plenty of opportunities to visit with aunts, uncles, and cousins. In 1860, Orilla was enumerated in ...

                                   I spent the fourth week of January 2024 at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy virtual institute as the "Hive Minder" for Exploring Their Life/The Social History of Your Family. The week-long   course was coordinated by Gena Philibert-Ortega,, who presented many of the sessions, but there were other speakers as well. In the past, I have attended SLIG Institutes as a student. Acting as "Hive Minder" gives the course a different perspective. I was responsible for opening the room each morning, and reopening  it after each break, admitting participants, starting and stopping the recording of the sessions (the most stressful responsibility for me), making speakers co-hosts enabling them to share their screens, taking attendance, and making announcements. I quickly learned who would be late for each session and who used a name different from that on my roste...

I vividly remember sitting across the desk from a bank officer with my Mother-in-law, Velma Thomas Mattoon as she opened a new bank account.   When the officer asked her birthplace she confidently replied, "Maysville, Kentucky".  As far as I knew, she knew what she was talking about.  When I began constructing my family tree on Ancestry.com I entered her birthplace as Maysville, Kentucky.  Later I had an opportunity to talk with her cousin, Bill Thomas, who had known Velma all her life.  He was also the only family member doing genealogy at that time.  When I mentioned that she was born in Maysville, Kentucky, he just snorted and said, "Oh no she wasn't"!  "She was born in Weiser, Idaho, or maybe Fruita, Colorado".  By that time I knew enough to verify facts, rather than just accepting something I was told or found on an Ancestry family tree.  I started with FamilySearch.com and sure enough I soon located the record of an unnamed...

In May 2017, my daughter-in-law, Michele Norton Mattoon, and I added a research trip to our attendance at the National Genealogical Society Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. Saturday, May 6,   we visited the library of the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort.  When we drove into town, we were startled by the large security presence on every street corner.   What could be going on?   Was there some kind  1 of national emergency? We didn’t know that Derby Day is a holiday in Kentucky, and we learned later   that the Governor of Kentucky throws a party for the citizens on Derby Day.   Being a Kentucky holiday, admission to the Historical Society Museum and Library were free.   We had not yet learned much about setting research goals, but I had a list of my Kentucky ancestors and we started looking for information about any of them.   Beginners luck! Michele found a microfilm document signed by   Annice Van Hook Jones, ...

  PIONEER CHALLENGES My Great Grandmother, Olea Larsen, overcame challenges in her life that I cannot even begin to imagine myself doing. The first one that I know of was giving birth in steerage on the Brig Atalanta on 19 July 1865. Andrew A.P. Larsen, his wife Olea (Ollie on the Passenger List), and their children Albertine, age 4, and Carl Rudolph, age 11 months, set sail from Christiania (now Oslo), Norway on 7 May 1865 with 114 other adults and 46 other children. 1 Caroline Emelia Larsen was born "at sea" on 19 July. The ship arrived in Québec, Que. on 25 July with now 49 children. Caroline was not listed on the Passenger List, so perhaps other children were born on that voyage as well. It was not unusual for women to give birth on the emigrant ships. Most emigrants sailed in "steerage", between decks. A passenger on the Atalanta in 1871` told...

The name Jerusha is first mentioned in 2 Kings 15:33 In the Old Testament.   Translated from the ancient Hebrew it means “possession” or “possessed”.   Jerusha was the wife of Uzziah and the mother of King Jotham of Judah. [1] I admit that I skimmed over that name in reading the Bible, but I took notice when I encountered the name in several generations of my husband’s family tree. The first instance I have documented is Jerusha Ann Dening (or Dining) born abt. 1807 in Ireland or England.   She married George Hicinbothem sometime before 1836.   Their daughter Martha was born in 1839.   Martha married John Prentiss Mattoon, a neighbor in Clackamas County, Oregon, in 1858 [2] , and their daughter Anna Jerusha Mattoon was born in 1859. Did Martha know her grandmother? Anna Jerusha Mattoon was educated in Portland, Oregon and returned to Yakima, Washington to teach school and music lessons, and serv...