Reflecting On My Travels!

It has been a busy year.  I have traveled to Massachusetts and Connecticut in search of Goss history and just recently finished the trip to Ohio again in search of more Goss history.  I am very pleased that my trips have been of great help to others and I hope that it will open doors to their research. I have made several friends and contacts along the way and I am grateful for their help and their willingness to share that knowledge. 

My trip binders for Ohio are organized and I can now get the research sourced.  I had accumulated too much and had to make two binders for this trip.  As I work my way through it will be consolidated.

Ohio Trip Binders

I enjoyed both my adventures and really like Massachusetts.  I also like Connecticut but find some aspects of it a bit odd like their genealogical rules about accessing records.  I like being able to get someplace quickly and these two states qualify.  I found Ohio very different from my concept of that state.  It was pretty and reminded me of home.  It was not as industrial as I had expected but then I was not really in the bigger towns except Columbus and only brushing by Cleveland and Akron.  

The goal of this blog is to discuss the genealogy of Solomon Goss and his ancestors in the Goss family and the allied families that my line connects to such as Spracklin, Delano, Keller, Barclay and more.  It is now time to turn to a more involved and detail study of these families which covers what I do know, what I have learned from my travels and what I still don’t know!  I have more cemetery photographs to share from both trips and will be getting to that soon. 

Come join me!  There are several ways to contribute.  You can subscribe to this blog and receive copies of the newly published posts, leave a comment, and click the “like” for this post. If you have a great deal of information to share I am open to having you being a contributing author.  You can also contact me is through the Compiler page at the top of this blog.  

If you would like to visit other blogs of mine check out the right side of this blog and the “Blogs I Like” section.  There is method to the madness of several blogs and there will be some cross posting and references to my other blogs.  The Goss connect to the Spracklins and the Spracklins connect to the Kellers which leads to the Delanos.  The Spracklins also connect to the Barclays and the Barclay’s connect to the McDonald/MacDonalds. 

The header photograph is of the Ohio River in Marietta and every time I look at it my heart jumps with joy or I pause and marvel that I finally visited that area of Ohio. 

As an end to my trip to Ohio but the beginning of more posts to follow, I leave you with a few more visions of Ohio!

The Ohio River at Marietta

 

 

 

The Muskingum River

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Previous Travels: In Search of Family History!

Traveling to a family history location is very important to me.   So, I have made a big effort to go to as many family history locations as I can manage! 

In April 2011, I traveled to Massachusetts and Connecticut to go in search of Goss and Barclay ancestors.  I described my experiences on that trip in the blog:  Massachusetts Meanderings and More!!  I visited cities like Brookfield, Lancaster, Becket, Granville and more.   I studied the graves at several cemeteries like the Old Indian Cemetery in Brookfield where Capt. Philip Goss and Judith (Hayward) Goss are buried.  They are Solomon’s great great grandparents. 

Old Indian Cemetery, West Brookfield, MA 2011

Going further back to 2008,  I traveled to Pennsylvania and shared that experience in the blog:  Pennsylvania Wanderings…!   That blog was about my trip to the Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County area where Philip Goss and Mary (Kendall) Goss settled.  That blog is a bit old and some links are broken but rather than fix those links I left them alone.  The blog still has good information such as pictures of the towns, historical sites and cemeteries that are part of the Goss history. 

Forty Fort - Nothing is left of the old fort

The recent trip to Massachusetts is where the Goss family came from in Massachusetts, and the Pennsylvania trip was where my line of the Goss family went to.   One day I will return to Boston and head west and see if I cannot dig further into the family history.  

There are many more trips taken to search for family history that I did not blog about. 

In June of 2003 I traveled with my husband to Plymouth, Massachusetts and visited the Mayflower Society Museum and Library and  I spent four lovely days researching sources in the  Library behind the big house.  I even managed the research although I had a cold.  During this same trip, we traveled to Boston so my husband could attend a conference there.  I took the opportunity to visit the New England Historic and Genealogical Library and the Boston Public Library where I found more sources and information. 

The Mayflower Society House, Plymouth, MA

I have traveled on three separate occasions to the DAR Library in Washington D.C.  The first in 2000, the second in 2008 and recently in 2011.  I shared the 2011 experience in the Massachusetts blog and a little of my experience in 2008 in the Pennsylvania blog.   I spent a great deal of time searching sources when I was at this library. 

D.A.R. 2008

There have been several trips to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City where there are many sources to study and discover.  I have been there in the hot summer and during a snow storm.  The Family History Library is going through a major change and within the next 10 years they should have digitized their collection.  A lot of sources are being posted online that can be accessed from home while others are only accessed there at the library. 

In August of 2007, the Federation of Genealogical Society and APG were having a conference in Fort Wayne.  I knew I had to go and visit the Allen County Library.  They had just opened up the brand new library.  The curious creature that I am, I realized that Ohio was only two hours to the east with Michigan about the same.  I did not blog that trip but I will share some highlights in this blog.  This trip was in search of Spracklin, Goss, Delano and Keller family history. 

The header photo of this blog is the Lee Cemetery in Hardin County, Ohio where Peter and Elizabeth “Betty” (Andrews) Spracklin and some of their children rest.

All the repositories that I have mentioned are excellent facilities to do research on the Goss family and more.  I have had some great discoveries and some disappointments but I am glad I had these opportunities.  I have been blessed to have the chance to travel a great deal in search of my family history!

I am not done yet, I am off to Ohio for the second time in August 2011.  I will share some of my experiences in this blog.

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