Welcome!

Welcome to my Blog! 

  This is where I grew up; beautiful Nevada City California.  More specifically, Banner Mountain (the mountain top in the upper right hand corner). Just looking at this picture of Broad Street brings back  many memories. How did my family come to be here in this unique place? 

  My genealogy journey really began when I was in grade school. I was deeply interested in history. I loved learning all about California history in 4th grade, and especially our local history of gold mining in the 1800's. I was always imagining myself living here way back when in the hustle and bustle of a new mining town. It helped that I had a best friend living at the top of Broad Street in a real Victorian house. It was certainly easier to gain a sense of time and place when you were walking around in the real thing.  
  Fast forward 40+ years and an Ancestry.com gift certificate later.  I found stories of relatives who actually walked these streets and worked as miners in a growing community. Talk about roots. Talk about having a sense of belonging to a place!

  5th grade was all about US History and westward expansion. I loved every minute of learning about pioneers coming across the prairie and settling in the west. For a history project I wrote a pretend diary of a girl coming west in a wagon train, and of all the hardships she and her family endured until they finally made it to California. I remember making the cover of my diary "authentic" by using  a grocery bag that I crumpled up and "aged".  I even wrote the diary using a real fountain pen. Boy was I a history geek. But, through my research and discoveries, I have found several families whose stories mirror what I wrote in my "diary". Families who ended up in California as well as Oregon. Families who eventually ended up in Gold Country.  My ancestors. 

Going back even further, I found that my ancestors seemed to be always moving...moving across the ocean, moving across a continent, moving across states, moving across town.  Each place they lived was more than just a pin drop on a map.  Where they lived and how they lived demonstrated a sense of place: A geographical place, a place in history, a place in a community, a spiritual place, and a place of belonging within a family. 

This blog is an attempt to document those journeys and honor the work begun by my Auntie Claire to research and archive our family history. This is dedicated to her, as well as my family and my children and grandchild. 

Each ancestor's  journey has culminated in our unique sense of place.