MERRY CHRISTMAS

This Nativity Set was owned by my grandmother Gertrude O'Rourke.   My father remembered it from when he was a child.   It was said it was from OBERAMMERGAU Germany.   The set is made of paper mache.  At one time there were angels, cows,sheep and a donkey, they are long since gone.   I have never seen a set to match for sale, or even on display.

DECEMBER 24

DECEMBER 23

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

 

Newly found photo of my great grandparents Patrick and Ellen [Mortel] O’Rourke. 

SLOWLY BUT SURELY I AM ADDING BLOGS

After losing my blog list I have been adding them one by one.  It is a long and arduous process, there is probably a faster way but I haven't come across it yet.

I have been spending a long time on Ancestry and adding ancient information.   Barbara Sperl was a sister to Anton Sperl (great grandfather of my husband) and I had found some information on that couple and lot of information on the family.

There were four siblings who came to American.  Leonard Pschirer, who married Barbara and they had about eleven children.   There was also a brother John, Frank and sister Katherine and I have been adding their spouses and even their children.  Among the four of them  they had thirty seven children, give or take a few that I may have missed or did not find.

They have many descendants and most of them did not have the four siblings parents names, at least not cited.  I have been adding the spouses of the above and citing my information; now I am on to the children of the thirty seven.   For the most part they all stayed in the same community and although a few strayed they did not move far away.

This gives me a lot of research to do, I will be busy for a while.   The interesting thing is that I found that a niece  (Theresa A Rauscher) of Leonard and Barbara Sperl Pschirer had married Wentzel Pschirer who was a son of  Frank.   I am finding it confusing still.   Theresa A's father was Johann Rauscher, now I suspect he was the brother of Frank Rauscher.    All the repeating names and relationships are confusing.

I REALLY WENT AND DID IT THIS TIME..../

I was trying to update and add to my blog list when the really unfortunate thing happened.   Somehow, and I even tried Control + Z, I managed to delete my Blog List icon on my page.   How did this happen and where did they go?  

I suppose I need to go thru the posts one by one and recopy the URL's and see what I can do.  There is a list on my profile page that lists the blogs I follow and I suppose I have to see if there are still there, I suspect they might be, but who knows for sure.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time working on the genealogy of my husbands side of the family.   I  was working at the Archives on Thursday and came up some entries for Theresa Rauscher and Franz Schmidt.  It was an entry for her marriage and the priest, being the good German that he was , it listed both the bride and grooms parents.

Theresa's parents were the same names as his Great Grandmother, Katherine Rauscher.   I had long suspected they were sisters for a few years and now I had the proof.

I found a few more family entries and had a lot of enter.   The husband often said that everyone was related to everyone else in Millvale, PA.   I found out he was quite right, he also said you could not get away with anything because someone always would call your parents.   I love it, only in small town America in the 1950's would that happen .

ON HIATUS OF SORTS.

I have not posted in a while, that is because I have not been doing much research.  I seem to have taken a hiatus.   Perhaps it is the busy time of the year for all other things other than research.

I still have to go to Huntingdon County Court House to look for will, deed and what ever else one would find there.   It is a trip out and back but with the shorter days and wintery days it is not so easy planning a trip.  I would get there and before I know it it will be time to leave to start for home.

Perhaps after March will be a better time to plan a research trip, especially a driving one.