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Celebrating 20 Years of Discovering My Family History

Researching my family tree is an all consuming hobby. Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day to devote to genealogy when there is also work, family and friends, obligations, and all the good and bad that goes with living life. I first embarked on this journey 20 years ago, when my mother and I bought a PC and connected to the Internet for the first time. Anyone remember dial up? I used to come home from my long commute, start dialing up to CompuServe, have dinner, and wait to connect to the Internet. It usually took 30 minutes. Fast forward to now, when I lose patience if I get disconnected for a few seconds...

Solved! Mystery World War I Soldier Identified

In 2016, I inherited some of my grandmother's personal papers. This included some postcards from the early 20th century to her paternal grandparents, Frank and Mary Ellen (Ingersoll) Bryant of Los Angeles. They were originally from Bloomington, Illinois. The earliest postcard in the collection was from a soldier, Warren Allen, sent from Paris, France in about 1918. When I originally shared this on my blog, I did not know how Mr. Allen was related to the family. There was also a 1930 postcard from Alice Allen of South Bend, Indiana addressed to "Dear Cousins": 24 November 1930 Postcard from Alice Allen to Mrs. R. F. Bryant from family collection. It turns out that Mary Ellen had a first cousin, Alice Louella Ingersoll, who married William E. Allen in Bloomington on 24 September 1890. They had at least three sons, Howard, Warren, and Herbert, born in the 1890s. Twenty-four year-old Warren William Allen (1893-1970), was working as a bookkeeper and residing in ...

Mystery Mail from World War I Soldier

Mystery Mail from World War I Soldier The above postcard or carte postale is the oldest item in my grandmother's postcard collection. A W. W. Allen sent the card via soldier mail from Paris, France, to Mrs. Frank Bryant of Los Angeles, California. The front depicts an early 20th century street scene at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The message says, "Paris 4/13 [April 13th] - I'm having a short vacation and a wonderful time. W. Allen." Mrs. Bryant (nee Mary Ellen Ingersoll, 1862-1936), originally from Bloomington, Illinois, relocated to Los Angeles with her family in the early 1910s. She was my grandmother's grandmother. Mr. Allen is not a known relative. So who could he be? Perhaps he was a neighbor or a family friend. There could be another connection. There is a later postcard postmarked November 25, 1930, from Alice Allen of South Bend, Indiana, to Mrs. Bryant which starts wit...

Kin and Konnections: A Family History Blog

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