Two New 2018 Publications

Not everyone gets to be named Alissomon. She was the sister of my wife's 3-great grandfather Henry Mozley; their families emigrated together from Nottinghamshire, England, to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1833. The Mozleys eventually spread out from Erie in many directions; Alissomon married shoemaker Joseph Harrison and their offspring stayed closer to the Great Lakes. 

My article follows them downstream in the current OGS quarterly. Ohio will have its annual conference later this week in Columbus -- it's not too late!

Working downstream in time has its benefits. Because I was also researching the more populous Mozley side, I discovered a letter from a Mozley relative briefly describing her visit to three Harrison cousins in Cleveland around 1910.

New York and Ohio members can read the new issues of their respective quarterlies on line, and not have to wait for the mail.

(Soon to come: revealing the life of a practiced deceiver.)

“Alissomon Mozley Harrison and Her Descendants in Erie and Cleveland,” Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly 58(1), 2018:49-61.

Review of  American Settlements and Migrations: A Primer for Genealogists and Family Historians by Lloyd Bockstruck, New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 14(2), April 2018: 156-57.

Where to arrange to have your ancestors buried

One of my 32 great-great-great grandparents (my mother's father's father's mother's father, ~1771-1822) turns out to have been buried in Mound View Cemetery, which overlooks the town of Mount Vernon, county seat of Knox County, Ohio. I recommend that you arrange to have yours buried there too, if possible. Let me count the ways:

* Twenty-five years ago the local chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society completed readings of all the county cemeteries, including checks against the burial records (which picked up one of my relatives, the last of her line -- evidently nobody was left to add her name to the stone).

* The resulting two-volume cemetery compilation includes maps at two (sometimes three) different scales including lot numbers and owners' names.

* The cemetery roads themselves have the section numbers painted on them, so it is possible to find a given grave marker without hiking for miles.

Another excellent place to be buried, for similar reasons, is Erie, Pennsylvania. What's your favorite?