LJ Suffers from O.G.D. Obsessive Genealogy Disorder.
I love history. I'm retired now and currently residing in the Pittsburgh Area. I am looking up my family lines. They are Russell(Rusnak) and Johnson on my father's side. And Cypher and Coughlin on my mother's side. Pittsburgh seems to be apropos for me as as it appears from my research I'm a Heinz 57.
My main interest is in the Tri-State Area comprising Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and the West Virginia Panhandle. A little bit of Maryland, most around Baltimore, as well. It appears that once my ancestors got to America, whenever they found a spot they liked, they stayed.
My family, both direct and through marriage, were some of the first to come to Western Pennsylvania in the late 1700's. One of the first schools in Butler Co., PA , was on my G-G-G-G-Grandfather's farm.[1] And while I have not found any verified information to prove so, knowing my family's penchant for spirits, they probably were involved in the Whiskey Rebellion too. LOL
My heritage is the British Isles and Ireland, as well as Germany and France (Hesse and Alsace-Lorraine respectively) and Eastern Europe around Carpathia. And a touch of Dutch in there for good measure.
Have been doing a lot of research on Ancestry and will load data from there when I feel it is good enough to go "into the wild". I have around 18,000 names spread across various Family Trees on Ancestry. I include In-Laws and their family in my trees. Odd how those names always seem to pop up along some other branch. Sadly, I have hit the Watch List Name Limit and have had to Orphan many Profiles who were distantly related by marriage.
My Surnames
Legend:
Surname (alternate spellings) : First Person with surname in tree → EKA - Earliest Known Ancestor
( # ) = number of generations from Primary person to EKA
𐂷 = pedigree chart of First Person / ⇟ = descendant list of EKA
Coughlin : Rose, b. 1901, New Castle, Lawrence, Pennsylvania, United States 𐂷 → Cornelius Coughlin, b. 1810, Ireland ⇟ (6)
Cypher : Marilyn, b. 1932, New Castle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, United States 𐂷 → Matthias Cypher, b. 1760, Rom, Daun, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany ⇟ (7)
Duffy : Sarah, b. 1832, Butler County, Pennsylvania 𐂷⇟ (5)
Dzurko : Mária, b. 1850, Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchiemap 𐂷⇟ (5)
Fickley : Margaret, b. 1881, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States 𐂷 → Michael Fickley, b. 1815, Uttwiller, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France ⇟ (6)
Galbraith : Farlena, b. 1850, Clarion, Pennsylvania, United States 𐂷 → James Galbraith, b. 1823, Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, United States ⇟ (6)
Richards : Elizabeth, b. 1882, Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom 𐂷 → Samuel Richards, b. 1821, Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales ⇟ (6)
Richey : Aliza, b. 1820, Pennsylvania, United States 𐂷⇟ (6)
Russell (Rusnak) : Andrew, b. 1929, New Castle, Lawrence, Pennsylvania, United States 𐂷 → Michael Rusnak, b. 1864, Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie ⇟ (4)
Salak : Zsuzsanna, b. 1874, Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie 𐂷 → Pál Salak, b. 1850, Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie ⇟ (5)
Smith : Elizabeth, b. 1868, Ironton, Lawrence, Ohio, USA 𐂷 → Mathew Smith, b. 1836, Ireland ⇟ (5)
Thomas : Ann, b. 1837, Llanelly, Carmarthenshire, Wales, United Kingdom 𐂷⇟ (6)
Williams : Mary, b. 1864, Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom 𐂷 → Thomas Williams, b. 1825, Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom ⇟ (6)
Last Update 23 Apr 2024
WikiTree Projects
Cemetery Project
I joined the Pennsylvania Cemetery Project. I find the addition of cemetery categories to your Profiles quite enlightening. It can be interesting how many different branches of your Tree may be interred in the same cemetery never knowing the other was possibly related, albeit distantly, or even existed.
Personal Projects
Updating My Older Profiles
As many of us found out when first joining WikiTree, there is a slight Learning Curve. :) So I have decided to go through all of the Profiles on my Watch list and update them to a format i have finally decided I like. This also includes updating all Ancestry com related Sources to Family Search Sources when and where available. As other interests on WikiTree, listed below, now consume some of my time, I do not devote my full time to this activity and figure it should only take me about a year from the time of this writing.
Update Apr 2023. Well, it's been more than a 3 years and I am still only about half done with updating my older Profiles. The more I research to update these Profiles, the more names I find to add to WikiTree. It's a Never Ending Story...minus Falkor unfortunately. I am presently devoting all of my time to this project.
Military Service
I make it a point to ensure all data I can find on an individual I am adding to WikiTree has their Military Service listed and the corresponding categories added. Every recognition of this service is a thank you to them I believe.
Creating Source Space Pages
One of my newer interests is adding Source Space Pages of Reference Materials available on the Internet that are free to use and will be listed on WikiTree. These new pages will be added to the Source Category Page which I believe is a vastly underutilized resource on WikiTree. The Source Category Page lists many references members of WikiTree have found and added for use by the general membership. Why Google when it could be here.
If you're like me, finding Help Pages or information on some of the extra additions we can apply to our profiles can be a lesson in futility. So I decided to create my own Hint and Tricks Pages:
A Cheat Sheet for my favorite or some of the most used Categories, Template, Stickers,etc. * The Data Doctors Project has created this page Profile Help See that as well.
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DNA Connections
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It is likely that these
autosomal DNA
test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with LJ:
This week's connection theme is Christmas Albums.
LJ is
19 degrees from Donald Osmond, 25 degrees from Paul Anka, 21 degrees from Irving Berlin, 22 degrees from Karen Carpenter, 20 degrees from Nat King Cole, 22 degrees from Perry Como, 19 degrees from Burl Ives, 23 degrees from Eartha Kitt, 28 degrees from Kylie Minogue, 19 degrees from Willie Nelson, 24 degrees from Olivia Newton-John and 21 degrees from Dolly Parton
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