Author Archives: Diana - Page 5

Civil War

Snowville by Rev. James T. Taylor

by Rev. James T. Taylor (ca 1912) About a hundred years ago , a village called Snowville on Little River, Pulaski County, Va. miles south of Radford, was started. This village was called "The Foundry" at first, with the post office named Humility. In those days there were no postage stamps nor envelopes; the letters were folded up, a small quantity of sealing wax held them together; the money, ten cents, was paid to the…
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DNA

Using DNA matches to confirm distant ancestors

Several years ago I took the DNA test and attached it to my tree there. I have two separate trees - one for my father's side and one for my mom's. My mom also took the test, and I attached it to her tree.  Ancestry then matches our DNA to the thousands of other testers and then shows me how it thinks we are related. They recently rolled out a new visualization tool called "Thrulines"…
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DNA

23 and Me DNA results

I just got my DNA results from 23 and Me. I already took the test, which is usually what I use to connect to cousins since that's where my tree is. But the 23 and Me test looks at the MtDNA which is the direct Maternal line. The test just shows cousins, whereas the MtDNA (or Y-DNA if you're male) is much more accurate since the Y or Mtdna gets passed to son/daughter almost intact…
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FEATURED

From Creede to Eternity – Charles Cochran Moudy O’Reilly

December 7, 2019 A few years ago I started researching the tree of a close friend of mine, Larry Chiri. I figured I’d just fill in a few generations for him and his mom Pat. I also wanted to see what I could find out about Larry’s father Charles, who killed himself when Larry was 3. Pat told me that shortly after Charles died, she learned he wasn’t who he had told her he was…
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Freyhofer

Am I a soldier of the cross

I remember one night while on duty as officer of the guard, tattoo had sounded, I discovered a light in their quarters. The first notes of taps was sounded, I approached silently to discover the reason. I expected to find that the inmates were engaged in a quiet game of "Old Sledge," but as I got near the tent I heard singing in a low subdued tone. I listened, they were singing in German. It…
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