Vroom Vroom!

I apologize for my absence. The past few weeks have been very crazy and you will learn more about all the going's on in May. As I prepare to enter my 29th year and head overseas, hectic is a nice way of putting things.

I'm going to try and put up a new blog each night to play catch up. I'm only 3 behind which is better than I thought!

Grandma Leota is the subject of this come back blog!

My Great-Grandmother Isabel died during brain surgery in January 1938. Isabel was Aunt Sarah's & Uncle Rar's daughter. She had a sister named Hannah who married George Mora. After Isabel died Grandpa Henry remarried Leota Mora. Yes, you read that correctly. The family was doubly related by marriage now; however, neither couple ever had children.

Grandma Leota outlived all of them into the 1980's. She was the grandmother my father and his siblings grew up with since Isabel passed before their time.

Although I don't want to give away too much about the Mora family, I'll wet your appetite with this teaser of more to come on them!

The Welsh Connection

I do have Welsh ancestry on various sides of my family but the one of the clearest connections is the Jones/Lewis one.

My 3rd great-grandmother (paternal) was Hannah Lewis (married name Jones) born 13 May 1841 in Llangynllo Wales.  Not much is known about her early life before she came to the US with her husband John.

From John's estate records Hannah did not read or write. She and John settled in Alliance, Ohio and had 10 children, the second of which (Sarah) was my 2nd great-grandmother.

I hope to go into John's estate further later this year but what is clear is that it dragged on for a very long time. The family farm was run into the ground and Sarah's husband (known as Uncle Rar) petitioned the court to sell it off. Hannah then relocated to Cleveland to live near Uncle Rar & her daughter (known as Aunt Sarah). She died in 1926 and is buried in Alliance along with her husband. Her son Thomas is also buried with her.