From day one, I was told that my ancestor, Martin Kelly, owned a boardinghouse, maybe two. Family lore was that he and his wife made a living renting rooms to people coming up to the city of San Francisco. They owned a “mile” house which marked how many miles the traveler had to go to…
Category: Land and Property Research
Three Houses on E. 25th Street: The Foundation of Our Oakland Migration
Three houses side by side on E. 25th Street in Oakland, California are important to my family history. These three houses were where it all began. It’s where the cousins from Hawaii first lived. It sparked a long line of relatives moving to this very street for over 60 years. The First Migration From the…
52 Ancestors Week 25: Finding the Jackson House
This weeks theme for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is the Old Homestead. I’ve only seen one of my ancestral homes in person. I really wanted to locate the house my grandmother, Anna (Jackson) Shellabarger grew up in Oakland, California. I used Google Maps and the Oakland Interactive Planning database to fulfill my mission. My…
52 Ancestors Week 17: Charles Mazeres and His Laundries
It’s week 17 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. This week the theme is prosperous. I’m going to write about my great grandfather, Charles Mazeres dit Salanave. Born in 1868, Charles Mazeres’ was the son of, Jean Mazeres dit Salanave and Marie Anne Lacrouts. They were farmers. Their home in Ogeu les bains,…
Why Wasn’t Martin Kelly Living in His Boardinghouses in the 1870s?
Yesterday, I wrote a post for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks concerning my 3rd great grandfather, Martin Kelly. As with all things genealogy, I started writing about an attempted murder and I ending up thinking about boardinghouses. Specifically, the boardinghouses Martin Kelly owned. In the San Francisco Chronicle article about the shooting, it stated…