Into the Past: My Road Trip to Scranton

September 23, 2026

From the Archive Closet: A Prayer Card Finds a New Home

Front of the prayer card commemorating Rev. Stephen Blasko's First Mass. It's been a while since I wrote about my ongoing battle with the Archive Closet! A tiny bit of good news: I have found a home for one artifact. I have many religious cards and books that belonged to my mother, grandmother, and great-grandparents. I've written previously about saving some of my grandmother Margaret Simonik Kozlina's prayer cards to Find a Grave and the FamilySearch Family Tree, and about her cathechism booklet . I recently came across a different sort of card that belonged to Grandma. It was written in Slovak and had the name Štefan J. Blaško on it. I translated it using the Deepl translation tool: A prayer to the Lord of the priests: Praise and exalt him forever Dan: 3:84 In Memory of My First Solemn Mass at St. John the Baptist Church in Campbell, Ohio April 28, 1935 Rev. Štefan J. Bla š ko Ordained a priest April 23, 1935 “O Jesus, accept this as a sign of my...

I am participating in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, a writing challenge encouraging genealogy researchers to write about their ancestors. The challenge is hosted by genealogist, blogger and podcaster Amy Johnson Crow.

Here's my post for Amy's Week Eighteen prompt: Road Trip

By Nancy Gilbride Casey

Part preparation, part dumb luck, part generosity of others, part serendipity. These things equal success on a genealogy road trip, in my recent experience. Scranton and Wayne County, Pennsylvania were my road trip destinations in March 2019—the places my Gilbride ancestors first called home in the United States.

Facebook was the perfect medium to share my discoveries while on the road in Pennsylvania, and I reported back each night to my family and friends in a series of posts I'll share here. They create a neat road trip timeline, while capturing the thrill of the find, somber closure, and other emotions which may only come by actually walking where our ancestors trod.