Into the Past: My Road Trip to Scranton

July 01, 2026

Mom's Turn on Stage: The Cleveland Folk Festival

Mom is third from right in this newspaper clipping. In a stroke of serendipity following last week's post on my Grandpa's involvement in Cleveland's Theater of Nations, I ran across an email I had sent in an attempt to identify the newspaper and date for the clipping above. 1 My mother, Anna Kozlina Gilbride (1937-2010), is pictured third from the right, seated on the floor. Since I was fortunate to learn the background surrounding Grandpa's role in The Colleen Bawn , I thought I'd check the newspaper websites again to try to find this clipping and finally date it. And I did find it, in the 5 February 1952 edition of The Cleveland Press ; Mom was 14 years old in this photo, lots younger than I had imagined! 2 The caption states that Mom was performing as part of the Croatian Slavulj Society. Slavulj—Croatian for "the Nightingales"—was founded by Joseph Gregorincich and operated from 1937 to about 1951. The group began as a singing and drama club and later ...

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.