Ila Johnson started doing genealogy by playing on the floor and listening to her mother talk to her grandparents, aunts and uncles about their lives. As she grew up she went with her mother to look up records pertaining to her family. She loved looking at the family pictures and hearing the stories that went with them. Her mother worked hard on her side of the family but because her father’s family were Germans from Russia, did not think there was much she could do. Ila continued working on her mother’s ancestors through the years as she had her family, went to college, and finally retired. Fifteen years ago when Ila started working on her fathers ancestors. Little did she know what she was going to find. Today she has a very large database of Germans from Russia (over 45,000) and they are all one big family. More records are available for them than her American lines. Ila is currently the VC for Hoffnungstal and its daughter colonies, Eigenfeld, Makarowka, Seeback, Klein Neuhof and Neu Bersina, as well as Berlin/Neu Berlin, Alexanderhilf, Rosenfeld, Teplitz, and Freudental. Main lines are FIECHTNER/FICHTNER, FINK, BERG, HARSCH, BITSCH, BAUER, FREUER, NEUMUELLER, ERFLE, SCHOCK, KRIES, & KIENZLE
After doing her own Family History for over 40 years, four years ago she started teaching at Tarrant County College in the senior program. She currently teaches Beginning Genealogy using Legacy Family Tree, Advance Genealogy using Legacy Family Tree, and On-Line Genealogy at the South Campus and On-Line Genealogy at the South East Campus. She teaches the Genealogy SIG for the Tarrant County Senior User Group, and is the leader of the Tarrant County Legacy User Group.
In her spare time she loves to do scrapbooking, quilting, and spoil her grandchildren.
If you have any suggestions on how we can improve our blog site, please e-mail Ila.
