My Trails into the Past

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings , is to:   1)  Learning about how to pursue genealogy and family history is a lifetime task.  Once you've mastered one record type (census, church, certificates, probate, directories, immigration, etc), or one skill (family tree software program, record transcription, source citations, DNA matches, AI prompting, etc.), a new record or skill presents itself.  With the constant advances in technology and knowledge, doing genealogy and family history well requires constant learning of something new.  2)  This week's challenge is to tell us a new genealogy-related skill that you have, or are working on, developing.  Tell us about your progress.  Are you having fun? Here’s mine: I have not been good at keeping an accurate track of my searches since moving to working ...

My outside activities this week included doing phenology, visiting the history center, and attending a family reunion. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: At the historical society, I worked on the accessions, entering them into the log. I added the donated books to the library database and shelved them in the library. An archivist from the CHP came in and we discussed how we accession donations and then enter them into Past Perfect. Jim had some items from our collection to show him. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I met for a little bit before leaving for a webinar. Our accountability group didn’t meet as everyone else was busy.   Genealogy Writing/Research : Next week’s 52 Ancestors is written and scheduled. I spent time writing about George Wilson Lancaster’s federal land and researching the Selman family.  My SNGF post was about locating a probate record naming heirs. I am familiar with the first 6 people named in the document. They are my Selman family, ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our mission tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:   1) Have you been down a genealogy rabbit hole lately?  What was it, and what did you find?  [If not, go find a rabbit hole! Try your FamilySearch Notifications or Ancestry.com Photos or Stories.] Here's mine: I am going down a rabbit hole right now. I have been working on my Selman line, those who came from Alabama to Cherokee County early during Texas statehood. I began by making sure I had all the census records of the families in Texas from 1850 through 1900 and beyond, if they were still living. I added children to the families based on census records. I also added cemetery tombstone information from Find a Grave to their profiles. Once I had the information found on Ancestry , I used FamilySearch 's full-text search to locate documents I hadn’t yet seen. Be...

My outside activities this week included doing phenology, visiting the history center, attending a historical society presentation, and having cataract surgery. Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: At the historical society, I worked on Dean McLeod’s collection, filing papers into archival folders and using smaller document boxes. He gave a talk on Sunday and said he would be sending 2 file drawers full of stuff, so it would be nice to be familiar with the materials we already have. I presented on German immigrants obtaining federal land to the Sacramento German Genealogy Society on Tuesday via Zoom. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I met and talked about the retreat . I attended Amigos, and while Stewart took a phone call, Jacqueline and I talked about the NARA SIG she attended on Monday. Later, Stewart, Karen, and I were the only ones at the RootsMagic SIG, and we discussed the Places tab. Genealogy Writing/Research : I worked on next week’s 52 Ancestors post, resear...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver (via Linda Stufflebean, who suggested the topic) is to: 1) What five reference books (and only 5) would you recommend to a b eginning genealogy researcher to have on their bookshelf? Here's mine: 1. My first pick is Drew Smith’s Generation by Generation (Genealogical Publishing Company, 2023). I recommend this book because of Smith’s approach in covering genealogy research, not by record group, but by methodology. Begin with yourself and work through 20th-century sources first. For a review of the book, see https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-new-beginning-genealogy-resource-drew.html . *2. George Morgan,  How to Do Everything with Your Genealogy (McGraw Hill, 2015). Parts of the book would be dated due to changes in online sources, but he covers the fundamentals on researching differe...

As I researched the funeral Masses of my Catholic family members, I often found that the recitation of the Holy Rosary preceded the funeral Mass, or was said the previous evening. My grandmother, Anne M. Hork, died on 14 February 1979, and her funeral was held on 17 February at St. Matthews Catholic Church in San Mateo. I was present at the funeral, but I don’t remember much about it, except for the nice wake we had following it at my Aunt Virginia’s home. According to her funeral card, the Holy Rosary was recited ten minutes before the funeral Mass. Now, ten minutes is not enough time to recite the whole rosary, so I imagine they did only a portion. This past week, I attended the funeral for my cousin, Melanie. We also recited a portion of the rosary before the start of the funeral Mass. I am sure not many in attendance knew what to recite. We had no reading aids to follow along. It had been many years since I learned the parts of the rosary. It was not hard to find online. If y...

My outside activities this week included doing phenology, visiting the history center twice, attending a funeral and a genealogy meeting, and working at the train club show.   Genealogy Genealogy Volunteer/Work: At the historical society, I worked on cleaning up the finding aid entries on the computer. We have multiple versions of several of the collections. On Thursday, I took minutes at the board meeting. I hosted the monthly writing group. We discussed Nancy’s article for a New Mexico journal and Lynne’s summary of her trip to Poland. I also worked on the new presentation that I’ll be doing this coming week for the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. Genealogy Meetings:  Jacqueline and I met and she described a bit about their trip . I attended several meetings this week, most of which were on Monday: recertification accountability group, Kinseekers Military SIG, APG Writers SIG, and the C&C NGSQ study group. The NGSQ study group discussed Tom Jones’ article, ...