Monday Genea-pourri, Week of April 23-28, 2018

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week.

Genealogy

My entire week was spent doing genealogy!

CGS Research Trip

Sunday, April 22, I left Oakland for Salt Lake City to lead a group of genealogists from the California Genealogical Society to research at the Family History Library. There were a total of fourteen of us, including me, at the library.

On our way to Wednesday's dinner at the Garden Restaurant

On the first day, where I gave a tour of the library to those who were interested. Then I was available on the third floor at the tables near the windows for consultations from anyone in the group. Sometimes I sat with a participant helping with their interpretations of a document they found or helped them navigate through the FamilySearch catalog to find the images they wanted.

Some of the participants sitting around my empty chair

It wasn’t all serious work, though. We took the time to walk to the LDS office building to have lunch in their cafeteria. I enjoy walking through Temple Square and the flowers were spectacular.

Some tulips in Temple Square 

We had three scheduled group dinners and a few impromptu dinners with smaller groups. It was lots of fun. Several people made great discoveries and new friendships.

I also got in time to do some of my own work while I waited for questions for help. I cleaned out my Download folder, by moving files to their respective folders and inputting any data needed into RootsMagic. I also viewed a few films and took lots of photos of deeds--all of the Johnson/Johnston, Phillips, Broadstreet, Person, and Hill men who owned land in Yalobusha County, Mississippi. I'm hoping that analyzing these deeds and putting them into an Excel spreadsheet will help me figure out where Samuel Johnston came from in Alabama/South Carolina. I did some Massachusetts work one day, viewing in books and online films of families of my client and was able to fill in another generation or two.

Visits With Friends

Linda and I had dinner with genealogists, Pat Richey-Erickson and her husband, Gordon, and Pam and Rick Sayre at the Red Iguana Two. The food was delicious and the conversation wonderful. We even got to do a little train watching as three Union Pacific trains went by on the adjacent tracks. Too bad my back was to them.

I also had nice conversations with Luana Wentz Darby and Warren Bittner while in the library. Warren gave me some tips about the certification process.

Blog Writing: I wrote a couple of blog posts this week:

• The Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post was about the weather on our day of birth.
• For this week’s 52 Ancestors post I wrote about my great-great aunt’s final resting place in a Brooklyn cemetery, which I visited.

Class/Webinars

I participated in one event this week: AmericaGen Study Group. We talked about Chapter 4 which covered evidence.

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.