Monday Genea-pourri, Week of January 7-13, 2019

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. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme.

Genealogy

I went to the California Genealogical Society’s library twice this week. On Thursday, our Intro Class committee met to view Ron’s talk on organization. It was a little long and we made some suggestions on where to cut. One Friday, I worked the Desk Duty slot and had one volunteer come in and one researcher. I helped her at the computer, showing her some newspaper sites she didn’t know about. Both trips were by BART and I got some reading in—yeah!

I worked more on analyzing the Johnstons and neighbors in Yalobusha County, Mississippi. My 52 Ancestors post was about the process I’m using.

Sunday, I left for Salt Lake City, for a week of study on Advanced Southern Research. It will be great seeing all my friends and colleagues! The weather doesn’t look too bad. I can handle the 30s and 40s. There was entertainment the first night and we watched some Native Americans dance and then they encouraged us to dance, too! What fun!

Blog Writing: I wrote the following blog posts this week:

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 2: this week, I wrote about my challenge in finding the origins of Samuel Johnston.
• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: I updated a previous post, showing where my ancestors were living in 1869.

Webinars/Study Groups Attended

• I participated in DearMyrtle’s American Gen Study Group and we discussed probate records, especially wills. I spoke about how to find these records on Ancestry, FamilySearch, and local courthouses.

• I listened to the "Mondays With Myrt" and the recording is here.

•  “Maintaining An Organized Computer,” by Cyndi Ingle on Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

• Lisa Alzo and Jennifer Holik had a joint webinar on writing, and on researching when the archives are closed. Both parts were very good.

Other Activities

In visiting family, my daughter, Elizabeth and I had dinner with her cousin, Maddy, and her mother, Ozzie. We met in Sacramento and had a great dinner, eating delicious food. Conversation was interesting and it was good seeing Maddy before she heads back to Colorado for school.

My German conversation class started this week on Wednesday and we have some need students, making the class larger than usual. I volunteered to speak first and spoke about becoming a Certified Genealogist.

The Contra Costa County Historical Society had their Annual Meeting on Saturday. The meal was delicious and the speaker about building the Trans-continental Railroad was entertaining. I donated genealogy research time as a raffle prize. At the quick board meeting afterwards, I became the Secretary for the upcoming year (or two).

Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.