Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Apr 27-May 3, 2020

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.

I have completed seven weeks of “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house only to do phenology at the meadow, walks to the mailbox, and a trip to a drug store and the History Center.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

My blog post from last week was spotlighted again by Amy Crow Johnson in this week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks email. Two weeks in a row; that’s pretty exciting and certainly brought some traffic to my blog.

I posted this first on one Sunday and forgot to add it to last week’s tally: 

• Letters Home, Using V-Mail. I have been scanning papers and letters of my father-in-law, George J. Gorrell and wrote about the system of V-Mail, using examples of letters he wrote.

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 18: Will: Vincent Sievert’s Will. I wrote about my 2x great-grandfather’s simple will.

I didn't do the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun because I don't like poetry and certainly didn't want to write a poem, even if it meant to just fill in the blanks.

Study Groups Attended:   

Many more online meetings again this week:

• Monday. I almost forgot about the CCCGS Monday Morning Group and remembered ten minutes in. Luckily everyone was still around and joined. We had 11 members meet. Later I met with Jacqueline and we spoke for an hour talking about genealogy and the progress of our projects.
• Wednesday, I attended the Certification Discussion Group where we listened to Mary Roddy discuss her certification progress. Our Retreat Genie-buddies group met on Zoom for more catching up.
• Thursday, all five of us were online discussing Covid-19 and other genealogical problems.
• Friday, six of us met and spoke on three very interesting topics: writing & submitting to NGSQ, tips for certification portfolios, and writing tips. I took careful notes of the tips for writing to use in my CGS writing class.

Webinars Attended:

• "The Joys and Challenges of Chinese American Research" by Grant Din at NYG&B Society.
• “Road Crews & Jury Selection” by Mark Lowe at Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
• “Oh Where Oh Where Are My Ancestors From?” by Teresa Steinkamp McMillin, a Sacramento German Genealogy Society webinar.

Client Work/Presentations: None. Though I am working on doing some online presentations in the near future.

Volunteer Work: On Monday, I met with the Event Team of the Sacramento German Genealogical Society (SGGS) on Zoom. We practiced with the speaker on how the webinar on Saturday will go.

On Wednesday, I went down to the History Center so I could take down and put away the materials from our collection that had been used for the Suffrage exhibit. The county library wants to send the donated materials in May, so we need to clear out the room for the bookshelves that will come in.

Friday, I had a meeting with fellow California Genealogical Society members about our cancelled in-person Writing Series. We decided to go ahead and do it virtually. We’ll create shorter sessions and perhaps teach them weekly. I’m up first but we don’t have a starting date yet.

Saturday, we had Teresa Steinkamp McMillian, CG^® give the first of four webinars for the SGGS. My job was to ask Teresa the questions posed by the participants in the chat box.

Own Work:

I continued some scanning. My scanner can be fickle and not work properly after only one scan. I might have to set up a scanning station and use either my camera or cell phone to finish the scans.

Next week, the theme for 52 Ancestors is “Service” and I finished writing about George’s Army Air Force service in World War II at Burtonwood Air Depot. I also discovered it will be the 75th Anniversary of VE-Day and I am preparing a blog post about that, too.

Other

Other Zoom meetings during the week included my three German language classes and my ukulele lesson. I also attended the Pacific Coast Region of the NMRA board of director’s meeting. I am a director for Coast Division. Our convention had been cancelled but was supposed to be this weekend (Thursday through Sunday). One good thing about the Zoom meeting—it lasted only an hour and probably would have been longer if done in person!

Each morning before the sun gets to the backyard, I have been pulling weeds in preparation of planting our veggie garden. A crew of gardeners came on Wednesday to help. Unfortunately, the weeding outside has aggravated my allergies. I have found a safer allergy medicine.

Walks to the mailbox twice this week, though my husband went twice more than I because I had online classes at the time he walks.

I’m always glad to go to the Meadow on Thursdays, though tick season is upon us and I must have brought one back last week, perhaps on my boots which are left in the car. My husband brought some groceries from the back and brought one into the house. I need to do a better tick check before putting my gear away.

Copyright © 2020 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.