Monday Genea-pourri, Week of June 1-7, 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 twelve weeks of “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house this past week twice. Once to have blood work done and the second time to accompany my husband to Berkeley Bowl to grocery shop. I also went to the meadow to do phenology and took walks to the mailbox. Otherwise, I’m meeting people on Zoom.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Blogs posted this past week: My post last week was chosen as one of the three highlighted in the 52 Ancestors weekly email. That will make three times this year!

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 23: Wedding—The Wedding of Bill Hork & Lela Johnston.  I wrote about my parents’ wedding on 19 April 1953.

• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Pauleen’s Crazy Month of May Pandemic Meme Part I. We answered the first ten of twenty questions this week about how we’re faring in the pandemic.

Study Groups Attended:   

Many online meetings again this week:

• Our Monday Morning Group met for ninety minutes, with twelve members and had plenty of time to share what we had been doing and ask questions of each other.  
• Our NGSQ study group had eighteen and we discussed Trish Hackett Nicola’s article from June 2019. It was a lively discussion and everyone enjoyed the article.
• I met with Jacqueline for our weekly hour talk about our new books. Her book, Company Commander by Charles B MacDonald, is about a WWII infantry unit. She is reading it to get historical context. My book, AAF: The Official World War II Guide to the Army Air Forces. It was recommended to me by a friend to learn about the structure of the Army Air Forces during World War II. The chapter on maintenance will be helpful to me in adding context to my FIL’s story.   
• All of us 4 Amigos met on Wednesday for more catching up. We don’t always stay on the topic of genealogy but it is so nice to get together.
• Everyone was on for the Thursday evening discussion group. We spoke about lots of topics, which happens when there are five of us, mostly about NGS, CGS’s use of Zoom, and inclusion of all ethnic groups in activities and presentations.
• My Friday Cert Discussion group met with six of us. We had a good discussion about the KDP (Kindship Determination Project) and the use of DNA evidence. We also spoke about upcoming institutes this summer and how they would be run.

Webinars Attended: I got caught up on some older webinars at the Virtual Genealogical Association as well as one from the Sacramento German Genealogical Society.

• “Boost Your German Research: Understand Historical Jurisdictions” by Teresa Steinkamp McMillin, CG
• “Researching Formerly Enslaved Ancestors: It Takes a Village” by Renate Yarborough Sanders
• “Road Trip Tips: Don’t Forget To…” by Megan Heyl
• “Preparing Your Heritage Travel to Germany” by Ursula Krause

Client Work/Presentations:

I met with the Zoom coordinator for the Livermore-Amador Genealogical Society (LAGS) on Zoom to go over what we will be doing this coming Monday during the presentation I’ll be giving.

Volunteer Work:

I was the Q&A person for the Teresa Steinkamp McMillin webinar for the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. It was a very good webinar about German jurisdictions.

Own Work:

I have been pulling names from Frederick Bishop’s probate packet and put them into a table so it can be searched better. I’m thinking of sorting the images by date to see them in a timeline. I am also renaming the images and adding source citation to each. There are so many pages of receipts from this probate packet. I also found the minute book and am comparing the loose papers with the recording of the probate in the minute book.

Other:

I continued this week loading files from my old computer to the new one. I did not move everything, as many of the files can remain on the portable hard drive. I do want to move some of the photos and still need to do that.

Thursday German class had the last class. I did not sign up for the summer class, as it was twice a week. I may take it again in September if it is done online.

My gardening activity included trimming back my California Poppies and giving them a big drink—hoping for more blooms later in the year. Also helped Norman map out the garden for our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and squash.

I went to Phenology at the meadow and got a photo or two of a Western Tiger Swallowtail feeding on Buckeye flowers. The milkweed was blooming, too.  

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