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Monday Genea-pourri, Week of February 21–26, 2023

I have completed one hundred fifty-five (155) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I did my volunteer stint on Tuesday, phenology on Thursday, and visited with my husband’s brother on Sunday.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

I Can Identify Because of Muriel. For week 8 of the 52 Ancestors, I wrote about a Gleeson Family photo album I received. The photos were labeled in such words as “grandfather” this and “grandmother” that. Once I identified the possible writer, I was able to place each person in my family.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Family History Time Capsule. This was a post about what I would put into a time capsule for my descendants to open later in time. I included items from my childhood through today plus some family artifacts we have.

Meetings/Discussion Groups
Jacqueline and I met on Monday since it was a holiday and I didn’t have my adult school class to teach. We talked about our trip this coming week to Salt Lake City for RootsTech and a possible trip to Texas this summer for genealogy research. I want to research in Erath, Comanche, Rockwall, and Titan counties and she wants to research in Fannin County. Can we do it all in a week?

The RootsMagic SIG at the California Genealogical Society (via Zoom) was held Wednesday evening and Stewart showed us how he enters sources and creating our own templates based on RM templates.

The four of us met for Amigos and discussed what we are presently working on. The five of us Genealogy Ladies group met in-person for the first time since the pandemic. The food was delicious at Jack’s Restaurant in Pleasant Hill and the conversation fun. We laughed and laughed. It felt so good getting together and hope to do it again soon.

The Der Blumenbaum committee met to discuss the next issue which will need to be ready by July 1. Since we no longer are doing a print version due to the ever-increasing costs, we can do so much more with the publication such as including lots of color. We also don’t need to worry about the number of pages. I am to investigate writing another article about a German-American town.

Volunteer
Tuesday was my volunteer day at the History Center and I got the library database sorted and a new list printed out. Once I return from my trip, John and I will do another inventory, which shouldn’t take as long because the list and books should line up correctly. Saturday, I co-hosted with Jacqueline the Zoom webinar that Annette Burke Lyttle did about GPS.

I also visited the Concord Historical Society to tour their facility in preparation to write an article for the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society. I took photos and was disappointed that they had nothing about Williams School, where my grandmother taught for nearly ten years. It shows that societies only have what people have donated to them.

Client Work
I presented to two societies this week: Kalamazoo Genealogical Society about researching farming ancestors and the Northern Arizona Genealogical Society on using research plans for focused research. Both went well.

On Thursday, my writing group met where we discussed two members’ writings. They are progressing well on their family stories.

The rest of the week, whenever I had some time, I worked on my probate lesson plans for the upcoming course for AppGen. I have almost completed the second week. I have a month before the course begins.

Own Work
I did no work on my own family, except what I do to verify information for my 52 Ancestors blog post.

Webinars Viewed.

  • Flying Under the Radar--Discovering Charles Olin's Alias by Mary Roddy (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)
  • Genealogical Proof for the Everyday Genealogist by Annette Burke Lyttle (CGS)
  • Smiths & Joneses: Success with Families of Common Name by Elizabeth Shown Mills (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)

I am reading:

  • Gateway to Victory: The Wartime Story of the San Francisco Army Port of Embarkation by Captain James W. Hamilton

Other
Friday evening was the train club show and I operated from cab 6. On Sunday, we took a trip to Berkeley to meet Norman’s brother and wife for lunch. We ate at Gaumenkitzel, a German restaurant. The food was good and we had a nice 3-hour visit. Also this week, we had very cold weather that brought snow to our nearby hills.

Photos for this week


Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great at 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.

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

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