Monday Genea-pourri, Week of July 29–August 4, 2024

I have completed two hundred and twenty-nine (229) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We went by BART and Muni to a San Francisco Giants game and visited with my husband’s family at the Nilsen Family Reunion at Samuel P Taylor State Park. I also helped set up the San Ramon Valley Branch Line module at the Harrington Gallery in Pleasanton where it will be on exhibit until Oct 5.

Genealogy

Genealogy Meetings:  
The only meeting I had this odd last of the month week was with Jacqueline on Monday.

Genealogy Writing/Research:
I found some newspaper articles for a friend that concerned his grandfather and great-grandfather.

Blog Post Published:

End of the Line: Stuck at Irish & Polish Research. For 52 Ancestors’ theme of “End of the Line,” I wrote about my Sieverts, Raduntz, and Sullivan lines where I am stuck, mostly due to lack of records.

Analysis of the new AI Summary at FamilySearch. After listening to the podcast by Mark Thompson and Steve Little, I learned there is a new AI feature at FamilySearch. So I tested it out and wrote up my analysis.

SNGF: Create a Kinship List for an Ancestor. Randy had us use one of the reports from RootsMagic called Kinship List. I did, but found the report not very useful. A descendant report is more useful.

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:
I am just about finished with the PHHS collection’s business records by putting contents into new folders and then into document boxes. I will write up the portion of the finding aid for this part. I am not sure where it will be stored yet.

I hosted the writing group meeting and we discussed Nancy’s work, where she was adding some historical and cultural context to her work.

Webinars/Courses Viewed: I watched three webinars at Legacy Family Tree Webinars:

• Solving a 1770 Problem with the 1880 Census by F. Warren Bittner  
• Using AI to Translate German Church Records (and more) into English by Geoff Rasmussen      
• Explore What's Changed with HathiTrust by Colleen Robledo Greene          

Other:
We met our daughters at the Giants game. Unfortunately, they lost. Margaret and Yannik returned home on Thursday. On Saturday, we drove to the Nilsen Family Reunion held at the Samuel P Taylor State Park, right in the middle of the redwoods. It was not a large group and we had a good time conversing with Norman’s family.

I also watched a lot of the Olympics, especially gymnastics (both men and women) and women’s football (soccer). I also watch a little of the tennis. It’s hard to watch some matches when you already know the result and it’s hard to keep from learning the results when the events happen nine hours ahead.

I am reading:

• Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya Miles
• To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker—FINISHED!
• Uniform Justice by Donna Leon—FINISHED!
• “Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Beauty and the Beast Affair by Robert Hart Davis (Man from UNCLE Magazine, found on the Internet Archive)—FINISHED!

Photos for this week. Our walking group met in Richmond and hiked along the Bay Trail to the Rosie the Riveter National Historic Monument, where we had a brief tour, and then walked back. The day started out being cool but the fog burned off and we had great views of the bridges across the bay.

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 © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.