Monday Genea-pourri, Week of March 19-25, 2018

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. 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.

Genealogy

Intermediate Class. The third class in this six-week series was about land records. I covered both federal and local land records and created a couple of exercises. It took nearly 2.5 hours. I don’t think I have that much time at the Oakland class. I’ll have to cut something, I’m sure.

History Center. Had a busy week at the History Center. Tuesday, I spent time working on the client’s work, and making copies for the high school event on Thursday. Sixty-plus students from Deer Valley H.S. came to the center as one of three stops (they also visited Alhambra Cemetery and the John Muir house). At the center there were five groups they rotated through and my station was in the county room. I spoke about the tax assessment books, showing them Mrs. Louie Strentzel Muir’s tax pages. We did this four times for each group and there were three groups. All of us were exhausted! On Friday, I went to the County Recorder’s office to get some copies of deeds for the client.

Students from Deer Valley High School at the History Center

Presentation. I presented about Focused Research at the Sacramento Public Library. There was a great turnout. I love involving the audience during the presentation and I had a dozen people who participated. I hope I encouraged some of them to try making research plans.

Being introduced to the audience

Family

Saturday was a busy day. I attended a memorial service for a friend’s husband, and then came home to find out my mother-in-law, Thelma Marie Nilsen Gorrell had passed away.  She was 92 years old and had failing health, so it wasn’t a surprise but still very sad to learn of her passing, especially because she lived in Idaho and I hadn’t seen her since last July. She was such a wonderful person and a great mother-in-law, taking my mother’s place after she died. She loved her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She will be greatly missed.

We also celebrated an early double birthday—my sister, Danna, and my own. Our birthdays are six days apart and we're both Aries. It’s a sister celebration, which includes the nieces, too. My sister, Sabrina, was the host and made a very delicious dinner and cake. It’s great to be a year older!

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.