Monday Genea-pourri, Week of April 2-8, 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 fifth class in this six-week series was about probate records. I created three exercises and I think they were received well. It did take about two hours, so maybe next time, I’d cut one of them out.

Webinar & Hangouts:

I attended the class, “Southern Church Records” by J. Mark Lowe, through the Virtual Institute of Genealogical Research. It was four sessions over two weekends. I got a lot out of the class and some great resources. I really enjoy listening to Mark.

CCCHS History Center. I got a chance to work on the Finding Aid and made some good progress. We had no customers, so it was quiet.

BCG Cert Discussion Group: We discussed the NGS Quarterly article, “Working with Historical Evidence: Genealogical Principles and Standards,” by Elizabeth Shown Mills.[1] Her article gave us a somewhat historical timeline of how the Genealogical Proof Standard came about. Many of the footnotes had sources that look interesting to read! We'll discuss the next article in the same issue next week.

Blog Writing: I am caught up with the 52 Ancestors posts. I have completed Week 13: Homestead about my grandparents’ cabin at Boulder Creek. Week 14 is about maiden aunts and I focused on my great-great aunt, Helena Gleeson.

Vacation

I spent four days attending the Pacific Coast Region of the National Model Railroad Association’s convention in Rohnert Park. I participated in clinics, layout tours, and the banquet.

• I learned how to take better photographs with a cell phone by touching the screen just where you want the focus to be, and with an SLR by blending photos in Photoshop.
• I learned some tips to weather freight cars and wood structures.
• I also got a tip on where to buy benchwork from Sievers, which is prefabricated wood parts that can be put together, plus a challenge to buy one set and get started on my own layout.
• I visited several owner’s layouts. One represents the San Francisco waterfront and another the route between Oakland and Sacramento. One is just getting built and will be able to hand dozens of operators, and another is completely built and scenicked, that many operators run monthly.
• I also bought a wood model of a barn and I hope to build a small diorama with it.

Next year, the convention will be in Sacramento, May 1-5. I’m looking forward to it.

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[1] Elizabeth Shown Mills, “Working with Historical Evidence: Genealogical Principles and Standards,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 87, no. 3, September 1999, p. 165. 

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