Monday Genea-pourri, Week of October 15-21, 2018

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.

Genealogy

Family Research. Not much went on with my own family research this week. A delayed birth certificate came from Davison County, South Dakota for my great-uncle, Jack Sullivan. I need to scan it before entering the data into RootsMagic. Because there had been no birth records in the 1880s in South Dakota, he needed affidavits to complete the certificate. That is the most interesting part of the certificate. More on it later!

SLIG Virtual Practicum. Our second session was this week, where we learned how close we were on the homework. I got the right answer but missed some resources. We then got the next research project that will be due next Friday.

Blog Writing: I wrote two blog posts this week:

• This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks was about “Conflict.” This was a tough topic and finally wrote about the time my grandparents were separated for a time when my mom was two.

•  Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun was about how we got to school from Kindergarten through High School. I added college, too, since I still lived at home.

Webinars: I watched several webinars this week. They are all available at Legacy Family Tree Webinars:

• D. Joshua Taylor “Twenty Essential Tips for Genealogical Speakers”
• Jeanne Larzalere Bloom “Past Conflict Repatriation: The Role of Genealogists and Methodology in Fulfilling our Nation’s Promise”
• Elissa Scalise Powell “Deeper Analysis: Techniques for Successful Problem Solving”
• Rebecca Whitman Koford “John Jacob Kramer: Case Study of Mistaken Identity Among Revolutionary War Soldiers”
• Thomas W. Jones “Using Indirect and Negative Evidence to Prove Unrecorded Events”
• Judy G. Russell “Discriminating Genealogist: Telling Good Evidence From Bad”

I also participated in the DearMyrtle American Gen Study Group. We discussed Chapter 11: “Family History: Going Beyond Genealogy”

Volunteer Activities: I volunteered at the Contra Costa County Historical Society’s History Center on Tuesday and Saturday. I got a bunch of time in adding special  collection items to PastPerfect. I also trained Susan on completing an obituary query since I will be gone the next two weeks. On Saturday, I got some questions answered from Maxine about problems I encountered in PastPerfect.

I also spent the day at the desk at the California Genealogical Society & Library on Friday. I had no customers and only one phone call. Usually I get a lot of writing or research done but I watched five webinars (see above) instead.

Intermediate Skills 2. We had our third class about tax and other “list-like” items. I think they really got into tax records! Next week is newspaper research, then we’ll take a break for a week, before the last week on writing.

Other Activities

We visited our daughter, Elizabeth on Thrusday in Sebastopol. We bought apples at Hale Farm, walked around the Barrow and then hiked along a creek. Afterwards, we shopped for more apples at Whole Foods and then ate dinner at Lowell’s. We had a nice time.

Our apples from Hale Farm

Laguna de Santa Rosa at Laguna Wetlands Preserve

Worked at the John Muir National Historic Park native garden on Monday, trimming plants. At the Friends of Alhambra Creek meeting, we discussed the brochure we’re working on, thinning down the choices from the photos I took of the creek and doing some more wordsmithing. Thursday, Shirley and I did the phenology at the Strentzel Meadow. Not much is happening now in the fall—mostly waiting for the leaves to drop and some fruit to ripen.

Waiting for the Buckeye fruit to ripen

I bought some native plants on Saturday at the Watershed Nursery, most of which will need full sun. I hope I have enough space for that. Excited that I found a Western Redbud. I hope I can keep it alive.

sage, lupine, fushia, honeysuckle, fescue, rose

This was a busy week!

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