Monday Genea-pourri, Week of December 31, 2018—January 6, 2019

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

I continued working on deed records for the Lancaster family, getting the deeds in Erath County, first by recording the deeds from the grantee and grantor indexes so I have a full record, and beginning to collect the actual deeds. I ran out time and will continue the next time I’m at the Oakland FamilySearch Library later this month. These records are not available from home.

I found more ship arrival records for Thomas N. Davey, the son of my husband’s 2x-great-grandfather, who lived in Joplin, Missouri. I was surprised by the number of times he visited England. I wish I knew which family members he visited.

I also worked on the homework for the American Genealogy Study Group with DearMyrtle which we will have on Wednesday. These chapters concern probate.

Blog Writing: I wrote the following blog posts this week:

• Week 1: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks begins with a new post for the new year, about my first genealogy road trip to Stephenville, Texas with my grandmother.

• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: discussing last year’s best find(s) and our research goals for 2019.
• I wrote about my adventures in abstracting multiple deeds for my 3x-great-grandfather, George W. Lancaster, which gave me clues to his residences between Rockwall County, Texas and Mariposa County, Arizona that I would have never known without reading this deeds.

Webinars/Study Groups Attended

“DNA Rights and Wrongs: The Ethical Side of Testing” by Judy G. Russell for Family Tree Webinars.

Other Activities

On New Year’s Day, I went on a hike with friends, Jamie, Elaine, and Phred, to the Crockett Hills Regional Park. Not much was blooming but the views from the hill tops of the Carquinez Straits, Napa River, and San Pablo Bay, were spectacular. It was great starting the new year outdoors.

I did some bird watching at Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek. I walked around the almost natural pond and took some photos of interesting birds which included a ruby-crowned kinglet, a common gallinule, some ring-necked ducks, and double-crested cormorants.

On Saturday, I went with friends to Rush Ranch in Suisun City where we heard a lecture on raptor identification and then walked outdoors looking for raptors. Rush Ranch is part of the Solano County Land Trust and is a wonderful place to walk around. We saw kestrels, red-tailed hawks, white-tailed kites, a barn owl, and northern harriers, among some songbirds. The weather was a bit wet but luckily our walk was between showers. Took a scenic route home, stopping first for It’s-Its ice cream at an outlet store in Suisun City.

 Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.