Monday Genea-pourri, Week of April 1-7, 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

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

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks For week 14, our theme was Brick Wall. I wrote about trying to find the father of David Shotts, my husband’s third great-grandfather.

 Webinars/Study Groups Attended: 

• “One Touch Genealogy” given by Thomas MacEntee at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. He had great pointers about culling all of the information you can from a document and to place “to do” items that you think of onto a separate sheet so you don’t get distracted until you are done.
• In my Thursday evening certification study group, we spoke about transcriptions to abstracts. It was a good discussion and I shared my homework from Chapter 21 of the AmericanGen study group. Next week we will discuss client reports.
• In Friday’s group we spoke a bit about genealogy lecturing again and started the conversation about teaching genealogy in a classroom setting. Dennis and I have both done that many times.

I volunteered at the Contra Costa County Historical Society’s History Center on Tuesday. I worked on the spreadsheet recording the research activities for the month of March and completed a couple of queries. I culled out-of-county news from one of the Contra Costa Times clipping files drawers.

This was my last night volunteering at the Oakland FamilySearch Library until the center is open again after remodeling. By then the remodeled Temple will also be open and we’re likely to get extra visitors to the research center who come to tour the Temple. It’ll be nice to have customers to help.

Own Work.

I met with Linda to see about reviving the NorCal chapter of the APG, but we didn’t come up with any solutions at this time. Our participation in the Thursday Cert Study Group might fulfill the desire of working with other serious genealogists.

I continued to transcribe deeds on Nathan H.O. Polly. He might be a good project to write the next case study on. How to tie the Kentucky Polly with the Texas Polly.

I also continued scanning and gathering items for the personal archives. The boxes should arrive soon! Once everything is archived, I’ll have to make room for the boxes. Then on to start writing the Hork family history book.

I did some client work this week getting a death certificate from the recorder’s office and going to the Antioch Historical Society’s museum for an obituary. I was also able to check out the rest of the museum and take photos for the next installment of the archives in the county series for the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society’s newsletter and website.

Other Activities

My activities were outdoors this week. Monday, I worked at the John Muir NHP native garden, clearing out grass and weeds. The flowers were blooming on several of the plants.

 On Wednesday, I participated in a Mt. Diablo Audubon bird walk at the Orinda Connector Trail which is on East Bay Municipal Utility District land. We saw or heard between 35 and 45 birds. It was overcast and a little drizzly so some of the birds weren’t too active. Besides usual birds, we saw wood ducks, white-breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, a bright Wilson’s warbler, four different swallow species, a Bewick’s wren, and orange-crowned warbler. The trillium was blooming nicely.

Thursday, Elaine and I led a walking group from Benicia on a four-mile hike from the Amtrak station to the John Muir house stopping at all of the small native gardens. It took three hours! Unfortunately I lost a part from  my binoculars somewhere along the way. The group seemed to enjoy the walk very much.

Friday, I attended the Ukulele Jam session for the first time in ages. I had lots of fun and need to buy the new blue book, as they were using that more now.

Saturday, I was a part of a three-sister birthday party celebration at my sister, Renee’s house.  My birthday was in March, Danna's in early April, and Sabrina's will be later in April. We sisters, along with our nieces and daughters celebrate each other's birthdays three times a year. We had h'orderves and cocktails, though I brought some champagne from Korbel. My contribution to the food was sushi. The gluten-free chocolate brownies my sister made for me was so delicious.

What a wonderful week of genealogy, hiking, birding, and celebrating!

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