Monday Genea-pourri, Week of February 3-9, 2020

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:

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 6–Same Name. I wrote a proof argument about separating two Ellis Lancasters in Kentucky.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Top 20 Surnames. We were to find our top 20 surnames in our genealogy database program. We had done this in 2017, so I compared my current numbers to 2017. I had only added a couple hundred names, mostly by finding spouses and children of cousins.

Webinars/Study Groups Attended:

I attended the Thursday night study group and we Kim talk about her NYC trip and all the research she has planned. We gave her tips on places to visit in her free time. I attended only part of the Friday group because I was at the Walnut Creek Library with Jacqueline. We saw Faye for the first time in weeks and heard all about her house project. We discussed her DNA class as well.

I attended two webinars this week:

“Organizing Your DNA Results,” by Diahan Southard. She had some very good useful tips for keeping track of the results on Ancestry.

“Tips & Tricks of Deciphering Old German Handwriting,” by Katherine Schober. She had some new websites to checkout. Her handwriting course looks interesting but is expensive.

Client Work:

No work this week. Two societies contacted me for speaking gigs, one an evening next month and the other for an all-day seminar in September. I was pretty excited about the seminar but it is unfortunately on a weekend where I already have plans. I was disappointed to turn it down, but who knows, maybe they will ask me next year.

Volunteer Work:

At the History Center this week, I worked on several queries that came by email and mail, and helped a researcher who came in person. At the Oakland FamilySearch Library, I helped a researcher find the correct death date by using city directories. We later found the obituary in a Detroit newspaper.

Own Work:

I got a lot done working with Jacqueline at the library on Friday—finishing up my weekly 52 Ancestors blog post and creating a new To-do list.

I have next week’s 52 Ancestors post written about Julia Sievert Hork and am working on the following week on a post about Susanna Sievert’s husband Louis A. Raub, who was a clothing store owner. Put out a request at the Joliet Illinois public library for their obituaries. I hope they can arrive before the post is due.

I started the winter quarter genealogy class at the Acalanes Adult School on Thursday. I have fourteen students, several of whom were in my class last quarter. I started the class with creating research plans.

Sunday was a very windy day, so I stayed inside and cleaned out my Download folder, filing documents, reading older journals, and recording facts in RootsMagic. It was a real productive day with no distractions except for a couple of loads of wash.

Other:

Finished another week of the DVC fitness class and on Saturday was pretty sore in my arms and chest from the weight machines. My favorite is riding the bikes. Yoga was tough this week, too, working on feet on Tuesday and doing the plank on Thursday.

Spring is in the meadow, where I took some photos during phenology.