Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Mar 9-15, 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 11–My Irish Ancestors. I wrote briefly about the Irish ancestors on my father’s side.

• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Fearless Females, Beryl Johnston. We were asked to find newspaper articles about an ancestor. I was able to find lots of articles about my great-aunt, Beryl Johnston (and later Mrs. Howard Russell) from The Portal to Texas History site which had newspapers from Comanche and Stephenville.

Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   

I attended both of my online weekly meetings. Thursday, we discussed the coronavirus issue, especially about the Family History Library and National Genealogical Society conference in Salt Lake City. I have a California Genealogical Society trip planned for the end of May and don’t know if we’ll be going. During our Friday meeting, we had good discussions about genealogy coaching. I’m thinking of offering coaching services for people who would like assistance in their own research.

I attended several of the webinars from the Legacy Family Tree Webinar Marathon, and hope to catch others when they are uploaded to their website:

• “How Do I know It’s Correct: Evidence and Proof,” by Rebecca Koford
• “Not Who He Once Was: Tips for Finding Your Name-Changing Ancestor,” by Mary Kircher Roddy
• “Searching By Name: Swedish Records Using ArkivDigital,” by Kathy Meade
• “Advanced Googling for Your Grandma,” by Cyndi Ingle
• “Can a Dead Man Sign a Deed?” by Kelvin L Meyers

I also attended the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society Monday Morning Group. We had a low attendance but everyone had a chance to speak about their genealogy endeavors. I brought two new books to share, The Magic of German Church Records: Finding the Key to Your Ancestor’s Past by Katherine Schober and How to Find Your Family in U.S. Church Records: A Genealogist’s Guide by Sunny Jane Morton and Harold A. Henderson. Our regular Thursday meeting was cancelled.

Client Work/Presentations:

I had no client work or presentations this week.   

Volunteer Work:

At the History Center, I worked on the artifact collections, recording what we have and comparing to what we have already recorded. This is a start to determine which of these artifacts we will actually keep, since our mission is to collect paper archival material.

Our Wednesday morning class that I’m teaching for the California Genealogical Society at the Oakland FamilySearch Library went off without a hitch. The center got the new computers in. We discussed religious records. There is one more week, but the center is now closed, so the class is postponed until after the virus emergency.

Own Work:

Because I am basically shelter-in-place because of the closures of large gatherings, I have done lots of genealogy. For this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, I searched for newspaper articles about my great-aunt, Beryl Johnston. I was able to find lots of articles because I searched on only her first name. Many of the articles had listed her name as “Johnson” and I would have missed them if I had searched only on “Johnston.” I found the article about her marriage to Howard Russell, and then searched for articles about “Howard Russell” since she was listed as Mrs. Howard Russell in later issues. I also realized I hadn’t really processed her personnel file I received from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. She had worked for the federal government most of her life.

Other:

I didn’t do much other this week. We had our fitness class at DVC on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I went to Yoga Tuesday and Thursday. Both are cancelled now. I also had my ukulele lesson, but I think I’ll postpone them for now. Our model club had to cancel last weekend’s open house to the public and very few came to the monthly meeting. We didn’t have a quorum.

Our governor has urged seniors to stay at home. I think the only activities I’ll have in the near future are an occasional walk with my husband and the weekly phenology study at the meadow. These two should be safe enough and being outdoors is healthy. 

Copyright © 2020 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.