Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Apr 13-19, 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.

I have completed five weeks of “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house only to do phenology at the meadow,

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 16: Air: George J Gorrell Served in the Army Air Corps During WWII. I wrote about my father-in-law’s service as a mechanic in the air corps by using his diaries for information.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Which Ancestors Would You Like to Talk To?. I mentioned Samuel Johnston of South Carolina and Jeremiah Sullivan of Cork County, Ireland.

US Army Air Corps Base In England Where George J Gorrell Served. I wrote about discovering where his base was located near Liverpool, England and what is there now.

Webinars/Study Groups Attended:

Many more online meetings again this week:

Monday, Our CCCGS Monday Morning Group met. We got kicked out at 30 minutes, so I made another link and some of them returned. We had people from Washington, Wyoming, and South Dakota join us! I’m hoping people will chip in to help pay for a subscription to Zoom so we can have no time-limited meetings. Later I met with Jacqueline and we spoke for an hour talking about military stories we’re writing.
Tuesday, I met with the Jill Morelli’s Certification Discussion Group. We heard from several people about their process for creating their portfolio. We’ll have more next week.
The Thursday evening group met with just Kathryn and me. We spoke about the virus and the upcoming NGS conference. So glad the in-person conference was finally cancelled.
Our Friday group discussed the NGS Quarterly article among the six of us.
Met with the Military Discussion Group on Saturday. Two members showed us how they learned more about a document that had been found last week and how they research one gentleman from the document. I shared my post about George J. Gorrell.

Webinars I attended:

"Writing with Style," Jennifer Dix, at the APG Writers SIG. She spoke about different writing styles and pushed for submissions to the California Nugget.
“Dissecting a Civil War Pension-Union & Confederate" by Jill Morelli, CG for Southern California Genealogical Society.

Client Work/Presentations: None.

Volunteer Work:

This week I continue to answer email queries from the Contra Costa County Historical Society but we are not open to conduct any research.

I wrote my article for the California Genealogical Society’s Nugget about FAN research. I appreciate my friend, Linda, for helping me zone in with tighter writing.

Own Work:

Partly working on finding a new laptop to purchase. I may buy a Dell but the salesman who I messaged with has not returned my email. I may have to start from scratch.

At the beginning of the week, I worked on my father-in-law, George J. Gorrell’s profile gathering information about his service during WWII. I am studying Jennifer Holik’s books on researching WWII and communicating with KB Barcomb about other Army Air Corps sources. I sent away for George’s service file at the National Personnel Resource Center, but with the closures due to the virus, it might be some time before I receive it. I thought at least it will be put in a queue. I started another post about finding the location of the base in England.

I am also processing the tax records from Ross County, Ohio, for the Bishop families. The earliest is from 1808 and I’m working my way forward in time to 1830s. Generally they don’t give a lot of genealogical information, but I want to next compare them to the deeds. The tax records give original lot numbers and patentees, and in the 1820’s the title mentioned Virginia Military District. So now I know which pre-statehood records to look for the deeds. Ross County is crazily divided (Ohio is, too) as everyone wanted a piece of it.

I signed up for IGHR institute, normally held in Athens, Georgia in July. They are doing it virtually, so I am taking Tom Jones’s writing class. This has been on my bucket list for a long time and I worried he would retire before I got the chance. I’m looking forward to this course.

Other:

Continued with my three online German classes and my ukulele lesson. Did the phenology study at the meadow. Met on Zoom three other Friends of Alhambra Creek members to test out Zoom for our meeting on Tuesday evening. Got in several walks to the mailbox this week.

Some birds that came to my feeder this week. All I have done is porch bird watching.