Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Mar 30—Apr 5, 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 three weeks of “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house once to do phenology at the meadow. My husband and I have walked, mostly to the local mailbox. I continued taking photos of birds or plants and posted on Facebook. My friends seem to appreciate them.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 14: Water-Daniel Coor’s Land on the Little Coharee in Sampson County, North Carolina. I wrote the eight children of Thomas and Mary Davey who did not live to adulthood.

• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Oldest Family Photos.  We were asked show our favorite genealogy reference books. I made a small list and showed the images from my Library Thing account.

Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   

I continued to attend no in-person activity, however I am attending more online meet-ups. I wish my internet would stay. It intermittently goes off and I have to switch to using the cell phone as a hotspot. I am using much more data this month, almost like when I’m on vacation. The online study groups I met with were:

• Monday, I set up a practice Zoom meeting for our CCCGS Monday Morning Group and nine people attended. They all enjoyed seeing each other and we agreed to meet weekly on Monday’s at 10 am.
• Wednesday, the Jill Morelli’s Certification Discussion Group met on Wednesday to check in. Many were feeling frustrated because of lack of concentration. She gave us “homework” to help with some structure.
• My Thursday evening group met and we discussed the Coronavirus mostly but did manage to talk about some DNA and promised ourselves to discuss more genealogy next week.
• Our Friday group discussed the virus and how it has hampered our focus on genealogy work. We did talk about writing as you go and some other writing we have done. We may discuss DNA next week.
• I met with my friend, Jacqueline via Zoom for an hour or so, working on citations for her WWII story about her grandfather.
• I joined the Zoom Meeting for Military Research with Jennifer Holik on Saturday morning. We got the chance to ask questions and learn about some great resources.

Webinars I attended:

• Betty Jean’s Story: Forensic Genealogy & Adoption by Mags Gaulden at Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
• Break Brick Walls by Efficiently Writing Your Findings by Jill Morelli at APG Virtual SIG. Her system of writing up the research made sense to me. I would change what I do to follow her example of arranging the findings in chronological order in the subject’s life. This makes it easier to see “holes” and will help with future writing about the person either as a biographical sketch or case study for a journal.
• Genealogy Resources at the Daughters of the Revolution Beyond the Revolutionary War by D. Joshua Taylor. He gave a very quick webinar about the resources at the DAR website and library. The info about the descendants database was worth the watch
• The Coded Census: Deciphering US Census Codes by Thomas MacEntee from the Legacy Family Tree 24-hr marathon I had not viewed yet.

Client Work/Presentations:

It doesn’t look like my Acalanes students want an online class, so this will be cancelled. It would have been a good way to learn how to do online teaching. I might try some with the Monday Morning Group, perhaps creating 5-10 minute lessons.

Volunteer Work:

I have volunteered to be part of the publicity committee with the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. My first duty was to write some copy for the change on the website. Our spring seminar will become four webinars during the summer.

Own Work:

This week, I have not been able to stay focus. I found some tax records for P.H. Hutson in Comanche Co, Texas and need to get the rest. I transcribed and entered newspaper articles I found about some Johnston families in Comanche County.

I downloaded a new publishing program called Affinity Publisher. It has the feel of InDesign without the large subscription fee. I only paid $25 for it. I created a file and made a draft of the introduction to the Hork family story. I watched some of their videos to learn how to create templates and add content. I will watch a few more soon.

I began cleaning out files from previous research trips I had never finished processing. I am either transcribing the documents or moving them to the appropriate ancestor’s (or collateral ancestor) file. This really helps clean up some of my genealogy files that are living on my desk top in a “to be filed” folder. I also have more current files in my download folder that I’m trying to keep up with.

Other:

I’m able to still walk in the neighborhood and I sit on the porch to watch the birds at the new feeder. I made room for the yoga mat, too, so will try to attend one of Linda’s online yoga classes. I am also having thirty minute ukulele classes on Zoom.

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