Monday Genea-pourri, Week of May 18-24, 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 ten weeks of “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house only to do phenology at the meadow and walks to the mailbox. Otherwise, I’m meeting people on Zoom.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Blogs posted this past week:

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 21: Tombstones: Finding Tombstones. I wrote about our trip to Conway, Arkansas and trying to find 8 different cemeteries where my Loveless family was buried.

• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Share a Childhood Memory  I wrote about my first trip on an airplane, a trip I took to Southern California with my Nana in 1969.

Study Groups Attended:   

Many online meetings again this week:

• Our Monday Morning Group met for ninety minutes. As always, we had sharing and questions and answer time.
• The NGSQ study group met on Tuesday morning and we discussed Trish Hackett Nicola’s article, “The Two Deaths of Arthur J. Crim.” Jill Morelli was the moderator and she had different kinds of questions this month—more pertaining to standards and portfolio.
• I met with Jacqueline for our weekly talk about our own genealogical projects.
• I attended the Certification Discussion Group and listened to another CG give her story.
• Three out of four of the 4 Amigos met on Zoom for more catching up.
• All of us were together for the Thursday evening discussion group.
• My Friday Cert Discussion group met with five of us. We discussed creating citations and determined we couldn’t go wrong, especially with portfolio work, modeling them after Evidence Explained.
• 3 Amigos met to discuss the Writing Family History class we’re taking at the National Institute of Genealogical Studies. We are very disappointed in the course—it does not really discuss how to “write” – more about genealogy in general and publishing.
• I attended the Military Research Education Zoom meeting on Saturday and shared the two new books I received in the mail: The Hello Girls and 8^th Air Force Base Air Depot: Burtonwood.
• I attended Book Club at Gena's House this week and was able to share the two above books as well as the fiction book I'm reading: A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny. Perhaps I should keep track of the books I'm reading, too.

Webinars Attended:

• Discover the Holdings of German Archives by Teresa Steinkamp McMillin, for the BCG at the Legacy Family Tree Webinars

Four live webinars with the NGS Live. I really enjoyed the live Q&A after each recorded session. Yvette Hoitink had a Facebook Watch Party and it was great having discussions during each of the presentations.

• Validating Unsourced Online Information by Thomas W Jones
• Breaker Boys and Spinner Girls: Child Labor Laws and their Records by Judy G Russell
• Turning Witnesses into Evidence by Elizabeth Shown Mills
• What If? Learning About DNA Through Case Studies by Blaine Bettinger

Client Work/Presentations:

I updated the last part of the last class on offline research for the CGS Intermediate Skills class which I will give this coming week.

Volunteer Work:

I attended the Sacramento German Genealogical Society’s Zoom board meeting and may perhaps become the secretary. They did get several volunteers to join the board.

The board of the Contra Costa County Historical Society met this week. The meeting lasted a little longer this week and we’ve made good progress on the search for a new executive director.

Own Work:

I continued working on the two-part presentation/class for CGS on writing for our Writing Series. The PowerPoint presentation is almost complete and then I’ll work on the handout.

I need to rewrite my article for the Nugget and hope to get it done this coming week.

Other:

I got a new Win10 computer and it’s been a struggle getting it up and running. Right now, I have both computers running and when I discover a file I need, I use a thumb drive to transfer it over. I did manage to get Office, Affinity Publisher, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and RootsMagic working. The camera on the new computer is crisp and the ability to have virtual backgrounds without a green screen is fantastic. I have saved a few images to use.

Attended all two of my online German language classes. I have reading to do for tonight’s class.

I love getting out of the house to go to Phenology at the meadow and to go for walks to the mailbox with my husband. Saturday, we spent extra time checking out a different neighborhood.

Heard from both daughters this past week and both are doing fine, as can be expected. Margaret is now being paid by her employer and Elizabeth’s job may start up soon, as things start to open up. I’m happy just staying home. Meeting online meets my needs.

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