Monday Genea-pourri, Week of July 6-12, 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 seventeen weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house this past week to work twice at the CCCHS History Center, do phenology at the meadow, and get blood work, mammogram, and two shots for tetanus and shingles at Kaiser. Otherwise, I met people on Zoom.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Blogs posted this past week:

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 28: Multiple—Four Nilsen Siblings Emigrate to the United States.  I wrote about my husband’s Swedish family, Nilsen, who came separately to the U.S.

• Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Ancestors Have You Met? I wrote about the six ancestors I have met in my lifetime.

• Why I’m Studying About African American Research. I wrote about my experience taking the three-day class at the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute.

Study Groups Attended:   

Many online meetings again this week:

• Our Monday Morning Group met with fifteen people. We talked about Covid-19, webinars, why we do genealogy, and was shown a “wheel of fortune” game for genealogist at the BYU website.  
• I met with Jacqueline for our weekly hour talk. We discussed upcoming conferences and deciding whether to attend.
• Three of us Amigos met on Wednesday for a quick get-together, as I wanted to view a webinar at 4.  
• Three of us were on for the Thursday evening discussion group and we heard about Sheri’s new client work. We talked about books that help with learning about social history.
• My Friday Cert Discussion group met with six of us. We talked a lot about KDP and didn’t have time for the scheduled topic.
• I attended a 3-day class at MAAGI (Midwest African American Genealogy Institute) online and studied about records in the Antebellum era. I learned about a lot of new-to-me records and am excited to be able to add information about the enslaved of my southern ancestors. For more information, check out the blog post above.

Webinars Attended:

• Beat the Children with a Fresh Birch Stick… by Warren Bittner
• Turning Dry Facts into Exciting Narrative by Carol Baxtor
• Celebrating the Vote: 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage by Gena Philibert-Ortega
• 25 Websites to Find Vital Records by Gena Philibert-Ortega

Client Work/Presentations:

I almost got a new client but they ended up choosing someone else. No presentations this week.

Volunteer Work:

I also put in two half days at the History Center for CCCHS. On Saturday, Priscilla and I met with Maxine to go over what to do with the library collection.

We also had a board training session for the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. Mostly it was a get-to-know-you session as everyone talked about themselves. Other days, Rick and I emailed and had one Zoom meeting to work out logistics for the secretary work.

Own Work:

Because I was busy with the MAAGI classes and then exhausted afterwards due to getting up so early, I did not do much of my own work except for working on various blog posts. I did have one homework assignment where I studied my 4X-great-grandmother’s 1860 census, specifically the population and slave schedules. We were to write up what we knew and what would our next steps be. I’m wanting to figure out who the enslaved people were. It’s not going to be easy, but I can at least try. Perhaps it will be helpful to their descendants.

Other:

I did some blood lab, got a mammogram, and two injections for tetanus and shingles. I also went to the nursery and bought a few plants to put on my porch.

Between the above doctor’s appointments, I took an hour walk around Hidden Lake and took some photos. The weather was nice though by the end it was getting pretty warm. There were lots of high school cross country kids running. I thanked those who put their masks on when passing by me.

Yoga on Sunday morning was at Nancy Boyd Park and it was so nice doing warrior poses under the shade of redwood trees. There were lots of birds to watch, too: black phoebe, California towhee, goldfinches, and other birds I could hear, but not see. 

Watched some birds from the porch. At one time, there were 7 bushtits on the feeder at the same time! Of course they split when I got up to get the camera. Only these three came back.

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