Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Aug 10-16, 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 twenty-two weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I left the house this past week only to do phenology at the meadow and visit the History Center for a walk-through with Priscilla. This weekend is so hot, we have turned on the air conditioner.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Blogs posted this past week:

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 33: Troublesome—Trying to Find Mary Davey  I wrote about trying to find out what happened to my husband’s great-grandfather’s sister.

Study Groups Attended:   

• Monday Morning Group. Our biggest group every with seventeen people attended and we talked about a lot of miscellaneous topics.    
• Met with Jacqueline and we caught and then agreed to meet in person next week (social distancing) so I could get her the WWII books I have.
• Three of us Amigos met on Wednesday and spoke mostly about CGS and our online classes.
• Two of us were on for the Thursday evening discussion group and we talked institute classes we signed up for.
• My Friday Cert Discussion group met with all of us present. Glad to see Pam join us. We discussed LaBrenda’s NGSQ article and the progress everyone has been making because of reporting in each day.

Webinars Attended:

• “Dissecting Civil War Pension File” by Jill Morelli
• “Resources to Help Learn about Angel Island” by Grant Din
• “Widow, Midwife, and a Nun” by Suzanne Adams (NGS On Demand)
• “Who Was Charlotte Fasse Graue” by Pam Stone Eagleson (NGS On Demand)

Client Work/Presentations:

I finished the client report and emailed it.

Volunteer Work:

I presented the second half of the “Writing Stories” for the Writing Series at the California Genealogical Society (CGS) via Zoom. It went pretty well and quite a few students had positive things to say about their writing.

I visited the History Center (CCCHS) and met with Priscilla, the director, where we walked through the center noting items that needed to be moved and also processed. There is way too much to do before she retires--and with Covid, not much opportunity to get it done.

Own Work:

For the Write as You Go class, I updated my research report and received back lots of red—but it’s all good. I need feedback on writing research reports. I did some more research, but have not found her other husbands yet.

I also worked on the new newspaper talk I’ll be doing next month for a local society. I’m cutting a 2.5-hour class into an hour lecture. I need to practice to see how long it will take.

An email about updates of FamilySearch record groups took me down a couple of rabbit holes. I found voter registrations for my 3x-great-grandfather in Mariposa County, Arizona Territory, and the Gleeson family members in Multnomah County, Oregon. It’s always good to check those updates. I think these record groups have been recently indexed, which made it easier to find the particular records. I spent Sunday writing them up, using the Write as You Go method for practice.

Other:

I’ve not done much else this week. Only one walk where I checked out the progress of the school rebuild. I got a tea-latte this week and attended German and Ukulele classes.

A storm came through Northern California early Sunday that brought thunder, lightning, and some rain (probably some wildfires, too). Here's a shot of the sky as I woke up. It got darker later as the storm moved through.

I also received the certificate of completion in the mail from my IGHR class on writing.

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