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Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Oct 26-Nov 1, 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 thirty-three (33) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. I taught my last genealogy classes from an empty classroom at the Adult school. I worked a few hours at the History Center. I did phenology with Shirley (masked of course) at the meadow as usual. Other than that, I didn’t leave the house except for a longer walk on Saturday with Norman. 

Genealogy

Blog Writing
Blogs posted this past week:

52 Ancestors: Week 44: Scary Stuff—Building the Bridge Over the Vesle (France) I wrote about my great-uncle, Jack Sullivan’s role while in the 4th Engineers of building a bridge over the Vesle River while under fire from the Germans.  

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Hallowe’en Memories and Family History.  We had done a similar post in 2015, so I just reposted it.

Online Study Groups Attended:   

  • All four of the Amigos met and it was so nice to have Linda back. She had lots of questions about SF research and we heard about her trip back east.
  • I attended the second of the GenProof sessions with Tom Jones. We discussed source analysis in Chapter 2.
  • The Thursday Cert Discussion session had four of us join. More discussions about SF research and Covid.
  • At the Friday Certification Peer group instead of discussing the KDP, the five of us discussed lots of different topics and agreed to discuss the KDP next week. 
  • I attended Color of Law discussion group on Sunday.

Webinars Attended:
“Exploring Military Records Part IV” by Susan Goss Johnston

Client Work/Presentations:
I finished up the classes at the Adult school. I think the classes went well, but I did not create an evaluation. Perhaps I should do that and email it to them.  

I worked on the PowerPoint files of the two presentations I’m doing this week by writing in the script into the notes area. I usually teach these classes off the cuff – but it is hard to do that when the Zoom class is not as interactive. I also converted the files to wide-screen which gives more real estate to each slide.

I was contacted to do some genealogy research to find a person who disappeared from San Francisco records. With the severe record loss in SF due to the earthquake and fire in 1906, it may be a tough assignment. I hope to speak with her on Monday.

Volunteer Work:
I visited the History Center on Tuesday. I answered a query and did some more cleanup in the back room.

Own Work:
I started a timeline for Benjamin W. Jones, my maternal 3x-great-grandfather, making sure I have entered the information into RootsMagic from all of the documents I had for him in the computer folder. Nothing jumped out at me. Legend has it he joined the army perhaps in 1864 out of Mississippi and died. His wife and children are first found in Texas in 1868. Before his death, he owned a few slaves, so not sure what happened to them, except they may have stayed until the end of the war or left. There was probably a lot of chaos. I need to read some history about what was happening in Rankin County—which is the county that the state capital is in. I can also try to find some history of the supposed unit he enlisted in to see what I can find.

Other:
I attended all three of my own Adult School classes: photography (our last class), intermediate German conversation, and advanced German conversation. I also had German with Nancy on Monday and Ukulele lesson on Thursday.

I’m still reading Finding Betty Crocker for book club. Next Sunday is the discussion session. I am also reading Color of Law for another discussion group.

I received several books this week that I ordered:

  • Handbook of Denominations in the United States by Frank S. Mead
  • Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie & Catharine Parr Trail by Charlotte Gray
  • Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

The first book is a thorough listing of religious groups in the U.S., including Muslins and Buddhists, but no mention of Hindus. The last two will hopefully give me some context on what life was like in the 1830-40s in Upper Canada. I think they were English and not Irish like my family, but the setting should be similar. There was also a third book, but it hasn’t arrived yet.

Photos of the week:
Here is a selfie taken in my classroom at the Acalanes Adult School between my two classes in response to a Facebook post asking us to post a photo of what we were doing.


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

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