Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Feb 15-21, 2021

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 forty-nine (49) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. Three more weeks and it will be one year of this pandemic in California. I did leave the house this past week to pick up books at the library, drop off recycle, and do phenology alone at the meadow. The timing was off for taking walks with my husband—I was in German classes.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Week 7: Unusual Source—Autograph Book Tells of Life Before Marriage (Joseph Norman Gorrell). I republished a story I had written for Treasure Chest Thursday many years ago about my husband’s grandfather. This autograph book has signatures from people in California and Oregon, indicating that he had work in those states in the 1890s. This post was featured in Linda Stufflebean’s Friday’s Family History Finds. Thanks!

Saturday Day Night Genealogy Fun—Create an Ancestor’s Timeline (& What to Do to Add More Detail). We were to create a timeline of an ancestor using our genealogy software program. Our timelines are only as good as the events we have entered. Many of my events are still “locked” in the Notes area, from the old days of PAF. I added sources that would help expand my research into the life of Honora Gleeson Douras beyond her BMD.

Online Study Groups & Meetings Attended: I attended three study group meetings and with one friend this week. 

• Monday Morning was lively with 18 people at one time. It was nice seeing them since I’ve been teaching on Mondays.
• Jacqueline and I met on Monday afternoon for an hour or so of conversation.
• Amigos discussed contracts and we shared our own and gave and received feedback.
• Cert Peer group decided to study DNA the next few weeks, working through Blaine’s DNA workbook. It’ll be good review.

I keep forgetting to attend the Thursday evening group and need to put it on my calendar.
Wednesday, I was able to sign up for the military class at GRIP this summer. The signup website was crazy and I was lucky to get in.

Webinars Attended: I got a few webinars in this week, though only one FGS OnDemand. The one on Canadian research got me doing some death record research:

• Christian Research: Baptists, Methodists & Lutherans by Beth Sparrow
• Telling Their Story: Adding Character to Your Genealogical Narrative by Michael D Lacopo
• African Americans in Our Military by Mike Ellicott
• Locating Ancestors in Ontario, Canada West, or Upper Canada by Janice Nickerson

Client Work/Presentations:
Tuesday, I presented the third Deed Reading & Locating class with CGS, this week demonstrating how to plat deeds and giving the students several to practice.

Volunteer & Own Work:
After the webinar on Canadian records in Ontario, I found several death records for Gleeson and Tierney ancestors and collaterals. I carefully wrote them up, creating the citations, but haven’t entered the information into RootsMagic yet. I have death events already from the church records but these civil records had a little more detail.

I also worked at the History Center for a couple of hours taking care of some queries for naturalization and court records. Few other volunteers there, so I’ll go back again next week. We had our board of directors meeting Thursday evening and I took minutes.

I led the third session of the GenProof study group on Tuesday morning. There has been good conversation and it leads to us barely finishing on time. I’ll have to figure out how to move it along better.

Other: I attended the 2021 NMRA Convention meeting on Zoom, taking minutes. We’re slowly moving along with the plans for a virtual convention.  On Saturday I attended the Coast Division meeting on Zoom and there was interesting talk about 3D printing. I attended all three of my German classes and started a short Swedish class from the Swenson Center on Zoom. I hope to learn some pronunciation of words I see in Swedish records.

We visited our daughter, Elizabeth on Sunday and were finally able to exchange our Christmas presents. Nothing like being two months late. We hiked in Petaluma at the Petaluma Wetland Trails and had dinner at Stockhome Restaurant, eating outdoors at the sidewalk. It was a wonderful day.

I also met Elaine at the meadow on Sunday where we cleared away some old Baccharis to enable us to see the pipevine and oso berry blooming and the cream bush leafing out. We also opened up to view the ribes.

I finished reading: nothing this week. I am working on:

• Cave of Bones by Anne Hillerman

Photos taken this week:

Copyright © 2021 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.