Monday Genea-pourri, Week of December 13–19, 2021

I have completed ninety-two (92) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out twice to the History Center, to the Meadow for phenology, and to the Campbell Theater for a winter concert, where we had a vax card and ID checked as well as our temperature. Everyone wore masks (except the performers, of course).

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

52 Ancestors—Week 50: Lines—Joseph Norman Gorrell Was a Telephone Lineman I wrote about the records that document Joe’s work as a lineman.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Your Most Vivid Memories of Christmas Time I picked one theme of Christmas trees and wrote about my childhood and adult trees I have had.

Online Study Groups & Meetings Attended: Jacqueline and I met on Monday. I also attended Amigos and the Peer Group this week. The Certification Discussion Group had three people describe their organization method and I wrote up mine and uploaded the file to the group.

ClientWork/Presentations:
I presented my farming talk to the Sacramento Public Library on Saturday.

Volunteer Work
At the History Center, I entered more books into the database and finished cleaning up the books in the new library. It is starting to look pretty good. On Saturday, I met with Maxine to discuss how to deal with some of the parts of the Pleasant Hill Historical Society collection. We also figured out how to make room for some of the collections. The Board meeting was Thursday and I took minutes.

Own Work:
I transcribed some of the deeds I acquired from the Erath County, Texas website for the Johnston family. I also started thinning out the Kethley family files, tossing old photocopies. I have some written notes and decided to type them up in Word instead of scanning them. This way, I think about them and make new research plans. Many of the earlier research (1996) I did with this family are all from books. Now, I want to get to the original records and will make plans to seek them out on FamilySearch. If they are locked, I can go to the Oakland FamilySearch library in the next two weeks and to do research on their computers.

Webinars Viewed:

• Death by Undue Means: Coroner’s Records by Judy G. Russell
• Contract Building Blocks by Judy G. Russell
• Navigating the NARA Website by Julie Miller

Other: I felt a little under the weather this week with a sinus headache that never seemed to end. So, I ended up taking naps each day and reading a lot. We set up a Bluetooth speaker system so I could listen to the stereo, which is in Norman’s office, with speakers in my office without bothering him. I have been listening to my Christmas LPs. They are such great old friends. Lastly, Sunday, I attended a concert by the Lowell Ensemble at the Campbell Theater downtown with Elaine. The ensemble was made up of flute/piccolo player, a tuba player, a keyboard player, and an oboe/English horn player. The music was wonderful.

I am reading:

• Gospel According to the Klan by Kelly J. Baker
• Dear Santa by Debbie Macomber--FINISHED
  
• Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History by Richard Edwards, Jacob K Friefeld, & Rebecca S. Wingo
• The Christmas Wedding Guest by Susan Mallery

Photos for this week:

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.

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