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Monday Genea-pourri, Week of February 28-March 6, 2022

Happy Presidents Day! I have completed one hundred three (103) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the History Center twice this week, the meadow for phenology, library to pick up a book, and a visit to Santa Rosa to our daughter’s.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Females: Our Maternal Line I wrote about my maternal line up to my great-great-grandmother. I have photos, showing six from daughters to my great-grandmother.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: RootsTech 2022. We were to write about our time at the virtual RootsTech conference.

Online Study Groups & Meetings Attended:
Online meetings included Monday Morning on Zoom, meeting with Jacqueline on Monday, my AppGen partners on Wednesday to conduct interviews for a new administrative assistant, and the Peer group on Friday to check in with everyone’s progress. It was actually a light week for meetings! Amigos is on hiatus while two members are vacationing.

Client Work/Presentations:
I gave the vital records class to the CGS introduction to genealogy series on Saturday. Fewer people are attending than at the early stages of the pandemic, probably because there are so many more options out there virtually and some places now have in-person programs. Still, we had attendees who were appreciative of the class.

Volunteer Work:
I went to the History Center on Tuesday and Saturday. We still have no email, so I continued filing and working on the Fahden Collection. On Saturday, I met with archivist Maxine to discuss how to handle a few sensitive items in collections.

Wednesday, I volunteered at the Oakland FamilySearch Library. We had a large crowd come in at 7 pm to do research and I manned the front desk.

Own Work:
I did a lot of research on the Johnston family, particularly Marion J Johnston, brother of my 2x-great-grandfather, Ruben M. Johnston. I am trying to connect the “niece” Lula Marlar to the family. I might write it up as the homework for the SLIG writing class I’m taking.

I attended the fourth session of the SLIG Academy course “Writing for Peer Review” from Karen Mauer Jones. Again, Tom Jones live-edited about seven more of the writings we turned in. He didn’t reach about half of the papers, including mine. Next up is reading an NGS article for dissecting.

I scanned the files of Johnston family at the Oakland FamilySearch Library and saved them to my computer. I did manage to get some deed records from a locked film.

Webinars Viewed: I watched quite a few webinars this week mostly from RootsTech.

  • Writing for a Genealogy Journal by Gena Philibert-Ortega
  • Moravian Memoirs: Why (and How) You Should Write One Even if You’re Not Moravian by Lynn Broderick
  • Your Ancestor’s Fan Club: Using Cluster Research to Get Past Brick Walls, Part I & II by Drew Smith
  • Boring Farmers No More by Michael John Neill
  • Lay of the Land: Introducing Land Records by David Allen Lambert
  • Lay of the Land: Strategies for Using Land Records by Ann G. Lawthers
  • Lay of the Land: Mining Homestead Records by Melanie McComb

Other:
This week I went on several walks and it is getting easier each time. I like taking the binoculars to look for birds in the neighborhood and have the cell phone to take photos of blooming flowers.

I had a hearing aid appointment on Zoom and ordered the hearing aids after consulting with the specialist. I’m looking forward to being able to hear conversations better and these will be able to bluetooth to my computer and phone.

We visited our daughter, Elizabeth, on Sunday, having brunch at a pop-up that serves at the restaurant where Elizabeth works. Then we headed for Riverfront Regional Park where we walked along the lakes there with her dog. He liked the narrow trails best and greeting other dogs. It was a very popular place as we passed many walkers and families of bikers. I was hoping to see lots of birds, but only caught a few: ducks on the lake too far away to identify, chestnut-backed chickadee, and a dark-eyed junco, besides other common birds. There were some interesting butterflies but hard to get a photo with the phone. We stopped in Healdsburg for ice cream and more walking around the square and then decided to get Thai take-out to eat at home. It was a wonderful, but long day, as we didn’t get home until 1:30 am.

I am reading:

  • Tractor Wars by Neil Dahlstrom
  • The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P Nimura
  • Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
  • Genealogical Evidence by Noel C. Stevenson
  • Research Like a Pro by Diana Elder

Photos for this week: These are from Riverfront Regional Park in Sonoma County









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 © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

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