My Trails into the Past

I have completed one hundred fifteen (115) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I spent most of the week in Sacramento attending the National Genealogical Society’s conference. I was masked most of the time: in the conference center, in the hotel, and in restaurants. Genealogy Blog Writing : Three Generations of Yearbook Photos I found the senior year photos of my paternal grandmother, her four children including my dad, and my own photo. Great Adventures at the NGS Conference 2022 Instead of the normal post Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, which Randy Seaver did not do because of his hospital stay, I wrote about my adventures at the NGS conference. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: Just the NGS Conference. See the above blog post for details. Client Work/Presentations : I held my last Writing Workshop class on Monday morning before heading off to Sacramento with Jacqueline. We decided to meet once a month during the summer until fall classes. Volunteer W...

The 2022 conference of the National Genealogical Society ended at 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I attended five days of presentations given by genealogy experts from around the country. The conference was held at the SAFE convention center in Sacramento. This was the first in-person NGS conference since the beginning of the pandemic. The ground rules by NGS for attending made this conference feel pretty safe. We had to show our updated vaccination cards to receive a wristband and wear a mask the entire time we were in the convention center unless eating or drinking. The rooms were large enough that people could sit in every other seat and have that comfort of distance. The presenters took off their masks while presenting but they were far from the first row. There were fewer people than expected, so the halls and restrooms were not too crowded between classes. When we picked up our badges, we were given the option to place colored dots on our name badge to signify our comfort level...

The earliest yearbook photo we have in our family is of my paternal grandmother Anna Marie Sullivan, who attended the Montana State Normal College (now University of Montana Western) and who graduated in 1914. This was a school to train teachers and that is what she did after graduating until she married in 1922. Her yearbook is full of other photos of her and I have written about the activities and included the photos in previous blog posts, here and here . The second generation includes Anna’s four children. Lorene graduated from Chaffey Union High School in Ontario in 1940. Virginia graduated from Napa High School in Napa in 1942 June graduated from Napa High School in 1944. I am not sure if this is her yearbook photo, but it is all I have. Bill graduated from Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, California in 1950. Lastly, the third generation: my senior photo from Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, California in 1972. #52Ancestors-Week 21: Yearbook—Three Generations of Yearbo...

I have completed one hundred fourteen (114) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I was too super busy this week. On Monday, I did a court pull and then met Jacqueline at the Walnut Creek library where we worked some until lunch, which we had at a Mexican restaurant. Afterwards I want to shop, so we went to Macy and got some outfits for the upcoming trip to Sacramento and the NGS conference. Tuesday, I got a haircut before going to the history center. Wednesday was at the Oakland FamilySearch Library volunteer shift. Thursday, I had a historical society board meeting at the Museum of San Ramon. Friday, I went to Ukulele club at the senior center. Saturday, we had an outdoor book sale. On Sunday, I went to the first in-person Coast Meet, and Susan came along to sell the rest of Bill’s trains. I wore masks all those days except Monday. Genealogy Blog Writing : Mom Made Our Clothes .  I wrote about my mother sewing clothes for us. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Fin...

   It's  Saturday Night  -  time for more  Genealogy Fun!   Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to: 1)  How many entries are there on  Find A Grave  for your exact current surname, and the birth surnames of your grandparents?  What about your spouse's grandparents birth surnames? Here's mine: I use Find a Grave a lot and it is the source with the most entries in my genealogy database software, RootsMagic. Of the surnames I have, I would guess that Johnston will have the most.  Below are the match numbers for surnames I’m researching, listed in alphabetical order. See if I am right. Coor : 1,761 matches. Davey : 19,448 matches. Gleeson : 9,225 matches. I didn’t expect that many for that spelling variation. Hork: 2,781 matching records. Scrolling through some of them, I see the ones who are in my family, others that seem to be buried in Catholic cemeteries, and others buried in Jewish cemeteri...

Having a large family sometimes made it tough to stay within budget. One way to keep expenses down was to shop using coupons, buy items that are on sale, cook your own food, and make your own clothes. My mother managed to do all of that. I have a few photos showing the outfits she made for us. This first shot is of her four oldest children. She made the outfits I think for the photo shoot. The photos were taken in black and white and when I tried to colorize the photo, the print of the fabric did not come out the correct color. These dresses and shirts were green gingham. Once, we took a train ride and she had us all wear these same outfits. I think it made it easier for her to spot us on the train and train platform, and it made it easier for the train conductor to see that we were all together. Mom also had a dress made of the same gingham.  She shopped at the nearby J.C. Penney for fabric, always starting at the sale bin of remnants. When I look at the prices for fabric back...

I have completed one hundred thirteen (113) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the history center, the county court clerk offices in both Martinez & Richmond, Kaiser to get a booster shot, the dentist for a cleaning, and to the train club over the weekend for a two-day show. Genealogy Blog Writing : Eating Out with Family   I wrote about our family traditions on eating out and celebrating. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Surnames in Your Family Tree Database I wasn’t surprised to discover which were the greatest number of surnames in my file. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended:  On Tuesday, I attended the Sonoma County Genealogical Society's board meeting on the possibility that I'll join as recording secretary in July. On Wednesday, I had a full day with study groups. I met with my certification mentee, the Certification Discussion Group, the Amigos, and with the CGS Roundtable. I attended the CCCGS annual meeting on Thursd...

It's  Saturday Night  - time for more  Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to: 1) Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to Count how many surnames you have in your family tree database. 2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task. 3)  Tell us how many surnames are in your database and, if possible, which Surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!  Or 10!!  Or 20!!! 4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on Facebook, or in Google Plus Stream post. Here's mine. I use RootsMagic 8 and followed Randy’s instructions on how he did it, since I had not yet explored the reports part of the newest version of RootsMagic. I have 42 pages of surnames when I create the alphabetical lis...

I have many memories of eating out with my family. In the early 1960s, when we were very young, my parents ate often at an Italian restaurant in Antioch. It was the type of Italian restaurant served the meal in different courses. My parents ate the shrimp cocktail; we ate the antipasti. They had the soup; we ate the spaghetti. They ate steak; we ate spumoni. They might have paid a little extra to make sure we got our dishes, but probably not very much. One thing I remember most are the other diners who would stop by our table and compliment our parents on how well we behaved. Oh, we behaved well in restaurants. If we didn’t, Mom would squeeze our arm above the elbow and whisper quietly in our ear to stop whatever we were doing, and we would hear more about it when we got home. There were no devices in those days to keep us busy and quiet. We sat there quietly and spoke among ourselves. Later, when the family was complete with six children, we didn’t eat out much. Sometimes for trea...

I have completed one hundred twelve (112) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the history center, the Oakland FamilySearch Library, the Contra Costa County Recorder’s office, and out to dinner on Mother’s Day. Genealogy Blog Writing : Lela Nell Johnston Elected as Social Secretary   I wrote about my mother’s social activities in her freshman year at high school. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Excites You About Genealogy? Genealogy does excite me and I wrote about those things. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: Jacqueline and I met, still making plans for our research trips. At our AppGen meeting, we decided to announce our fall classes and discussed how we would promote them. Friday, the Der Blumenbaum team met to discuss what needs to be done for the July issue. Client Work/Presentations : I presented to last intermediate class at the Adult School this week. I presented my Research Plans talk to the Fiske Genealogy Library in Seat...

It's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to: 1)  What excites you about genealogy research?  What part of performing genealogy and family history research really excites you - what keeps you coming back day after day? Here’s mine: Generally, I spend four to five hours a day on some type of genealogy. Some days more, some days less. I have “completed” much of the genealogy of my children’s ancestors up to the five generations and nearly finished up to six, with a couple of exceptions: research in Counties Cork and Tipperary, and a Swedish line. Besides the direct ancestors, I have spent a lot of time researching collateral family members in each generation, at least by a generation or two. Any research that I do now is mostly filling in details about land, probate, and tax records as I write biographies of the family. As new digital images come online, I replace digital for paper copies in my files. I have...

Last week I showed how ephemera from our family archive documents the story of Dave Lundquist. This week I can show that again. My mother, Lela Nell Johnston, was a social butterfly when she was in high school. She was elected as social secretary for the Freshman class. [1] Lela was pictured twice in that year’s yearbook on the Freshman class pages, once as a class officer and once in the freshman class photo. [2] After only one month as a freshman., there was already an article in the school newspaper about freshmen going steady. It was in the column “Vacuum Cleaner” in the Acalanes Blueprint . [3] She was going steady with John Reynolds. I did not find John Reynolds in the yearbook. In October 22, she was reported as breaking up with Bob Stewart at the end of the previous week. [4] Bob Stewart was a sophomore. In the sophomore class, I found a B Stewart. [5] In another issue, Vacuum Cleaner column listed Lela Nell dancing with senior Ron Maatta, [6] He is found in the yearbook....