Monday Genea-pourri, Week of January 2–8, 2023

I have completed one hundred forty-eight (148) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I managed a few walks despite the rain and went to phenology between rain showers.

 Genealogy

Blog Writing:

I'd Like to Meet John H. Sullivan. I wrote about wanting to meet my paternal great-grandfather, John H. Sullivan, who was an Irish immigrant. I have many questions to ask him.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2023 Genealogy Goals I wrote about my three main goals.

Meetings/Discussion Groups
Surprisingly, I met with Jacqueline three times this week on Zoom, where we helped each other with our own blogs. I met with my mentee on Wednesday to catch up on her certification portfolio progress. I also attended the Certification Discussion Group where we discussed writing proof arguments like an attorney does their closing argument. On Friday, our Peer Accountability group met and we discussed our 2023 goals for the year.

Volunteer
At the History Center, I continued working on the library inventory. I discovered books missing from the inventory and that it is difficult to do alone. I must climb up and down the ladder to check off the list, which is both tiring and time-consuming. John promised to help with the inventory this coming week. For the Der Blumenbaum committee, I did some proofreading of the upcoming issue. And for BCG, I began working on the upcoming webinar press release. On Saturday, I hosted the Zoom presentation of the Introduction to Genealogy for the California Genealogical Society. Afterward, all the instructors of the committee met to plan out 2023.

Client Work
I checked on the progress of the marriage record request at the recorder’s office. I also led our Writer’s Group and it was great seeing one member’s progress on her book.

Own Work. I have been watching the World War I course taught at AppGen and collected some reference material listed in the syllabus on websites such as Internet Archive and HathiTrust. I am also reading the book California at War which is giving me ideas on some focus areas for my own World War I study of California soldiers and sailors. Particularly, I want to study further the bases on Mare Island and San Pedro, and read the newspaper of my own county during this time to see if some of the issues raised were mentioned locally.

Webinars Viewed:

• Soldiers, Spies and Farm Wives: The Changing Roles for Women During the Civil War by Jill Morelli (Seattle Genealogical Society)
• Designing with Canva for Your Genealogy, Society, or Business by Colleen Robledo Greene (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)

I am reading:

• The Children Return by Martin Walker--FINISHED!
• California At War: The State and the People During World War I by Diane M. T. North--FINISHED!
• Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge by Erica Gies

Other
I was fairly busy this week but managed to get in a few walks in the neighborhood. It rained on Wednesday, the day of the group hike. It’s fun to walk the neighborhood after a rain to see what has changed, whether damage to hillsides, trees that have fallen, or intermittent streams that have popped up. This is very true at our Strentzel Meadow. It was designed to capture the water that flows from the hillsides and funnel it into a drainage system, but at the same time, filter through the meadow slowly to go into the groundwater system. This week, there was too much water, too fast, and a stream was formed, as can be seen in the photos below. It made walking to our plants at the meadow for our phenology study more difficult.

Highlights of birds viewed this week in my yard and on my neighborhood walks: Red-shafted Flicker, American Goldfinch, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Hermit Thrush, Western Bluebird, Golden and White-crowned Sparrows, Robin, Black Phoebe, Red-tailed Hawk, and Northern Harrier. At one point, we had four flickers, four scrub jays, a mockingbird, and a robin eating from our toyon tree and pecking at bugs in the black walnut tree.

Photos for this week:

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great at 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 © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.