Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Mar 18–24, 2024

I have completed two hundred and eleven (211) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. This week besides the History Center, I met with my sisters for dinner at Jack’s. 

Genealogy

Genealogy Meetings:  
Jacqueline and I met twice this week. The second time was a citation emergency that I helped her through with the help of the new Evidence Explained, fourth edition. Sunday, I met with book club and we talked about Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell. I had read the book back in December so I could give it to my daughter for Christmas, so I was a little fuzzy about the details.

Genealogy Writing/Research:
I spent most of my free time entering downloaded records into RootsMagic, creating citations (having to locate the doc again at FamilySearch to capture the URL and other details), and writing up mini-proof arguments for child-parent relations. I mostly worked with Amos Gorrell and Joseph, his son, but I worked on other families as well.

Blog Post Published:

Doing Things Mechanical. For 52 Ancestors, I wrote about myself and how I love things mechanical. I joined a model railroad club when in college and volunteered at a trolley museum for many years, repairing tracks and rebuilding trolley cars.

SNGF: Where did your Ancestors Live in 1900? I wrote about who in my husband’s family was alive in 1900.

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:
On Tuesday at the History Center, I worked on queries. I pulled resources out for researchers and sent an image that was purchased. I also added more subjects for books in the library. By mistake, I went on Saturday and wondered why no one else came. Then I figured out it was the fourth Saturday. I ended up staying three-plus hours and got a lot done with the library database and filing things in the clipping files.

Webinars/Courses Viewed: Webinars this week were very interesting. Jill’s webinar was about 18^th Century Swedes but the methodology was transferable to any type of research looking for a person’s parent. The AI webinar was interesting but I am not interested in making images—they look so fake to me. Loved Elizabeth Shown Mills’ presentation and she showed many techniques to get more out of census records. I learned about a new tool in Word and how to make jagged edges on images from Diane.

• Maternal Threads Unwoven: Identifying Margareta’s Mother in 18th Century Sweden by Jill Morelli (BCG/LFT Webinars)
• 7 Tips for Using AI as Your Genealogy Assistant by Dana Leeds (LFT Webinars)
• How to Write about DNA for Your Clients by Paul Woodbury (APG Writers SIG)
• Census Clues: Sweet Potato Simon, White Potato Willie & Cows that Grow Wool by Elizabeth Shown Mills (LFT Webinars)
• Write Faster with Word Editing Tips (Tech Zone) by Diane Boumenot (LFT Webinars)
• Add a Torn Edge to an Image (Tech Zone) by Diane Boumenot (LFT Webinars)

Other:
On Monday, I birded again with the Mt. Diablo Bird Alliance this time at Valle Vista.  Saw six new birds for this year’s list: Bewick’s wren, Violet-green swallow, wood duck, Cooper’s hawk, ring-necked duck, and band-tail pigeon.

I pulled more weeds, this time in my native garden, getting about three-quarters done before our next rain storm.  

I am reading:

• Board to Death by CJ Connor
• Germans in America by Walter D. Kamphoefner

Photos for this week. Some neighborhood wildflowers and redbuds starting to bloom.

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 © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.