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Monday Genea-pourri, Week of October 21-27, 2024

I have completed two hundred and forty (240) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. Outside activities included going to the History Center, train club for our monthly show, and dinner with my sisters.

Genealogy

Genealogy Meetings:  
First was a quick meeting with the NGS conference committee. Jacqueline and I met and reviewed an electronic notebook. Wednesday at the RootsMagic SIG, Sue Severson gave a great talk on how she used RootsMagic to help her create her family books.

Genealogy Writing/Research:
I continued working on my Polly case study. Part of the work was the homework for the Assemblage class and part of it is to try to finish it. I realize I have a couple of documents I need to locate but they are not online. I have a request with the state archives in Frankfort, Kentucky and am awaiting their research.

I also continued working on the Davey problem I mentioned last week. I have determined the land Thomas and Mary Davey bought was of their daughter, Mary Jane. I don’t know when she married Henry Hawkins but do know when they divorced in Clark County, Indiana. Next time I’m at the Oakland FamilySearch Center, I’ll look at the district court records, which are locked. I worked on next week’s 52 Ancestors’ blog about the research on Mary Jane Davey.

Blog Post Published:

Lost Contact After Gorrell Family Reunion. For 52 Ancestors’ theme of “Lost Contact,” I wrote about the losing contact with the Netherton family after the 1988 reunion. Highlighted this week on Friday’s Family History Finds.

SNGF: Ask an Artificial Intelligence Agent to Create a Research Plan. I asked both ChatGPT and Perplexity to create a plan to find the parents of Amos Gorrell (1837-1928), who was born in Pennsylvania, married in Ohio, and died in Missouri. The two plans were similar.

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:
At the History Center, I worked on accessioning new items and entering them into PastPerfect. I also worked on a research query.

For AppGen, we interviewed the two candidates for our Spring session. Both will be excellent instructors. We will announce our lineup soon. I worked on creating a title for my new land class and edited the webpage.

Webinars/Courses Viewed:
I attended the seventh session of the SLIG course, Advanced Study of Death, coordinated by Gena Philibert-Ortega. We learned about military burials from the Revolutionary through World War II. Our second session was with the author of The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels, Pamela Prickett.

On Wednesday I attended the third session of the SLIG course, Assemblage: Preparing, Writing, and Revising Case Studies. We worked on ways to edit the work, by expanding or condensing paragraphs. We also had discussions about what to do and what not to do. I participated in the peer review, sending my edited work to others.

I also viewed the following webinars:

  • In a Rut: 7 Ways to Jumpstart Your Research by Elizabeth Shown Mills (LFT Webinars)
  • Common Mistakes to Avoid in Proof Arguments by Shannon Green (APG Writers SIG)

Other:
My sisters and I met for dinner at Mangia Bene. We had a nice time talking about our lives. I also met up with the San Ramon Valley Branchline guys on Zoom to discuss whether to do a presentation on modules at the OP/LDSIG meeting in Sacramento in February. I volunteered to work on the PowerPoint.

 I am reading:

  • The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels by Pamela Prickett—FINISHED!
  • Murder in Rose Hill by Victoria Thompson—FINISHED!
  • Journeys of the Forgotten: The Orphans of Hamilton County, Iowa by Jill Morelli—FINISHED!
  • The Great Hippopotamus Hotel by Alexander McCall Smith
  • Yours Truly: An Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Story by James R Hagerty

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

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