I have completed two hundred and fifty (250) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. My outside activities were trips to the History Center, Oakland FamilySearch Center, phenology, haircut salon, and doctor’s appointment.
Genealogy
Genealogy Writing/Research:
This week, I spent two days researching the Haley family, particularly Mary Ann Haley and John B. Thomas’s descendants. I used the full-text search at FamilySearch to locate records of Thomas J Haley and found he was the guardian for Mary Ann’s children and was transacting business in Texas. The family originated in Rankin County, Mississippi. I followed several Thomas children across several counties in Texas, locating census, vital, newspaper, and cemetery records to fill out their profiles in my RootsMagic database.
I also researched the Cromwell Children’s Home, started by my husband’s ancestor, Nils Malkom Nilsen, and wrote the first 52 Ancestors blog post about it.
At the FamilySearch Center in Oakland, I scanned two of my daughter’s scrapbook albums using one of their extra-large flatbed scanners. I couldn’t pre-crop the pages as I scanned so will have to do some post-scanning work. I will then upload the scans to Google Drive and send the link to her. Someday, I’ll have to ship them to her.
Lastly, I got started on my lesson plans for the upcoming course on federal lands I'm teaching at Applied Genealogy Institute in March.
Blog Post Published:
For the 52 Ancestors’ theme “In the Beginning,” instead of writing about how I got started in genealogy (I’ve done that before), I wrote about how Nils Malkom Nilsen got an orphanage started.
I wrote about my goals for the new year.
Genealogy Meetings:
No genealogy meetings this week.
Genealogy Volunteer/Work:.
John and I met at the History Center again this week to work on our archiving projects. I grabbed a couple of boxes from the back room and wrote up finding aids for them and then placed the boxes in the Special Collections Room. It has felt good getting a lot of the collections on the workroom shelves completed.
Webinars/Courses Viewed:
None.
Other:
Aside from a couple of walks around the neighborhood this week, I haven’t done much but read, research, and write. I finished watching the tenth season of JAG and may start on Ironside next. Our San Ramon Valley Branch Line model group met on Zoom and Steve and Paul almost have their presentation completed. We’ll meet again this coming week to further refine it. My chest inflammation is improving. Yeah!
I am reading:
- The Science of Murder: the Forensics of Agatha Christie by Carla Valentine—FINISHED!
- Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped
- Modern America by Elizabeth S. D. Englehardt (book club book)
- A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization by John Perlin
- Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark by David Safier (for German class—will take a while to read)
Photos for this week. These were taken in my yard.
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.
Comments
Post a Comment
All comments on this blog will be previewed by the author to prevent spammers and unkind visitors to the site. The blog is open to other-than-just family members particularly those interested in family history and genealogy.
If you are family and want to be contacted, contact me at snrylisa @ gmail.com.