Monday Genea-pourri, Week of January 27–February 2, 2025

I have completed two hundred and fifty-four (254) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. My outside activities were trips to court and county recorder’s offices four times, the bank, train club, and the Layout Design/Operations event in Sacramento.

Genealogy

This week I attended the SLIG course, Advanced Techniques: Material Culture Research, coordinated by Gena Philibert-Ortega. I was the hiveminder and was so happy my internet worked all week. On Friday, we gave presentations I talked about the opera glasses that my aunt passed down from me from her great-aunt.

Genealogy Writing/Research:

The only research I did this week was to research the opera glasses there were made by Lemaire of Paris. I found a hint to a manuscript that was given away to customers, but I couldn’t locate it anywhere online. 

Blog Posts Published:

Steps to Confront a Challenge

For the theme of challenge, I wrote about how to approach a challenging problem.

SNGF: Five Fun or Different Facts

I wrote about a fun fact in the life of my mother, father, grandmothers, and maternal grandfather..

Genealogy Meetings:   

I only met with Jacqueline and showed her the Shutterfly book that had come in the mail. It looks pretty good. 

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:

For my regular client, I went to the county recorder’s office for a marriage and death certificate and to the court clerk’s office for two divorce records. I had to go down twice to each office.

Because of the online SLIG class, I did not work at the History Center for my volunteer shift.

Webinars Viewed: 

• Across the Prairie: Land Records in the Public Land States by Jamie Lee McManus Mayhew (Sonoma Co Gen Soc)

Other:

Saturday, two friends and I went up to the California Railroad Museum for the LD/OP SIG meet. Steve and Paul gave a presentation about our module setup of the San Ramon Valley Branch. Afterward, we stayed for the other presentations and then after dinner, visited two model layouts in Elk Grove. One was unusual: it’s all in black and white, just like the photos he used to model from.

I am reading: 

Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill

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 are shots from the two layouts we visited.

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.

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