Monday Genea-pourri, Week of March 31-April 6, 2025

Genealogy

Genealogy Meetings:   

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:

It was a busy week for volunteering. On Monday, I led a small group of local members of the California Genealogical Society, which was a chance to get to know others in the area and ask questions. 

I spent two partial days at the History Center, working on a collection of scrapbooks. At the Oakland FamilySearch Center, I presented about newspaper research and had seven people in the classroom and a couple on Zoom.

For the upcoming NGS Family History Conference webinar, I worked on preparing slides about the lectures we will be having. For the BCG, I prepared the press release to send out today.

Genealogy Writing/Research:

The only writing I did this week was for the two blog posts. I printed out the Hork family book I created last Christmas. I had Staples coil bind it and I handed it out to my family at our lunch on Sunday.

Blog Posts Published:

Swedish Newspaper Gives a Better Obituary

For the theme of “Language” I wrote about how the obituary from a Swedish-language newspaper gave more information than the ones in the English-language paper.  

SNGF -- What Was Your Biggest Genealogy Wild Ancestor (Goose) Chase?

I picked two problems I have been searching for years.

Webinars/Courses Viewed: 

I attended the seventh SLIG class coordinated by Kimberly Powell. Kimberly discussed networks. Legacy Family Tree Webinars had a 24-hour marathon and I managed to view three of them, with at least three more that look interesting. 

• Using Social Security Records for Family History Research by Roslyn Torella (Kinseekers)
• Advocacy for Genealogy by Alec Ferretti (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)
• From Research to Writing: AI Tools for Genealogists by Nicole Dyer (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)
• DNA Meets the Paper Trail: Pedigree Triangulation Strategies for Early 19th Century Research by Diana Elder (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)

Other:

We had a family lunch at the Spaghetti Factory with twenty-five of us celebrating the life of my brother, Steve. His children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews, and nieces were there. Earlier in the week, I attended a friend's birthday party and had dinner with my sisters. Finally, our daughter stayed after lunch, and we walked the canal trail and had dinner at a Thai restaurant.

I am reading: 

• When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow
• Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark by David Safier (for German class—up to Chap 30)

Photos for this week. 

Our hike was at Chabot Regional Park. 

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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