Monday Genea-pourri, Week of April 13–19, 2026

Outside activities included a trip to Sacramento, phenology, John Muir Earth Day Birthday, and a concert.  

Genealogy

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:
I drove up to Sacramento to present "How to Leave Your Genealogy" to the Sacramento Association of Genealogy. They were very receptive to the talk, asked lots of questions, and share additional suggestions. Then I drove to the Oakland FamilySearch Center and gave the presentation "Probate Records: More Than Wills."

I worked on accessions at the History Center, entering them into PastPerfect. I got the new login and password for the Online Archive of California and will work on updating collections next. On Thursday, I took minutes of the board meeting.

I turned in my press release committee report for the upcoming BCG board meeting.   

I also attended the Sonoma County Genealogical Society’s board meeting and took minutes. Yeah, we have a member who will take over the secretary position in July. I’m retiring from the board after four years.

Genealogy Meetings: I attended the Military SIG at Kinseekers. I had shared an interesting blog where she has been writing about her father’s service during WWII. We talked about a lot of subjects that lasted nearly two hours.

Genealogy Writing/Research: I continued working on the Wollenweber family and posted what I learned from full-text search. I started a biographical sketch on Ludwig Wilhelm Wollenweber, who had three wives. The research has been complicated figuring out the marriages and which children go with which wife. I will use this for my Writing for Discovery Class peer review this week. I also got started on the timeline for his wife, Philippina Voehringer, who is my husband’s ancestor.

Blog Posts Published:

Muriel Gilbert Led a Quiet Life
For the theme of “a quiet life,” I wrote about my first cousin, twice removed, Muriel Gilbert, who never married and lived at home with her mother.

12 for ’26: Full-text Search at FamilySearch for Ludwig Wilhelm (Louis W.) Wollenweber
Full-text search brought up many documents in Kentucky, Ohio, and New York, which helped locate more information about his wives and work.

SNGF: An Unexpected Record Find
I wrote about finding a mortuary document someone had uploaded to the FamilySearch Family Tree.

Webinars/Courses Viewed: I attended sessions of the course Writing for Discovery I am taking.

Other:
No hike this week because of my drive up to Sacramento. I helped the East Bay Chapter of the California Native Plants Society booth at the John Muir Earth Day Birthday celebration at the John Muir National Historic Park. We handed out little booklets to help identify trees and gave information about cigarette butts hurting the environment.

Sunday, Elaine and I attended the Lowell Ensemble at the Campbell Theater. The group is made up of musicians playing the viola, cello, keyboard, tuba, oboe, and English horn. A surprise was hearing an tenor opera singer, who had a wonderful voice. I especially love listening to the cello. The performance was a fundraiser for the John Muir Land Trust.

I am reading: 

• Happy Endings: A Yachats Cozy Mystery by Doug Yunker (a local Yachats writer) – FINISHED!
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Photos for this week.  Some shots of flowers growing in my garden.

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 © 2011-2026 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.