Monday Genea-pourri, Week of September 21–27, 2026

Outside activities included phenology, hikes, visit to a friend’s train layout, train club show, and three trips to the gym.

Genealogy

Genealogy Volunteer/Work:
This week, Traci, John, and I met at the History Center to continue our work with the Maffei collection. We continued sorting photos and transferred them temporarily into folders and document boxes. On Tuesday, I worked on several queries sent to the History Center.

On Saturday, I hosted the presentation of the California Genealogical Society on Zoom.

Genealogy Meetings: 
I attended the NARA SIG at Kinseekers and the Irish SIG at California Genealogical Society. week.

Genealogy Writing/Research:
I spent Thursday, Friday, and the weekend researching the Bishop family and wrote two blog posts.

Blog Posts Published:

My Grandmother Told Me the Story of her Childhood
For the theme of “What Wasn’t Written Down,” I wrote about my grandmother’s childhood.

David Shotts and Mary Wagoner of Ross County, Ohio – 12 for ‘26
I wrote about Daniel Shotts’ parents, David and Mary Shotts.

SNGF: Your Oldest Confirm Record
Randy Seaver had us write about our oldest found record. I chose a German church record from 1755.

Courses Attended: 
I attended the South Carolina Research class and watched the recordings from the America 250 class this past week. Two more weeks for these classes to overlap.   

Webinars Viewed:

• From Arrival to Archive: Part I by Reem Awad-Rashmawi  (California Genealogy Society)
• From Arrival to Archive: Part II by Reem Awad-Rashmawi (California Genealogy Society)
• 5 Ways Tax Lists Can Assist Your Pennsylvania Research by Katy Bodenhorn (Legacy Family Tree Webinars)

Other:
I went to the gym Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. On Wednesday, we hiked at Point Pinole Regional Park. I also visited a friend’s model railroad layout in Alameda and afterwards the six of us had dinner at Speisekammer. I track walked at the the Train Club show on Friday.

I am reading: 

• The Liberation Line: The untold story of how American Engineering and ingenuity won World War II by Christian Wolmar
• Das große Giggler Geheimnis by Roddy Doyle
• The Dentist by Tim Sullivan

 Photos for this week. Our hike this week was at Dotson Marsh at the Point Pinole Regional Park. It was a great day for bird watching, as we saw brown and white pelicans, red-shouldered hawk, a white-tailed kite, and oystercatchers.

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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