My Trails into the Past

The 2022 conference of the National Genealogical Society ended at 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I attended five days of presentations given by genealogy experts from around the country. The conference was held at the SAFE convention center in Sacramento. This was the first in-person NGS conference since the beginning of the pandemic. The ground rules by NGS for attending made this conference feel pretty safe. We had to show our updated vaccination cards to receive a wristband and wear a mask the entire time we were in the convention center unless eating or drinking. The rooms were large enough that people could sit in every other seat and have that comfort of distance. The presenters took off their masks while presenting but they were far from the first row. There were fewer people than expected, so the halls and restrooms were not too crowded between classes. When we picked up our badges, we were given the option to place colored dots on our name badge to signify our comfort level...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans It's  Saturday Night  again – Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment this week from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing : 1) Think about your genealogy career - have you taken a "genealogy or family history vacation?" 2) Tell us about one (or more) of them - where did you go, what research did you do, did you meet family members, etc. 3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post. Please leave a link in a comment to this post. Here's Mine: I think my best genealogy vacation was when my daughters and I took a road trip to Idaho and Montana, with a stop through Wyoming to visit Yellowstone National Park. We had just purchased a new 1999 Ford Explorer and it had no plates yet, so everywhere we went, no one knew we were tourists (at least no one knew we were from California). Sightseeing The first few days were spent sightseeing. We had no real plans—just drove and...

One of the main goals I had accomplished by the end of 2018 was submitting my portfolio to the Board for the Certification of Genealogists and becoming certified. It was a major accomplishment and I thought would lead to more opportunities in the new year. However, during 2019, I had no new major clients and research projects, but did have many clients who needed quick record retrievals. I also did not have many speaking engagements. By looking back on what I did accomplish, I was still very active with genealogy throughout the year. I would say, except for the days when I was traveling with family, I spent at least an hour on genealogy, either researching my own family, writing about the research, or learning from blog posts and webinars given by other genealogists. Client Work: 5 document retrieval clients, one very steady 1 record transcription client 1 deed research client 1 phone consultation client Education: Attended SLIG, taking “Advanced Southern R...

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great 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. Genealogy I finished four out of the five lessons for the Intermediate Skills 2 course I will be teaching in October & November at the Oakland FamilySearch Library on behalf of the California Genealogical Society. I plan to work on the fifth class after getting some input from the students so I can tailor it to their wants. I viewed only one webinar this week: “Methods For Identifying The German Origins of American Immigrants,” by Michael D. Lacopo, and participated in the DearMyrtle AmericanGen Study Group on Wednesday. We discussed researching online. I attended the Sacramento German Genealogical Society meeting and learned about using the State Library resources. This week my volunteer work was at the Oakland Family Search Center . I sat with...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. Genealogy Intermediate Class . The third class in this six-week series was about land records. I covered both federal and local land records and created a couple of exercises. It took nearly 2.5 hours. I don’t think I have that much time at the Oakland class. I’ll have to cut something, I’m sure. History Center . Had a busy week at the History Center. Tuesday, I spent time working on the client’s work, and making copies for the high school event on Thursday. Sixty-plus students from Deer Valley H.S. came to the center as one of three stops (they also visited Alhambra Cemetery and the John Muir house). At the center there were five groups they rotated through and my station was in the county room. I spoke about the tax assessment books, showing them Mrs. Louie ...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. Genealogy Monday, I started the 6-week Intermediate Class sponsored by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society and the Concord Family History Center. The class is two hours long and held at the Concord FHC. There are six participants and the first lesson was about forming good research questions, creating a research plan, and then completing a research report after the research. Tuesday, I worked at the Contra Costa County Historical Society’s History Center . I’d been gone over six weeks, so there was a lot of work to catch up on. One query looks very interesting and I look forward to working on it next week. Wednesday, I began a new volunteer position at the Oakland FamilySearch Library . A bunch of members of the California Genealogical Society have v...

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. Genealogy I have written the blog post for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks , this week about an heirloom made by my father-in-law. I also did a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post about which ancestors were alive in 1900. I used the 1900 U.S. Federal census records to determine this. No work was done on my portfolio, but I did meet with my certification discussion group this week for a short time. My internet connection was spotty on the train as we were passing through the rural areas outside of Santa Barbara. I continued to worked on the lesson plans, primarily for the Immigration and Naturalization class for the upcoming Intermediate classes that I’m teaching in March for the CCCGS and Concord FHC, and in May for CGS at the Oakland FHC. There is so much to...

Randy Seaver’s Genea-Musing has another challenge for us. Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to: 1)  What was your best research achievement in 2017?  Tell us - show us a document, or tell us a story, or display a photograph.  Brag a bit!  You've earned it! 2)  We all have elusive ancestors.  What research problem do you want to work on in 2018?  Tell us where you want to research and what you hope to find. 3)  Put the answers in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. 2017 Finds Oh, I wished I had kept track of all of my good finds. I’ll have to do better this year! I found good stuff on my Gleeson, Sullivan, and Lundquist families by researching from home, researching on location in South Dakota, and by having others do research or record pulls for me at recorder’s offices, historical societies, and courthouses. Since I am using t...

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow . I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’sSouthern Family or at My Trails Into the Past . I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. This first week is about “Starting.” How did I get started in this ever addicting activity? Susan Swindell, who was my two daughter’s babysitter, took a yearly trip to Salt Lake City at the Family History Library. I couldn’t understand how she could spend six days in a library doing genealogy research from the time it opened until it closed. So she took me to Sutro Library in San Francisco. This library is part of the California State Library but has resources that are great for genealogists. At the time it was in its own building, but now it is on a floor of the library at San Francisco State University. There she showed me how to look up census records on microfilm. I started with the 1920 census, as it was ...

Another assignment from Randy Seaver at Genea-musing : Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to: 1)  What was your best research achievement in 2016?  Tell us - show us a document, or tell us a story, or display a photograph.  Brag a bit!  You've earned it!   2)  We all have elusive ancestors.  What research problem do you want to work on in 2017?  Tell us where you want to research and what you hope to find.   3)  Put the answers in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post. My biggest accomplishment in my research in 2016 was finding the probate packet for Robert Lancaster. This was a big estate and the inventory was several pages. What excited me most was learning that he had two whiskey stills. I wanted to learn all about how whiskey was made in the 1840s and I even got to taste some bourbon whiskey. I made the posts on my ...