My Trails into the Past

Happy Presidents Day! I have completed one hundred three (103) weeks of semi-lock down due to Covid-19. I went out to the History Center twice this week, the meadow for phenology, library to pick up a book, and a visit to Santa Rosa to our daughter’s. Genealogy Blog Writing : Females: Our Maternal Line I wrote about my maternal line up to my great-great-grandmother. I have photos, showing six from daughters to my great-grandmother. Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: RootsTech 2022. We were to write about our time at the virtual RootsTech conference. O nline Study Groups & Meetings Attended: Online meetings included Monday Morning on Zoom, meeting with Jacqueline on Monday, my AppGen partners on Wednesday to conduct interviews for a new administrative assistant, and the Peer group on Friday to check in with everyone’s progress. It was actually a light week for meetings! Amigos is on hiatus while two members are vacationing. Client Work/Presentations : I gave the vital re...

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. I have completed fifty-four (54) weeks of semi- “lock down” due to Covid-19. This past week, I went out to the History Center, to Kaiser for my second vaccine shot, and to Lafayette for a walk around the reservoir and dinner for my birthday. Genealogy Blog Writing : Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – “Who Was Your First Ancestor Born in …” . I wrote about both my ancestors and my husband’s ancestors who were first born in the New World. Some were born during colonial times and some were more recent immigrants. Week 12: Loss--John E Lundquist . I wrote about the losses John felt in his lifetime, from death of two wives to the loss of his eye sight and use of his right arm from serving during the Civil War. Online Study Groups & Meetings Attended:  I a...

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 Blog Writing : I wrote the following blog post this week: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For week 16, our theme was “out of place.” I wrote about how another researcher helped me find out what happened to my 2x great grandmother, Martha Jane (Polly) Lancaster. For Saturday Night Genealogy Fun , I wrote about the day my paternal grandfather, William Cyril Hork, was born, by looking at newspapers and online sites about events on 10 July.   Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   "Transcribing Documents" by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, CG "Tracing Female Ancestors in WWI Military and Non-Combatant Records" by Debra M Dudek, MSc “Boost Your Germanic Research: Understand Historical Juris...

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 Blog Writing : I wrote the following blog post this week: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For week 14, our theme was Brick Wall. I wrote about trying to find the father of David Shotts, my husband’s third great-grandfather.   Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   “One Touch Genealogy” given by Thomas MacEntee at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. He had great pointers about culling all of the information you can from a document and to place “to do” items that you think of onto a separate sheet so you don’t get distracted until you are done. In my Thursday evening certification study group, we spoke about transcriptions to abstracts. It was a good discussion and I shared my homework from Chap...

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 Blog Writing : I wrote the following blog post this week: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks  For week 9, I wrote about my first visit to a courthouse for research in Erath County, Texas. Wish I knew then what I know now—I would have gathered a lot more. (Also wished digital cameras were used then, too!)   Webinars/Study Groups Attended:   I attended: “Spreadsheets 401,” by Mary Kircher Roddy for Legacy FamilyTree Webinars “Hear Them Sing! Social History in Your Family Narrative” by Rebecca Koford, CG for RootsTech 2019 I also attended the Sacramento German Genealogy Society 's meeting on a very rainy day. Marilyn Simleness presented a great talk on "The California Great Registers, and other Poll ...

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 continued working on deed records for the Lancaster family, getting the deeds in Erath County, first by recording the deeds from the grantee and grantor indexes so I have a full record, and beginning to collect the actual deeds. I ran out time and will continue the next time I’m at the Oakland FamilySearch Library later this month. These records are not available from home. I found more ship arrival records for Thomas N. Davey, the son of my husband’s 2x-great-grandfather, who lived in Joplin, Missouri. I was surprised by the number of times he visited England. I wish I knew which family members he visited. I also worked on the homework for the American Genealogy Study Group with DearMyrtle which we will have on Wednesday. These chapters co...

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 helped a researcher who came into the History Center this week to do some research in court records on men from China. She actually found quite a bit of information in our loose files. We had a very nice conversation with Tom Jones at our Writers SIG meeting. He gave us some great tips about writing and editing. What I took away from the talk: write about the person, not the research. Find the theme and weave that into the story: introduce it, draw it out in the narrative, and then end with theme. Watched a webinar about numbering genealogies, given by Alice Vogt Veen and then made more changes to my numbering in my KDP.  I have decided that I’m done making changes. It still matches the examples in Numbering Your Genealogy but I lea...