My Trails into the Past

I have completed two hundred and forty-nine (249) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. My outside activities were trips to the History Center (twice), Oakland FamilySearch Center, the emergency room for my husband, and to a Walking group get-together.    Genealogy Genealogy Writing/Research : On Christmas Eve day, I finished the book about my parents. It’s a digital book with photos and some text I copied from previously written blog posts. I sent this document to my siblings on Christmas Eve but I have not heard from any of them yet about what they think.  I spent a couple of days working on the children of Rueben Johnston and his first wife, Catherine. The only record I have found of Catherine is their 1870 census enumeration with the first child, Samuel. Two tombstones of their children list her as S.C. Johnston. I am not sure of Catherine’s surname or even her first name. Two daughters called her Catherine Shull or Scull on their death certificates. A Sully family ...

I say goals and not resolutions. Resolutions sound like you have to fix something. I just want to get stuff done and making a list of goals might help do that. First, let’s look at last year’s goals and my grade for it. 2024 Goals Organize photos and files . I eliminated some family file folders by scanning and recycling the papers. I have reduced two large bins to one so far, but I stopped halfway through the year because the copy machine I used at the FamilySearch Center was out of order. I need to get back to that. B for effort. Write 4 research reports and articles . I have written articles for journals, but they are how-to articles, not research reports. I just don’t like writing research reports. C- for not trying hard. Write a book on the Hork family . I did create a book about my parents using text from blog posts and photos I have. It’s digital only and I gave a copy to each of my siblings. It’s not the whole Hork family, but it’s a start. A- because it does not have citations...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him your Christmas genealogy-oriented wish list: 1) Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year? Here's mine: Since I did not ask for any genealogical gifts (or any gifts) this year, I received none. Zooming with my daughters who were with other family in Iowa and Phoenix was a highlight of the day. We opened our present from Margaret while she watched and I received some books about birds and backyard birding. Norman received books about transit. I gave a genealogy gift to my siblings. I created a digital book about our parents covering their childhood, marriage, occupations, outside activities, vacations, automobiles, and residences they lived in. It had mostly photos and some text. We ar...

Copyright © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

I just completed a photo essay book about my parents as a gift for my brother and three sisters. What I discovered as I put it together, many of the photos’ resolution were not large enough to make the images large on the page. For this book, it is currently only digital, so it does not matter. But if we want print it, I may need to re-scan the photos. Many of the photos were scanned years ago when my computer hard drive storage was much smaller. Today, images should be scanned at least at 600 dpi for a jpeg and even higher for a tiff file. A tiff file will end up very large but it is a stable format and will not change with each saving. Scanning first as a tiff is ideal. Then save as a jpeg for daily use but keep the original tiff scan untouched. So, what did I end up with some of the images? Many were under 200 kilobytes, some even under 100 kb. Here is an example of one of my parents at 62 kb. I do have many the images, so re-scanning is possible. However, the photos I borrowed to s...

I have completed two hundred and forty-eight (248) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. My outside activities were trips to the History Center (twice), to a music concert, and to Kaiser emergency.   Genealogy Genealogy Meetings:    I met with Jacqueline, and we discussed the trip to Salt Lake City for RootsTech. She worked on purchasing her flight there. On Wednesday, I attended the Certification Discussion Group and heard Elizabeth tell us about her certification journey. On Friday, I met with my long-term peer group and four of us caught up on each other’s activities. We congratulated Annette on her certification and gave pep talks to Pam. I also attended the last Oakland FamilySearch Center staff meetings of the year on Zoom. They plan to have the center open four times over the break for staff only. I hope I can go in and do some scanning. Genealogy Volunteer/Work: At the History Center on Tuesday, I continued with the same collection—this time I’m entering d...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing s is here.  Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him your Christmas genealogy-oriented wish list: Write your 2024 Genea-Santa letter. Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy? What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list? They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue in your ancestral quest. Here's mine: I hope that Genea-Santa thinks I have been a good genealogy girl. I have written family stories on my blog for all 52 weeks of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. I hosted monthly round table talks with both the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society and the California Genealogical Society. I also hosted two RootsMagic discussion sessions while Keith was on vacation. I volunteered most months at the Oakland FamilySearch Center and weekl...