Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Genea-Journal - 10/31/07

I really made little genealogy progress today - but I did clean up my desk a bit and caught up on some paperwork.

8:30 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. I changed my Genea-Musings blog colors from red and blue to Orange and Black for Hallowe'en. Then I found the Hallowe'en Personality web site and took the test, then posted "Your Hallowe'en Personality" to Genea-Musings. I thought up the idea of doing these daily journals and wrote up the last two days.

10:30 AM: Decided to go to the library to find the obituary for the CVGS query. I got there just in time to watch the toddler costume parade through the library - it was really cute. Some of the staff had great costumes, especially Queen Ariachnia (Kim). The microfilm machine was in use by someone else, so for the next two hours I shuffled books into their right places in the Genealogy collection, reviewed the stuff in the file cabinets and read the new issue of Everton's Genealogical Helper. I never did get to the obituary. Dropped my November CVGS flyers to the library staff. Off to McDonalds for lunch.

1:30 PM: Read email and bloglines. Worked on the Genea-Musings post "Trick or Treat?" I decided that I should try to thin my "in-box" paper stack so I input many bits of genealogy info into my databases and transferred the papers to my bookcase stacks. Such is the filing system of a geneaholic too lazy to file stuff away. This took quite awhile, and I discovered several useful things that I've been missing for awhile. At 4:30 PM, I stopped and went to watch the news.

7 PM: After dinner, I decided to write up the "Five Questions - Favorites" post on Genea-Musings. Read email and Bloglines. Then I figured out that I want to answer the question posed to me at the seminar about the future of genealogy. I Googled [future genealogy predictions] and got over 100,000 hits. Reading the first page, there were articles by Howells, Eastman and Myrtle, so I decided to review those. I wrote a blog post for tonight "The Future of Genealogy - Part 1 (1998 Version)" for Genea-Musings, and a second one for tomorrow (see, I occasionally do work ahead). Then I decided to change my blog colors to Orange and Light Blue - on Genea-Musings - do you like? Those are probably my favorite colors. Finally, I reviewed my blog statistics. Genea-Musings has the highest number of Visitors (over 6,600) and Page Views (over 10,500) ever for a month, according to SiteMeter. Woo hoo - I care, but not that much. OK, I do care a lot. So much for humility. Off at 10:30 to do dishes and read a bit.

Genea-Journal - 10/30/07

Tuesday, 31 October 2007 (cooler, cloudy, no wind, a free day for genealogy):


8:00 AM: Read email and Bloglines. Arlene and Steve are on the road - reminds me of my trips. Write Genea-Musings post on "Genealogy road trips."

9:00 AM: Answer several emails. Research a query submitted to CVGS - go search San Diego county probate index and deed index. No luck there. Checked the San Diego Union-Tribune for a 1997 obituary - nope, they start in 2000. I'll have to go to the library to find the obituary.

9:30 AM: I opened my FTM database, and decided to see what I have for my RevWar Loyalist William Hutchinson, and try to find out how he got to New Brunswick and Ontario. I found that I had already captured notes from a WorldConnect database with lots of information form published books. I reviewed all of these and edited my notes - giving credit to the database owner and keeping the book citations. I added data for the children and their spouses of William and Catherine (Lewis) Hutchinson. Are there web sites for Loyalist information? Yep - I found several - some stuff on WmHutch too. Then I wrote the post "William Hutchinson (1745-1826) Family History - Part 1" on Genea-Musings. He was a really interesting guy! These notes will provide blog fodder for quite a while! Lunch time.

1:00 PM: Back at it - checked email and Bloglines. I still have to enter more data on the ancestry of Cornelia Bresee that I found back in the spring and summer. I'm pretty sure of the Bresee line from all of the Dutch church records in the Hudson River valley - it all hangs together well. I had found data on two of the maternal lines - the Van Deusen and Dyckman families, but not on the Scism family. The Dyckman data in the 1988 book by Marjorie Chamberlain is excellent - well sourced and very complete. I entered the vital records data and summarized the notes for four generations. Good stuff. Where did the time go? It's 5 PM - time for O'Reilly and dinner.

6:30 PM: Checked email and Bloglines. Wrote the "Testing 411.com to Find Living People" post on Genea-Musings. Printed out an ahnentafel report for Cornelia Bresee. I thought I could find something funny about haunted houses or cemetery apparitions in the historic newspapers - but I didn't find a lot of useful blog material. There were lots of long stories, but few short stories suitable for a blog post. Wasted a lot of time, I guess.

10:00 PM: I'm done...check my blog statistics and then go wash the dishes, read my book, watch the news. Yawn.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Genea-journal - 10/29/07

I thought I would try a genealogy journal just to see how much time I spend on genealogy research.

Monday, October 29, 2007 (warm, high clouds, still):

8:00 AM: Read my email, checked Bloglines, wrote a post " 'Mastering Family Search' Videos" on Genea-Musings. Got my stuff together for the CVGS meeting. Programs, speaker handouts, syllabus copies, poster boards, sign, all set. Go to post office, then library. Enter auditorium early, put stuff out, wait for everybody else.

10:00 AM: Library doors open, speaker there - good. Uh-oh - the projector didn't make it, Gary goes to get it. Meet and greet while sign-ins occur. Start the meeting in the auditorium, go through agenda, no surprises. Gary comes with projector - hooks it up quickly, everything works. Speaker starts presentation - a good one!

12 noon: Speaker ends, we ask for questions. Thank you, here's certificate, clap-clap. Have some snacks, then go to lunch with speaker and 4 board members at Marie Callender's. We had a great conversation.

2:30 PM: Go Home. Post "Della's Journal - Week 44" on Genea-Musings. Hey, I printed off all of that Lewis and LaTourette surname material - I should put it into FamilyTreeMaker. I do that - including notes from old books found on Ancestry. The Lewis data in a WorldConnect database looks very good. I should check the LDS databases and see if the names/dates/places are in original records for NYC, Long Island and Staten Island. Nope - some are in LDS submitted family group sheets and sealings, but not in town records. There are birth and christening dates for some - probably taken from Bible records - I wonder where they are? Printed film notes for some sources. 5 PM - Dinner time.

7:00 PM: Wrote post on Genea-Musings for the "Digging Up the Un-Dead" program today. Check my email again, and Bloglines for posts. What now? Work on finding Hallowe'en oriented names in the WorldConnect databases. Didn't I do this last year? Yep - add to it, make it look like a new post. Posted on Genea-Musings "Hallowe'en Names." Go watch TV and read my book.

10:00 PM: Check my email and Bloglines, then check blog statistics and go do the dishes. 10:30 PM - Yawn.