Thursday, November 29, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/29/07

Genealogy today took a back seat to life -- this morning I went to the Post Office, the bank, the shopping center, and Costco for lunch, then went for a walk after lunch with George on the bay, and stopped at the library - got two books. Got gas on the way home. Took a nap from 2 to 3, then cut the lawn from 3:30 to 4:30. Watched the Cowboys-Packers game over dinner, and friends came over for awhile tonight. Watched ER at 10.

8:30 a.m. Read my email and Bloglines. Posted the Internet Genealogy TOC and then Dear Genea-Santa on Genea-Musings. Then it was off to do the chores.

1:00 p.m. Checked my email and Bloglines. Answered several emails. Read my news/politics sites. Sleepy - took a nap.

7:00 p.m. Halftime of the football game. Read Jasia's post, then Kathryn's blog, and found the Rencher presentation about societies - so I wrote "Should Gen Societies Go Virtual?" Tried to save the PDF, but found that I saved it two years ago. Friends came, watched some TV later, then ER.

11:00 p.m. Checked stats, wrote this post, off to bed.

Genealogy today: 3.0 hours at most, blogging 2.0 hours, email and Bloglines 1.0 hour.

We go to Julian on Friday for the weekend, so I may not do any genealogy work or even have internet access until Sunday afternoon. I'm taking the laptop though just in case.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/28/07

This was a heavy genealogy day, but not much new was accomplished.

8:00 a.m. Read my email and Bloglines. Printed the "genealogy news of the month" to present at the CVGS meeting. Wrote and posted "MyHeritage is a super genealogy site" on Genea-Musings. Worked quite a bit in MyHeritage trying links to databases. Left at 9:45 a.m.

10:00 a.m. Went to the Chula Vista library for the CVGS Research Group meeting. Had 11 attendees. Meeting summary is here. After the meeting, gave December flyers to Susi and to the library person to post. Had lunch at McDonalds, then home by 12:30.

12:30 p.m. Sent the genealogy news out via email to the CVGS mailing list. Posted it on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog here, then wrote up the Research Group meeting summary. Copied the latter to Genea-Musings. Posted my NFL picks for this week on the Busy Life blog. Checked the news and politics sites, but got sleepy, so took a nap and watched the news until dinner. Then I watched the Pubbies "debate" on CNN - questions from whackos.

7:15 p.m. Back to reading email and Bloglines. Saw the APG post about the TGN patent. Went through my photo gallery to find pictures of my aunt Gerry at different ages for the Journal. Finished the last three pages of the Family Journal. Printed three more sides, only two left to do tomorrow. Researched and posted the Ancestry Patent post here. Downloaded the plug-in so I could read patents online, then searched for genealogy and family history patents. Not many! Will finish this post, check the stats, then go wash the dishes and watch some news before bed.

Genealogy time today: 8.5 hours total - CVGS related 3.0 hours, blogging 1.5 hours, Family Journal 2.0 hours, researching 1.5 hours, email and Bloglines 0.5 hours.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/27/07

A strange day. I went to my physical therapy at 8 a.m., then drove the new expressway (free until Monday) to see the scenery, and ended up at Plaza Bonita, a shopping center. In the parking lot, I must have run over something that punctured my tire. When I left the center, the tire was flat by the time I got onto the freeway to go home. There is no shoulder on that stretch, so I drove another mile and finally ended up at the 7-11. The tire was shredded. I called AAA, and it took 45 minutes for him to find me. He changed the tire, and I went to the tire store and got a new one installed. I finally got home at about 1 p.m.

Genealogy today started at 1 p.m. I read my email and Bloglines, and decided to post about the newspaper article that appeared on Sunday in the Union-Tribune about the gravestone project. That done, I wrote a post to try to get someone to contact me - he commented on a post in October but didn't leave a contact eddress. I went off and read my news and politics sites and then Linda wanted to use her email so I went over and talked to the neighbors.

After dinner, I got back on the computer, and started gathering the "news of the month" for the CVGS Research Group on Wednesday. That took over an hour. I read the new issue of Internet Genealogy, and visited several web sites mentioned that were new for me, and blogged about www.familytreesearcher.com. Then I printed off a sample passport application and some township maps for show and tell at the CVGS group. After that, I played around on Ancestry for awhile while printing off the Journal pages I have completed. I now have 25 copies of 11 of the 16 pages printed.

Genealogy time today - 5.5 hours, 1.5 hours blogging, 2.0 hours CVGS related, 0.5 hour Journal, 0.5 hours researching, and 1.0 hours reading.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/26/07

Monday was a pretty "full" and "fun" genealogy day. The only breaks were for eating, reading and driving.

8:30 a.m. - Read my email and Bloglines. Got my stuff together for the CVGS meeting - flyer masters, program masters, speaker certificate, last newsletter, SDGS flyers, briefcase, yep - all set. In retrospect, I forgot the big CVGS publicity boards - they stayed in the garage all day! At 9, I left for the copy shop and made the needed copies for the program and the flyers for our December meeting. Then it was off to the Post Office to pick up the mail, and then to the library. I got in about 9:45 and set out the handouts, opened the mail, set up the podium in the auditorium, and was ready to greet the folks when they entered at 10 a.m. Several others come in before the doors open to set up the auditorium, set out the refreshments, have the signup sheet ready, and be ready to sell raffle tickets.

At 10:20 a.m., I called the meeting to order - we had 33 in attendance today. After a 30 minute business meeting, our program chair introduced the speaker. I posted about the program in "Georgie Stillman presented a wonderful program" on Genea-Musings, so I won't recount it here. After the presentation, we scarfed up the food in the conference Room, cleaned up and went off to lunch. Unfortunately, Georgie couldn't join us. After lunch at Panera with 6 colleagues, I headed home.

2 p.m. - Reflected on a great program today. Decided to write this week's Della's Journal entry here, then wrote my post about the program. I read my email and Bloglines and took some time to read my politics and news sites. In email, a correspondent asked for some comments about genealogy blogging so I responded with my normal prolixity. Then it was dinner time!

7:00 p.m. - After dinner and reading the paper, I came back determined to work a bit on the Christmas Family Journal. I have 11 pages (out of 16) pretty much done, so I decided to start the printing process. For two hours, the printer clicked away on 25 copies of 6 pages. I had to replace both HP ink cartridges, but only lost 5 pieces of paper. I'll do the back sides tomorrow night. While printing I first looked on Ancestry for newspaper articles for several of my ancestors but had no luck whatsoever. Then I watched four Roots TV segments, and posted about them in "Cruising with Eastman" on Genea-Musings. Then I posted two of my Genea-Musings posts on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog. I'm done for the night - gotta finish this, check my stats, do the dishes and go read my book until slumber creeps over me.

In a comment to yesterday's post, Barbara asked for an explanation of this Family Journal. I posted about this in "My Family History Journal." This is my 20th edition, and will feature articles about my Aunt Geraldine and Uncle Jim, including my remarks at Gerry's service; pictures and narrative about the Seaver family houses in Leominster; the biography and will of Job Card (1653-1739) of RI; some family event news; some pictures of Gerry; the Union Case with Isaac and Lucretia Seaver; our cousinhood to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, an article about Jonas and Mary (Loker) Prescott; and a family history quiz. Quite a bit of this year's edition has already appeared in Genea-Musings previously, so some of it was a cut-and-paste job, which reduces the writing task a bit.

Genealogy today - 9.5 hours, blogging 1.5 hours, Journal 1.5 hours, CVGS program and lunch 4.5 hours, watching RootsTV 1.0 hour, reading email and Bloglines 1.0 hour.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/25/07

Sunday is almost always a genealogy day of rest - or it should be, especially during football season. My online time was limited today by going to church, watching the Chargers game (they won 32-14 - a good effort for a change), going shopping with Linda after dinner (got more 9x12 envelopes and CD mailers), helping wrap and pack stuff for overseas, and then watching Desperate Housewives tonight.

My genealogy effort was devoted to writing the Best of the Genea-Blogs post, and the Family Survival Kit post, on Genea-Musings before the game, then the Conferences, Cruises, Seminars, Societies, Webinars and Videos post after we got home from shopping.

In addition, I created the program for our CVGS meeting on Monday, the program flyer for December and the speaker's certificate. I'll take the program and flyer to the copy shop on Monday for copies to hand out at the program.

While researching the Conferences, etc. post, I was printing out the back sides of our Christmas letter. Now Linda can stuff the envelopes and get our cards/letter sent off to our family and friends. Of course, I hold back about 20 of them so I can put the Family Journal in with the card and letter - I'll print that out next week, since I'm not quite finished yet.

Genealogy today -- 3.0 hours - 1.5 hours blogging, 1.0 hours CVGS work, 0.5 hours email and Bloglines.

It may be a big genealogy day tomorrow - I'm off to bed soon so I can be ready to play at the library, shopping, blogging and researching, oh - scanning and writing too!

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/24/07

Today was another "light" genealogy day. We are trying to get ready for Christmas events and have worked on organizing the garage (so I can find the Christmas stuff), setting up the plastic tree (all set up today, needs ornaments, but I found them!); the Christmas card mailing list (done and on labels, envelopes being addressed and stamped as I type) and the Christmas letter (the printing is one half done - I let the pages dry overnight).

9:00 a.m. - Read my email and Bloglines, then went out and worked for two hours in the garage. When I came back in, I went to Ancestry and looked at the Map collection. I found the 1869 map for Windham County CT and looked for my White and Oatley ancestral homes. Henry White's wasn't there, but Jonathan Oatley's was. Eventually, I posted "Finding out exactly where they lived" on Genea-Musings after an hour of research. I took the opportunity to update the census records in my database notes for Henry and Jonathan also. Linda came home and I had other honey-do projects to do.

6:30 p.m. Printed off the Christmas list labels for Linda. Started printing the Christmas letter one side at a time - made about 50 copies of each side. I'll do the other side tomorrow after the ink dries. Hunted through my database looking for a colonial ancestor with an interesting life story and probate record to fill two pages in the Journal. I decided on Job Card (1653-1739) of Charlestown RI. Cut and pasted his biography into the Journal document, edited it, added a line from Job down to Bess Richmond, and now I just have one more page to do, plus editing and embellishing. Finally, I remembered that I needed to post another note, and happened across a TV video on genealogy research on NECN - the post is "Tracing Ancestry with Genealogists." With that, this post, and looking at my stats, I'm done for the night.

Genealogy today - 5 hours, 1.0 blogging, 1.5 hours research, 1.5 hours Journal.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/23/07

This was not a big day for genealogy - it was a day to get started on some of the pre-Christmas tasks that need to be finished within two weeks.

8:30 a.m. - read my email and Bloglines. Copied from the CVGenCafe blog the post about the CVGS Monday program and posted it on Genea-Musings. Decided I'd better get the Christmas card list and Christmas letter started. Printed out last years address list, the got Linda's address book to see who died, who move, who we want to delete, who we want to add. Printed out the new list for her to review and modify. It's a team effort. Used last year's letter as a start, then modified it to reflect 2007 activities. Added 6 pictures to embellish it, then had to squeeze it a bit to get everything on two pages. Checked the HP ink supply - oops, I need Black so made a list for an Office Depot run tomorrow. Lunch time now.

12:30 p.m. Got into my database to answer an email, made a report and sent it to my correspondent. Decided that I would post a biography of my grandmother Bess (Richmond) Seaver - that completes the set. Now I can work on great-grandparents. There's method to my madness here - I'm going to try to write a book about my ancestors now that I have more pictures from Aunt Gerry's collection. Sometime later, not now. I need to work on my Seaver/Richmond Family Journal tonight, so I went through my Genea-Musings archives to find what I've already written so that I can use it in the Journal. Definitely the Barack Obama cousinship article, and I can write a Mitt Romney cousinship article too to balance it out politically. So I wrote and posted the Mitt Romney cousinship. Cut-and-paste is my good friend, just like my right mouse button is a good friend for pictures, audio, video, etc. 4:30 p.m. now, so time to let Linda have at her email.

6:30 p.m. Checked my email and Bloglines again. Linda edited the address list and the letter, so I corrected them and printed a clean copy. The next step is to get the addresses onto the labels - I even found my labels. Started in on the Journal - got the Obama and Romney pieces in on one page each, then found the Isaac Seaver/Lucretia Smith Union Case picture and put it on another page with a description. Added the "Seaver Houses in Leominster" words and pictures. Looked again at the 2006 Journal word processing file and three pages were messed up. So I checked on my external drive and found the final copy there and replaced what I had on my computer hard drive. I dunno what happened. Oh well, it's fixed. I still have 5 pages to fill up out of 16, so I've made good progress in two nights. Decided to go through all the family photos and put "keepers" in one file folder for each year. Then I copied them onto a flash drive and inserted the flash drive into the Photo Player we got back in the spring. Set it up to play a slide show. Linda didn't like the photo selection - especially the cemetery photos, how'd they get on there? Another thing to fix.

Genealogy today -- only 5.0 hours, with blogging 1.5 hours, the Journal 2.0 hours, database 1.0 hours at most.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/22/07

Thanksgiving Day was fairly lazy for me - I was on the computer but didn't get a whole lot done. We were invited to our friend's home for dinner, and we enjoyed them, their family (their daughter has a 3-month old baby - precious - I love babies!) and their other close friends - there were 13 for dinner.

7:30 a.m. - Read my email and Bloglines. Posted the Edgar Guest "Thanksgiving" poem on Genea-Musings along with a Norman Rockwell picture. Wandered off into www.411.com and www.pipl.com to help my correspondent find his childhood friend's address and phone number. Had a little luck and emailed it to him. Posted two articles on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog. Opened my database and found that I needed to add material to several ancestors - did it for my Seaver grandparents and Richmond great-grandparents. Heard some of the Dennis Prager show and recalled that the information on the Pilgrim Thanksgiving feast in 1621 was posted on the Internet, so I found it and posted "The Pilgrim's Thanksgiving in 1621" on Genea-Musings along with a picture of unknown origin. Then it was lunch time, so I watched football and took a nap.

8:00 p.m. - Home from dinner at our friends house - we had a wonderful time. Read my email and Bloglines again. It was a pretty quiet day in the genea-blogosphere. I need material for my Family Journal, so I decided to review what I've already typed up in my Genea-Musings posts. Went through my December and January Archives looking for material - found two items worthy of inclusion, so I cut-and-pasted them into the Journal word processing document. That's one of the great things about blogging - you've already typed it in once and it makes sense to use it again if you want to or need to. Well, that's it for the day. No progress on the scanning task and just some progress on the Journal.

Genealogy today - 6.0 hours total, blogging 2.0 hours, Journal 0.5 hour, research 1.0 hours, database 1.0 hour; what did I do for the other hours? Read stuff, I guess. I hate it when I can't remember what I did today.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/21/07

The genealogy day featured the CVGS computer group meeting, lunch with some colleagues, a frustrating trip to the County Clerks office, and I started working on my Christmas Journal.

8:00 a.m. - Read my email and bloglines. Posted "Finding records for living persons" on Genea-Musings based on last week's experiences. At 9:45, I left for the library. The CVGS Computer Group meeting started at 10 a.m., and featured frustration with some of the hardware early on. I summarized the meeting in my post here. At noon, we went to Panera for lunch. At 1 p.m., I stopped at the County clerk's office to get a death certificate for a query. I was home just after 2.

2:00 p.m. - Checked email and Bloglines. Wrote the post about the Computer Group. Balanced the checkbooks and bank accounts using MSMoney. Read my news and politics forums/blogs. Made my NFL picks for week 12 and posted them here, plus some other humor pieces. Helped Linda for awhile with things, then watched TV, read the paper and had dinner.

6:30 p.m. - Back on the computer. I decided that I needed to get a start on the Christmas family journal project - it's 16 pages with pictures and text. Found last year's Journal, and deleted all of the text and pictures except what I use over, and saved it as a new file. Edited the first two pages, adding and deleting as required. Found obituaries for my aunt and uncle and made them fit on two pages, with a picture on each page. Found my remarks at my aunt's memorial service back in May and squeezed them onto two pages. That was enough for tonight. I have plenty of material for the rest of it, but I need to collect info on the new babies and recent marriages in the extended family. Fiddled with the Genea-musings colors to get orange, yellow and brown - Thanksgiving colors! - and modified the template - will anyone notice? does anyone read blogs as a web page anymore? Finally, I wrote up my "I Am So Thankful" piece and posted it on Genea-Musings. Wrote this post, will check my stats, check my email again, go do the dishes, read a bit of my book, and call it a night.

Genealogy today - 8.5 hours, total -- blogging 1.5 hours, CVGS 3 hours, Journal 2.0 hours, query 1.0 hour.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/20/07

I stayed home today and worked on genealogy, until I had to drive Linda's friend back home at 3 PM. Then we went out to dinner and had a good talk.

8:00 AM: Read my email and Bloglines, then my news/politics forums. Searched the APG list for the place name threads, and posted "Place Names in Your Genealogy Databases" on Genea-Musings. Had an email from my correspondent about the Cathy search and answered it. I decided to do something useful - I transcribed the four pages of the probate record (will, inventory, affidavits) of Job Card who died 1739 in Charlestown RI. That took over two hours. Then I noticed that the three Card families did not have good info on the spouses of the siblings, so I found a great Card surname database on WorldConnect, verified some of the dates and places in the IGI, and added them to my database. Then I modified the notes for three generations - putting them into a narrative form instead of an outline format. I wrote "Elusive Ancestors in New England" on Genea-Musings in an effort to "get my arms around" Bill West's research problem. While I was thinking of taking a nap, Linda called and wanted me to drive Judy home.

6:30 PM: Back home after dinner. Checked email and Bloglines. My correspondent called Cathy's nephew (I found the number on Sunday night) and talked to him for 30 minutes - I had most of the info right. Now he hopes that Cathy will contact him. Saw Michael Neill's post that Ancestry has put the Passport Applications online, so I played with it for awhile, then posted "Ancestry has US Passport Applications" on Genea-Musings. I made two more OpenOffice presentation format files for more of Aunt Gerry's pictures form her second album. I found the third album that I still have to scan and put into presentation format. Then I checked all of the new Maine databases on ancestry to see if they had anything to help with Bill West's problem and any Seaver and Soule families. Not much useful for me, but I needed to check it sometime. Bored, so I went in to read for 30 minutes. Back to do this and call it a night.

Genealogy today: 9.0 hours, blogging 2.0 hours, research 5.0 hours, scanning 1.0 hour.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/19/07

Today was an interesting genealogy day, but frustrating too. I had to go to the physical therapy facility at 8 a.m. today for my first shoulder therapy - she gave me exercises to do to improve my range of motion.

9 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. Noticed that the Carnival was posted by Jasia. It will have to wait until I get back from the library. Gathered my two new queries and went to the library for our regular Monday morning get-together at the table in the genea-stacks with Dearl and John. Told them about my exciting visits to the County Clerk and the cemetery. Listened to a few of their stories too. Then I went to the microfilm machine to find obituaries for the two correspondents - no luck. Then I got City Directories out of the local history room and looked for Cathy and her family (see yesterday) - no luck here either, the surname was too common, and I don't know the parents given names. So home...stopped at the gas station - up to $3.33 a gallon. Yikes.

1:30 PM: Read Bloglines again, and wrote my Carnival of Genealogy post on Genea-Musings, then transcribed and posted another week of Della's Journal. Found some stuff on the Internet for Linda, then read my news/politics sites, and went in for a nap, the news, and dinner.

6:30 PM: Wrote several emails about the queries, then commented on a blog post by Bill. Wrote an email to the CVGS list reminding them of Wednesday's Computer Group meeting. Decided to finish scanning the second album. Did about 16 pages, including some loose photos. Done with that one, now I have to get it all into PDF files for the CD. Finally, did a bit more research about finding Cathy's family - searched the San Diego county Recorder's office for deeds - found quite a few. Wrote a long email to my correspondent and summarized my findings. Checked Bloglines one last time, looked at the ho-hum blog stats, and this post, now off to bed.

Genealogy today: 9.0 hours. Blogging 1.0 hours, Scanning 2.0 hours, library 1.0 hours, research 4.0 hours.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/18/07

It was not a good day for my Chargers, but the genealogy part of it was sort of fun. I watched the newsers until 10 when the Chargers-Jaguars game came on. Long story short - the Bolts lost 24-17 a game that was winnable. To genealogy:

1:30 PM: Read email and Bloglines. There's another blasted meme thingie to do. Later. Worked on the Best of the Genea-Blogs and posted it on Genea-Musings. Read my news/politics forums and went to take a nap and watch the Dallas game at 3 PM. Zzzz.

4:30 PM: got a phone call from a fellow back east who had tracked me down through CVGS. He wants to find out what happened to a female classmate of his from back in the 1960's. He knew her name, her brother's name and probably the father's name but not much else. While he explained why he wanted this search, I was looking for info on the girl on Ancestry - a birth record, a marriage record, etc. I explained what I could do quickly and that I would get back to him by Tuesday. Then it was dinner time.

6:00 PM: Started working on the classmate problem - looked in CA birth, marriage, death and divorce records, the SSDI, the San Diego Union-Tribune archives 2000-2007, the Obituaries, Phone Directories and Public Records Searches on Ancestry, and finally www.411.com and www.pipl.com . I think I have the right birth and marriage data for her, and those of her two siblings, but I don't know the parents names for sure yet. I'll get some City Directory info at the library on Monday. After all of that, I decided to answer Terry's challenge with the Name Game, er, Meme post on Genea-Musings. Then in to watch Desperate Family Historians.

9:30 PM: OK, they weren't on. We watched the Travel Channel instead. I did the dishes, then came back to email and Bloglines, and this post.

Genealogy today: 5.5 hours total, 1.5 blogging, 3.5 online research. No scanning, no writing, no database, hmmm - need to crack the whip a bit and finish some projects before the next ones come along.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/17/07

I was early out the door today - had a 7 a.m. breakfast meeting with Linda's swim friends at Carrow's. Then I mailed my two envelopes with death certificates in them to my correspondents. I headed for UCSD and the 9 a.m. CGSSD meeting. I attended the FamilyTreeMaker users group and then the society business meeting. I blogged about it here after I got home.

1:00 PM - home from the CGSSD meeting. Finally got to read my email and Bloglines. I noticed that I got tagged for the "161" meme by Jasia, so I did the research and posted about it here on Genea-Musings. Answered a few emails, posted some fun stuff to Busy Life, read my news/politics sites, and listened to SDSU get walloped by Air Force 55-23. Bad mood now. We called my brother for his birthday and now it's 5 o'clock. Where did the afternoon go? Time flies when I'm having fun, I guess. Dinner, newspaper, TV news, dishes, into my book while Linda does her email, etc.

7:00 PM - Email and Bloglines again. Posted a comment to Bill West. Saw that John Newmark had created a meme so I responded with "My most prolific ancestor" on Genea-Musings. Back to news/politics, then found the NBC San Diego site and read a lot of the Ken Kramer stuff "About San Diego." That was fun to see old San Diego pictures and take a few quizzes. Time to stop, do the wash, talk to Linda before bed, etc.

Genealogy today: 7.0 hours (not counting driving), blogging 2.0 hours. Society meeting 3.5 hours. No scanning. Gotta get that done soon. Chargers game is at 10 AM tomorrow, so I won't get much genealogy done until the afternoon.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/16/07

This was a decent genealogy day, considering the time commitments I had.

8:30 AM: Read my email and Bloglines, then read my news sites. Answered several emails and commented on Bill West's blog. Decided to post "The Best picture from Gerry's collection" on Genea-Musings. Only later did I see that I had posted this picture last week. Oh well.

Then it was off to Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego to find the grave stone of Harriet Barkley. Success! I found that she's buried there - off in the furthest corner. But no gravestone, only a patch of green. The full story is in "The grassy patch at Mount Hope Cemetery." Then it was back to Chula Vista - to Costco for lunch (Polish dog and churro), to the library and then down to the bayfront to walk with my friend, George. I got home just before 1 PM.

1:00 PM: Read my Email and Bloglines. Uploaded and printed the cemetery pictures and wrote an email to my correspondent. Got the two envelopes ready to send to my correspondents with the death certificates. Posted "What every genealogy society needs" and about the Mount Hope excursion on Genea-Musings.

3:00 PM: I decided I should try to advance the ball on my scanning project. I scanned 40 more pages from the second album - I'm almost done with that one now. Then it was time to take my Angel Linda out to dinner. We went to Trophy's out in Eastlake - decent food, great service, lots of TVs, fast. We were home by 6 PM, but I watched the news and read the paper, and almost napped.
7:00 PM: Figured I had better do something useful rather than doze off in the recliner, so I took the first 50 pages from the second album and made two OpenOffice presentations of them - 25 pages in each (files are 79 mb each!). Then I rotated the pages that needed it from today's scanning session. Only then did I read email and Bloglines. Corrected two earlier Genea-Musings posts. Logged into the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog and posted two items there from my Genea-Musings stack of stuff.

I'm going to knock off earlier tonight and get ready for the CGSSD meeting tomorrow at 9 AM at UCSD.

Genealogy today: 7.0 hours, blogging 2.0 hours, scanning project 3.5 hours.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/15/07

This was a very different genealogy today for me. I had a Goodrich engineering retiree lunch today at 11 AM and had a good time - didn't get home until 1:30.

8:00 AM: Email and Bloglines review. Decided to post about the webinar I viewed last night - "Search Like the Pros" on Genea-Musings. Then I called Ancestry and got my "deal of the year" subscription to the US Deluxe Collection extended for another year. I blogged about it here.

9:30 AM: Headed to downtown San Diego to try and get the right death certificate this time. Apparently the index numbers are incorrect -they don't match the death record for some reason. Then the clerk gave me a birth certificate for the right index number but the wrong person, but I wanted a death certificate for my correspondent. The supervisor figured it out and gave me the right death certificate, at no charge. Now it was too late to go to the cemetery so I headed back to Chula Vista for my lunch meeting.

1:30 PM: Back home, checked email and bloglines. Got the two death certificate envelopes ready to send out to my correspondents. Then I checked the new Ancestry databases out and wrote the post about my subscription extension. Nap time, then dinner and watched the Dems debate on TV.

7:00 PM: Email and Bloglines check. Had no ideas for blogging. Decided to help one of my friends out with his brick wall ancestor, and pursued that for two hours. Fun. Frustrating. Even in New England the records are not perfect, especially from 1770 to 1820 or so. I have some ideas for further pursuit after checking out the Ancestry databases, NEHGS databases, LDS databases, the Genealogy.com family finder, Google, the message boards and mailing lists. Then my daughter called, and I went to watch ER.

Genealogy today: 7.0 hours, blogging was 1.0 hour. No work on the scanning project today, no transcribing, no Christmas Journal. Tomorrow may be a better genealogy day - I need to make progress.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/14/07

It seems I'm in a rut - nothing goes exactly the way I plan it. I had a doctors appointment today to see if my weight, blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol were down. I got there on time, but had to wait 20 minutes to get in to see the doctor. Then I told him about my right arm and shoulder having a problem, and he sent me down for X-rays, which took 20 minutes. Then I waited for 45 minutes to see him again, then had to pick up drugs and make a physical therapy appointment. It took 2.5 hours total, and messed up the plans I had for the late morning - to go to the County Clerk's office to fix yesterdays screwup and to the cemetery to get a gravestone picture for a correspondent. Will have to do that tomorrow, or Friday, or next week.

My genealogy day:

8:30 AM: Email and Bloglines were not exciting. Wrote a Genea-Musings post about the Grammar Police over on the APG mailing list, and my own failings as a grammarian.

12:30 PM: Home from the doctor and lunch. Couldn't decide on a blog topic, so I started cropping, editing and fixing the loose photos from my scanning project. Got about half way through them. Then I decided to make a PDF album of the 16 pages that I had scanned from the first of Aunt Gerry's albums - the one with the real old pictures. Opened OpenOffice 2.2, set the page to portrait, and proceeded to add the 16 scanned pages in JPG format. Added an introduction page, saved it, exported it to PDF. Voila. 32 mb. Cool. I think that's what I'll do with all of them. It's easy to do and anybody with a computer can read it and not mess it up. 5 PM, where did the time go? Time for news, dinner, and finish the paper.

7:00 PM: Email and Bloglines. Forgot to send the email to the newspaper about the 11/26 CVGS program, so did it - it's a day late. Drat - I need a tickler file, I guess. Posted the CGSSD meeting notice for 11/17 and then summarized the scanning project on Genea-Musings. Posted my NFL picks for week 11 and team power ratings on RandysBusyLife. Went browsing on Ancestry and found the link to the "Searching Ancestry" webinar held on 29 August. Watched it - 53 minutes, pretty good information; downloaded the slides. It will be blog fodder soon, I think! Now it's almost 10 PM, so will go finish my John Sandford book and hit the sack.

Genealogy today: 7.5 hours, blogging 2.0 hours, scanning 3.5 hours.

Good news on the medical front - all of my numbers were down. The drugs work! Except for the coughing aside effect, so the doc gave me a more expensive drug for blood pressure. The new one may make me dizzy - I may need my wife to catch me if I fall. May be fun.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/13/07

This was a fairly productive but ultimately frustrating genealogy day.

8:00 AM: Got started with email and Bloglines, and interrupted by Linda, so I went for a shave and shower. Back before 9, and posted "What is Your Genetic Identity?" on Genea-Musings. I'd been thinking about it for awhile, and after seeing Megan's article I decided to put my oar in the water.

10:00 AM: Took off for the San Diego County clerk's office to get the 3 death certs I promised to correspondents. The visit went real smooth - I got the three in about 40 minutes. While I waited, I played a bit more on the computer system there looking in the death index and the tax assessor records. Then to the Chula Vista library and home.

12 noon: After lunch, I read the Ancestry digital magazine - interesting articles, but not really research oriented. I posted the Table of Contents on Genea-Musings. I figured I had messed around enough without doing something productive, so I went back to my scanning project. I scanned about 10 loose photos and 50 album pages in the next three hours. Somehow I made them JPG and not TIF - drat. Oh well, I'm not going to do it again. There's 50 more pages from that album to go, and a third album too. TV, nap, dinner, read, TV.

6:30 PM: Emailed the two correspondents about the death certificates. When I was ready to put them in an envelope, I noticed that one of them wasn't the right one. I'll have to go back downtown - maybe tomorrow. Posted "Four Steps Forward, One Step Back" about my County Clerk experiences. Tried to crop individual pictures from the collage and album photo pages - damn photo program hung up on me - took forever to get it stopped. Then I was low on virtual memory so I stopped. Frustrated. POed. Went to read and watch TV.

Genealogy time today was 9.0 hours, blogging was 2.0 hours. Scanning was 4 hours.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/12/07

Today was a "catch-up" day. Lolo was still here, but they went out shopping this morning so I could get some genealogy work done. I spent all afternoon with Lolo - doing puzzles, playing Disney Channel games on the computer, chasing balls outside and picking flowers on our walk, and then we all went out to dinner at Chick Fil-A. Lolo had a great time on the play equipment. They headed for home, and I was able to get some more genealogy work done plus reading tonight.

9:30 AM: Read email and Bloglines. Got three Genea-Musings written and posted - about the SDGS program on Saturday, the histogram web site, and my Visit to the FHC on Saturday. Then I transferred my 40 pages of Footnote RevWar Pension File images onto the desktop computer from the flash drive. I caught up on my favorite politics sites.

They all came home right after noon, so I took my nap while Lolo took hers. By the time I got back on the computer to do anything genealogical, it was 6:30 PM. I posted the latest installment of Della's Journal on Genea-Musings. More email, including two notes from CVGS members wanting help with queries from friends and cousins. I did a bit of research for both and emailed both of them with my findings. Non-productive, so far. Printed off and read the CVGS newsletter. Answered some CVGS business email. Managed my email list a bit - posted three humor pieces from email on the Randy's Busy Life blog.

9:45 PM: Where did the time go? Oh - Lolo! Making family history instead of blogging about it! No scanning today. No transcribing today. Only about 4 hours of genealogy today, and 2 hours of genealogy blogging. Am I spending too much time blogging and not enough time working on interesting projects?

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/11/07

This was not a genealogy day. Our granddaughter Lolo is her with her parents. We took Lolo to church at 10 and got back from lunch at 1. She went down for her nap and I checked my email and Bloglines and wrote my "Best of the Genea-blogs" post and then took my nap, which was shortened by the kitchen timer telling me to get the clothes out of the dryer. Grrr. Read the paper and watcher football.

When Lolo woke up, we watched some football then the Chargers game came on and we had dinner watching the game. The first half was great but the second half was tense. The Chargers won 23-21 but it wasn't pretty. Lolo went to bed at about 9 PM. I had to type and print a roster for Linda after the game, and then watched Desperate Housewives for therapy.

Genealogy for today: 1 hour at most, about 0.5 for blogging. Oh well - maybe I can get a full day in tomorrow.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/10/07

This was a decent genealogy day, but short! When I got home at 3, my son-in-law and granddaughter were here. James got my router working again. Tami came and we all went out to dinner at Daphnes, came home and I gave Lolo a bath, and we watched football all night.

8:00 AM: Read email and Bloglines. Printed off flyers to deliver to the FHC. Wrote two Genea-Musings posts. Left at about 9:50 for the FHC. When I got there, I got on the computers and went right to the Premium Databases now available there. Worked in WorldVitalRecords a bit - found nothing much of interest on several surnames. I really wanted to work in footnote and see what I've missed by getting only the 10 page maximum on HQO for my RevWar guys. I downloaded two whole files (about 20 pages each) for Robert Seaver and Ichabod Seaver - not my ancestors, but stuff I have not seen and it may be helpful in filling out their family history. Checked for mentions of Norman Seaver and Benjamin Seaver in the RevWar Pension files - found several, including one affidavit that describes what the unit did. It sounded like what is in the RevWar Service files. At 11;45 I left for the SDGS meeting in San Carlos.

12 noon: The SDGS speaker was John Carpenter and the subject was DNA. His first talk was very technical - about Y-DNA, mtDNA, alleles, haplogroups, etc. He knows his stuff. The only thing I learned was that there are now more haplo sub-groups and they will identify many more. That's probably good. After a break, John covered the ancient and famous DNA information - from Niall of the Nine Hostages to Joseph Stalin, with Jefferson, Franklin and others included. Interesting but not too useful. Then it was home.

7:30 PM: Read email and Bloglines again - but went back to the football game.

Genealogy time today: 7 hours, of which 1 hour was blogging. Two hours at the FHC and 2.5 hours at the meeting.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/09/07

Today was another unproductive genealogy day. My morning got messed up by an unforeseen problem, and I scanned all afternoon. I've done some checking of my database information against online information, for several ancestors, but found nothing special.

7:30 AM: The morning started with email and Bloglines as usual, and a song in my heart. So I wrote a Genea-Musings post about published "family tree" and "genealogy-related" topics. I wrote several emails to my CVGS board members passing information to them that they requested. At 10 AM, I went off to the County Clerk's office to get 3 death certificates, and spent an hour waiting for them ,getting only 1 because of some snafu at the office. I went to lunch and to the library, got gas on the way home, and got home about 12:15 feeling lethargic. So I took a power nap, watched TV and read the paper a bit and dozed off again.

2:00 PM: Checked email and Bloglines again. I posted the Family Tree Magazine table of contents on Genea-Musings (I like doing this - it helps ME find things in the magazine). They had a good software review section in this issue. I remembered that I need to hook up my router again so my daughter can use her laptop here this weekend. Hooked it up, rebooted the computer, and ... it doesn't work. Wonder why? It's a job for my IT guy - my son-in-law is coming tomorrow and he can show me the error of my ways. Drat. Then it was scanning until 5:30. I will probably post something about my process on Genea-Musings tomorrow. I got all of the loose photos from the album into the computer as TIFs and converted them and the album pages to JPG format. I also picked some of the photos off the album pages and saved them as individual photos.

7:30 PM: Check email and Bloglines. Hey, who else writes three posts a day? I emailed my correspondent who wanted the death certificates. Then I wrote up my "lesson learned" from the County Clerk's office in a Genea-Musings post here. I try to learn something new every day! I remembered that I have limited information about my John Kenyon/Anna --?-- family in RI/CT, so I checked Ancestry.com to see if anybody has anything better. I don't think they do - too bad. The Kenyon surname book has my line wrong, but a Kenyon family web site has the same info that I do. I'm going to call it a night and get ready for an FHC visit and the SDGS meeting on Saturday by going to bed early.

Genealogy today: 7 hours, of which 1.5 was blogging. 1 hour was waiting at the Clerk's office. 1 hour was wasted on the router problem. The scanning and photo manipulation was the only useful thing I did today. Oh well - tomorrow is another genealogy today - just watch someone mess it up.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/08/07

It was a pretty quiet day here at the Genea-Manor. Two appointments this morning for car maintenance and financial advice cut down on my endless quest for 24 hours of genealogy. Tonight I decided to watch CSI and ER rather than mindlessly search for strange names on Ancestry, or input more information into my databases.

7:30 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. No one has commented on my music posts at Genea-Musings yet. Oh well. Wrote a Genea-Musings post about Connecting the Dots, based on my work last night trying to find Adam Seaver's parents. Read my politics and sports sites too.

12:30 PM: Back from the appointments and lunch - I wrote up my NFL picks on the Busy Life blog. I also posted "The Best Day of My Life" on Genea-Musings. Then I figured I'd better get on with my scanning project. I worked my way through the last 20 or so loose photos, and even scanned the pages from the first Album (comb-binding, magnetic, with mylar sheets, pictures pasted down). That worked out pretty well - the pages laid pretty flat. The TIF files of the 9 by 12 sheets are 27 mb. If I want to, I can select individual photos using my Photo software and save them too. Then I found the two boxes of stuff that my cousins sent me, and I scanned the diplomas and useful papers from that box also. Finally, I got the big box that had three more albums and some larger pictures in it - more work to do. I'm tired of scanning! News and dinner time.

7:00 PM: Back at it with email. Remembered that I had not posted the SDGS meeting notice on Genea-Musings, so I did that. Then I posted two things on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog that I had written earlier on Genea-Musings. Back to Bloglines to read posts and commented on two of Terry's that were interesting. Even found the San Diego place names book and used it tonight. Now off to statistics, my book and the TV.

Genealogy today: only 7 hours - of which 2.5 hours were blogging.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/07/07

Well, it had to happen. I sort of flipped. I got the wild idea in the shower of writing lyrics about genealogy to the tune of old rock songs. So ...

8:00 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. Not much interesting, actually. First, I wrote a post about a problem with Ancestry that my colleague Chuck has - it's here. I went to http://www.oldielyrics.com/ and printed lyrics to "Searchin'" by the Coasters and "Surfin' USA" by the Beach Boys. That should get me started! Uh-oh, it's almost time to go to the CVGS Board meeting. I copied the seminar PDFs onto my flash drive, gathered up my papers and dashed out the door. To the post office (lots of mail - cool), then to the library in time.

10:00 AM: Led the board meeting - only had 8 of us, so it went smoothly and quickly. Good discussion about the seminar feedback and what we could improve on. After the meeting, I copied the seminar PDF files to Gary's computer so he can make the CDROMs to sell. Then we went to lunch at Big Daddy's.

1:00 PM: Home again. OK, let's do the lyrics for "Ge-ne-al-o-gy" sung to "Surfin' USA" music. Here it is! I'll do the other one later. I need to scan more loose photos for the Christmas CDROM. I found my stack "to-do" and spent about three hours on it. Almost done with the loose ones. What else can I post? I want to put biographies online about my grandparents - so I did one for my grandfather, Frederick Walton Seaver here. Nap and news time before dinner.

7:00 PM: Email and Bloglines. Some good writing on the blogs - gotta note them for my "Best of" post on Sunday. I got an email from a lady looking for Adam Seaver (1811-1889). He was born in NY, moved to IL and IA, and died in KS. Looked in my database - don't have him in all my Seavers but I've heard of him before. Checked Ancestry records, family trees and stories, and there was one family tree with a little info - it's the lady who wrote me. The census records for 1840 to 1880 are complete - 6 kids, 2 wives. Matches the family tree (probably the same sources!). But I still can't place Adam in a family. Input Adam and his family data into my Seaver database so that I have it available next time. Now - it's time to lyricize "Searching" - this one is harder because of the slang used in the original song. Oh well, I'll do a whitebread version - see it here. Well, that's enough - time for email check, the stats and go watch the news a bit before bed. Will I dream of Thomas J. Newton, Elizabeth Dill, William Knapp and Cornelia Bresee tonight? If I do, I hope they tell me who their parents were!

Time for today: Genealogy = 11 hours, blogging = 2.5 hours. But I did some research and almost got my photo scanning done.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/06/07

This was an interesting day, I made genealogy and family history progress on several fronts.

8:00 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. I decided to watch the AncestryPress Webinar from 11/1/07 and learned a lot from it. I posted about putting pictures in FTM and Ancestry here. Then I posted a summary of the Webinar here. Then it was off to the bank and the doctor.

11:30 AM: I need to start my scanning project today since I promised my cousins a CDROM for Christmas with Aunt Gerry's pictures on it. I got the box of pictures and decided to scan the loose pictures first, one at a time. I created a separate directory for them and put in about 90 pictures as TIF files, trying to title the files with persons, place and year. I'm about 80% done with the loose pictures. Linda needed to use the computer for awhile, so I took my nap and watched TV for awhile. I'm not sure how to proceed with the photo album - I can't take it apart or take the pictures off the pages, so I wrote a post here asking for suggestions on how to deal with it. Then it was dinner time and news time.

6:30 PM: Email and Bloglines. Two people have asked for Seaver information so I investigated that in my database. Will write emails back. A CVGS colleague had trouble finding a marriage in Indiana, so I helped him with that. I decided to try to find out Jessie's surname - she was the wife of Lewis Soule of Salem NH, married about 1922. When I put "Lewis Soule" and "Jessie" into the Ancestry search engine, it gave me some newspaper entries for Lewis' probate filings in 1942, and a link into a Soule surname book. The book had Jessie's full name (Jessie Rebecca Bleakney) and her birth date, which matched the birth date I had for her from the SSDI. Then I found that exact name and birthdate in a OneWorldTree database with several generations of ancestry, submitted by a Bleakney researcher. I spent some time inputting the Bleakney and collateral lines data, plus doing more of the Soule data from the Soule book. I'm going to shut down early and read my book after I check the stats.

Genealogy hours today: 10 hours, of which 1.0 was blogging.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/05/07

Let's see if I can remember what I did today with genealogy.

7:30 Read my email and Bloglines. Pondered what to post this morning. Decided on the second post of William Hutchinson - on Genea-Musings here. Opened my FTM and looked for other families to "update" - found the Alexander Sovereign/Eliza Putman family had lots of kids but no dates, so I searched the LDS databases and the Ancestry databases. found a database with birth dates and a few spouses for Mary Jane Sovereen's siblings, so I added those to the database. They were from a Bible record held by a fellow in Manitoba, I think. Also found a Marley cousin has posted some Kemp data in an Ancestry Public Member Tree - I should email him.

9:50 AM: Went to the library for our Monday table talk with John and Dearl - we had no visitors. Regaled each other with life stories from this week. Linda came at 11:30 and we went to lunch at Rubio's. Sat next to a young mom with two little ones 4 and 2 - they entertained us, great fun. Linda gave them a balloon and stickers for being so good. That was pretty much the social highlight of the day!

12:30 PM: Home now, hey I see that Dick Eastman is back, and Megan Smolenyak has a short video of a Genealogical Wave. I had to blog about that - see it here. Worked a bit more on the Sovereen family, then Linda needed to use the computer, so I took a nap.

3:00 PM: Back on. Time for this week's Della's Journal post - it is here. What can I do now? I have several ancestral Dutch families in the Albany and Schenectady area in the 1650-1750 time frame. I searched for books on Ancestry for each family name - found quite a few, lots of good history and family information. I printed off maybe 20 pages or so.

7:00 PM: The football game is boring. I updated my Wave post, and then I thought I could try to find more of my cousin's ancestry online. I worked on the Bowers Fischer line using census and MA Vital Records to 1910, and deduced two generations. Put those in the database. Then I worked more on the Lewis Soule ancestry (another cousin's line) that I worked a bit on last night. I found more census data and some VR data, but can't find Jessie's maiden name - I'll have to ask my cousin. It looks like she was born in Atlantic Canada. Started to put what I've collected into my database - got the Soule line in - about 1/2 of what I have and about 1/4 of the total to be found. It's 10 PM now, time to get off, do the dishes and read my John Lescroart book.

Genealogy time today: 10 hours, of which 1.5 hours was blogging.

Did I advance the ball much today? Really, I didn't. I need to get started on my scanning task and continue to transcribe the RI probate records. Oh well - tomorrow's another genealogy day - maybe I'll have a breakthrough!

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/04/07

This was not a good day for much of anything. I did set the clocks back, mow the lawn, take a nap and watch my Chargers get creamed. There wasn't much genealogy done!

8:00 AM: The morning email brought the obituary for my uncle, Jim Remley, so I posted it on Genea-Musings here. Then I read Bloglines, and saw that the Carnival of Genealogy was posted, so I wrote a blog on Genea-Musings here. Then it was time to get ready to rumble with my Chargers ....

2:45 PM: After the game (we lost 35-17 and it wasn't that close), I took a nap, and then worked for about an hour on the Best of the Genea-blogs post for last week - posted here. Then I went to watch the end of the Patriots-Colts game and did the lawn.

7:00 PM: Checked email and Bloglines. I posted the FTM2008 webinar post on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog here, then sent an email to the mailing list about the CVGS programs for November. I wanted to check out my cousins Soule ancestry in Maine, so I found the census stuff I had found months ago and looked for connections in WorldConnect and OneWorldTree. Even though these were New England families, I found very little for the families in the 1800's. Before 1800, there are decent trees available, so I'm going to have to fill in the families for about 100 years using other resources, probably family and locality books. Then it was time for Desperate Housewives...they even got into a family medical history a bit.

10:00 PM: Last check of everything, wrote this post, check the stats and off to watch the news.

Only about 4.5 hours today, of which blogging took about 2 hours. It's supposed to be a day of rest.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/03/07

All the best laid plans of mice and genealogists often go awry ... nope, that's not exactly right, is it? Last night lying in bed waiting for slumber to put my mind to rest, I figured that I would go to the FHC today and do some work in WVR and Footnote. But ...

7:30 AM: Read my email and Bloglines, then posted on Genea-Musings a short post prepared last night. Off to breakfast with the men's Bible study group.

9:30 AM Home, and onto the computer again. What to do? Well, I checked out the strange email from ancestry.com and wrote a post about it, then wrote a post with the Table of Contents for the latest issue received of The American Genealogist (which I forgot to write about in yesterday's journal - I read some of it yesterday). That's enough Genea-Musings for the day, unless something important or funny comes along.

10:30 AM: I decided not to go to the FHC, but to work at home trying to find distant male cousins in some of my ancestral lines in hopes of finding someone who can do a DNA test. I started with the Richmonds and Whites of Connecticut and never really left them. Unfortunately, there is not a complete set of Connecticut Births, Marriages and Deaths available online. There are some databases, but there are not many records after 1870 and before 1949. The Windham County CT cemetery lists on USGenWeb aren't complete, either. That makes it really difficult. I couldn't find most of the people already in my database in the 1900 to 1930 census records, either. I spent about 5 hours doing this with very little to show for it. Linda wanted to use the computer, so I went in to watch football at 4:30 and took a nap before dinner. Then the SDSU Aztecs game was on and I watched the first half - they were losing 21-7, and it wasn't that close.

7:30 PM: I made some genealogy reports for two correspondents and emailed them off with appropriate comments. Then I saw the email from my cousin that came last night that said Uncle Jim had died, so I wrote a Genea-Musings post about it. I poked around a bit more in Ancestry, and found a good biography of Thomas Orville Seaver, which I put into FTM. I was bored, so went to check the football game - my Aztecs came back to win 27-24 in the last minute. So now it's this post, check the stats, do the dishes, turn back the clocks and go to bed, hoping that my Chargers will beat the Vikings tomorrow. See, I do have a non-genealogy life - you were wondering, huh?

Let's see - only about 9.5 hours today, of which about 1.5 was blogging. Is that too much? This therapy journaling stuff is fun.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/02/07

Today started out cool and ended up cool, but it was pleasant when I was out - maybe in the low 70's. We have a Santa Ana coming on Saturday, but will have iwnd only for one day.

I seemed to waste a lot of time today, but it was fun.

7:30 AM: Read my email - got a lot of spam comments. Read Bloglines. Then I remembered it was my grandfather's 116th birthday, so I wrote a post describing his life and impact on me, with several pictures - it's on Genea-Musings here. Then I went and changed Genea-Musings so Comments require registration and a letter verification to stop the d@mn sp@m.

10:00 AM: Went to the library to search for the obituary - looked at SD and CV papers with no luck in late 1997 - they didn't have good coverage then. Drat. I read a bit more of the Everton's GH, then went to Costco to have lunch and look for neat Xmas gifts for me, er, for Angel. Went to pick up George for our bayfront walk, but he wasn't there. Drat again. Went home.

1:00 PM: I need to start working on my Christmas newsletter research - I send a 16 page family history newsletter to the extended family (about 20 people) - I've been doing it for 20 years now. They are always interested in who we are distantly related to. I uploaded my Master genealogy database to Ancestry as a Private Member Tree, then went through the great-great-grandparents one at a time seeking famous ancestors. I found a bunch and will have a page in the newsletter. Cool. Time-waster, eh? I opened my genealogy database and tried to find families that don't have notes, or don't have spouses for the siblings, or dates for the family members. I have notebooks full of good published information (books and journal articles) for some of these families, so I filled out four families that were incomplete, and in the process found several more generations of two families. Cool - I rarely add new ancestors to the databases it seems - I did today. Dinner time - we go out to Daphne's for gyros and to Coldstone afterwards for icecream - yum.

7:00 PM: What to write about tonight on Genea-Musings? Read email and Bloglines. The Ancestry blog had a post about FTM 2008 Books - they want a wish list - I was happy to oblige - posted here on Genea-Musings in addition to filling in their form. Reading the Ancestry blog a bit more, I see that I missed the FTM 2008 webinar. But I can watch and hear it - so I spent an hour watching it, downloaded the charts, and then wrote a post on Genea-Musings about it. Did anybody else blog about it - I don't think so but can't remember back a week! Wrote this journal post, then checked the statistics, and off to bed I go. Yawn. See you tomorrow for tomorrow is another genea... Saturday filled with genealogy promise - who knows what will happen!

Hmmm, about 11 hours today, but only about 1.5 hours blogging, so that's good! Egads.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Genea-Journal - 11/01/07

Now I'm in a rhythm - three days in a row! I find that I can remember a lot better at 9 PM today rather than at 9 AM tomorrow what happened today.

This was a day of blogging, corresponding, transcribing, PDFing and reminiscing. All great genealogy activities, right?

8:00 AM: Read email and Bloglines. Posted my second article about what Dick and Myrtle predicted for The Future of Genealogy on Genea-Musings, then wrote and posted the third - "The Future of Genealogy - My Turn." That was fun, but challenging. I'm not a visionary it seems - kind of a glass half-full guy.

10:30 AM: I almost went to the library to do the obituary lookup, but figured I can go tomorrow. Why do something today that I can do tomorrow when I'm going out anyway? So I answered an email from a distant Seaver cousin who saw my genealogy reports on my web site at www.genealogy.com/users/s/e/a/Randy-Seaver/ - I made a report for his Lucy Seaver ancestry and sent it off. Lunch time - soup, cookies, apple - all set for a heavy transcribing session!

12:30 PM: Read email and Bloglines. Wrote two more posts for Genea-Musings on NARA and Footnote from email information. Found the probate record files that I brought home from the FHC last Saturday. I labelled the files "John Pray - Smithfield RI," "Job Card - Charlestown RI," and "Susanna Barber - Charlestown RI" with a page number from the microfilms. Then I opened my FamilyTreeMaker file, found John Pray, and put the Notes page on the top half of my screen. I opened the TIF files of the John Pray probate record pages in my photo program, and put each enlarged page in the bottom half of my computer screen. Then I transcribed the five pages of handwritten information into my Notes from the enlarged photo file. This file was fairly easy to read, except the right margin on two photos was cut off on the microfilm image so I had to guess or use ??? for parts of words on some lines.

3:00 PM: Read email and Bloglines. Opened the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog and posted the 411.com article and wrote the "CVGS Events for November 2007" post. Did a Google search on the Scism family in Dutch Colony New York trying to find Elsje Scism's ancestry - she is a great-grandmother of my Cornelia Bresee. Didn't have much luck - there is one mention of her in a message board post. I need to check some of the databases. Nap time.

7:00 PM: Tonight I need to make PDF versions of my four "Genealogy Online" seminar presentations and the syllabus so we can put them on CDROMs for people who have ordered them in CVGS. This took a long time because the OpenOffice files were 10 to 20 mb in size, and that translated to 2-0-40 mb in PDF format. I essentially crashed the computer by having too many things going on - had to shut down, reboot and work on only one thing at a time. That really worked - I could have saved a lot of time by having only one thing going on in the computer.

While I was doing that, I decided to review some of the stuff that I got from my Aunt Geraldine's estate. I promised my cousins that I would scan all of the papers and pictures and send them a CDROM for Christmas. I need to get started on that! I went through the papers, her photo album and the loose pictures, and there is quite a number of things to scan. There were several pictures of my father as a boy, and of my family when I was a boy, and my family when I was a parent. She essentially saved everything anybody sent to her and put them in envelopes by family. Unfortunately, they are sort of mixed in together in some cases. There are also nice photos of Gerry as she grew up, and some, but not many, photos of her parents and grandparents.

9:15 PM: Now it's time to journal for the day, hoping I can remember what I did. How long will Blogger keep this stuff online - anybody know? What? Forever? Or until the lights go out at Blogger. I guess I'd better save the monthly archives, eh? Off to read my book and watch ER tonight. I'll check statistics later.