Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Genealogy Journal - 01/09/08

Another good day of genealogy - with varied experiences.

I was on the computer by 8:30, reading my email and Bloglines. I decided to try out the We're Related social network application on Facebook.com. I registered, added my personal stuff, and added We're Related to the site. Then I tried to upload a GEDCOM file and it failed - twice. I sent an email to the Help Desk at We're Related. Then I posted about my experience on Genea-Musings with " 'We're Related' at Facebook.com." Then I wrote my post about Mark Tucker's question about "What do you want genealogy software to do for you?" I made my comments to Mark's question last night. I signed up for the Transitional-Genealogists-Forum Study Group blog yesterday, so I logged on today and wrote an introductory post. This is a blog for members only - it may be interesting. At 11 AM, I got my stuff together for the CVGS Research Group meeting, had lunch and left at 11:45.

I got to the library right at noon, and the door opened almost 5 minutes late. We moved into the conference room - there were 11 of us. I shared some of my elusive Russell Smith material - and asked the group to suggest research opportunities. The meeting ended about 1:40, and I was home just after 2. I read my email and Bloglines again, and then I remembered that I hadn't posted a Della's Journal installment this week so I posted the Christmas Cards Received list. I wrote the Research Group summary and posted it on the CV Genealogy Cafe blog here. At this point I was sleepy so I took a nap and watched TV until after dinner.

At 6:30, I wandered back into the computer and decided to do an organized search of online databases for Russell Smith and David Smith. I went to the Smith message boards and the Oneida County and Jefferson County message boards (both Rootsweb and Genforum) and tried to find posts from other researchers. Absolutely nada. They are "virgin" ancestors -- it looks like nobody else has touched them! Drat. Then I searched again on Google for them, and finally on Ancestry in all sections. I found only the books that I already have found, and my own blog posts on them. If someone else ever wants to find them, I've plowed the ground pretty well, I think. Bored, I checked the latest databases on Ancestry - hey, they have some NY State vanity books - I'll have to search those for more family names.

Genealogy today was 9.5 hours, of which 1.0 hour was reading email and Bloglines, 2.0 hours blogging, 2.0 hours was CVGS related work, 1.0 hour was registering and testing We're Related, 1.0 hour was working on the TGF blog, and 2.5 hours was Smith online research.

I think I'll go to the FHC tomorrow and order some Oneida County NY films and look for my Smith's on the Glocester RI probate film I have in the drawer.

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