Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Genealogy Journal - 02/06/08

This was a busy genealogy day for me, with little other activity other than grocery shopping on the way home from the library. Linda is still sick with bronchitis (and we hope its not pneumonia) but is up and about a bit more. She ate a normal lunch and dinner today, but still has lots of congestion, but not much coughing, which is good.

I was on the computer by 8:30 AM, and read my email and Bloglines. After some preparation, I posted "The Elusive Russell Smith - Post 6" on Genea-Musings, updating my progress in Oneida County NY records. I prepared a draft of the 2007 CVGS annual report for the board meeting today, and got my papers together for the meeting. At 11 AM, I had lunch, and went off to the post office and then the library for the Board meeting at 12 noon. We were done by 1:30, and I went into the library to check on some books. I got waylaid by a friend from church, who said he was interested in starting genealogy research on his family, so we talked for about 15 minutes. I left, got gas and went to the grocery store, and finally got home at 3 PM.

After checking email and Bloglines, I posted "Beth McCarty at SDGS Meeting on 2/9" so as to inform my San Diego readers about an education opportunity. I sent some emails out about CVGS issues and events, and came in to watch TV at about 4:30, followed by dinner prepared by my Linda.

I was back on the computer at 6 PM, and decided to post about the family letters from the late 1800's. I wrote the first post "Letters from home - snapshots of time - Post 1" to introduce the series. Then I made draft posts for the first 5 letters, and I'll post one each day for awhile. I posted some jokes and a quiz on Randy's Busy Life too in order to empty out my email a bit. Then I discovered that Bill West had published his Genealogy on Parade! post and I read them for a bit, then posted "The Genealogy Parade is Here."

At 8:30, I decided I'd had enough and went in to read my book, do the dishes and watch African-American Lives II on PBS from 9 to 11 PM. I'm ambivalent about the presentation. I love seeing the documents and the history, and identify with the descendants in their reactions to the good news, and the weaving of the personal stories with historical context is very well done. I am surprised by the sense of victimhood expressed by the intelligent and talented descendants, and by Gates, throughout the show. I really don't understand, I think, and I guess I never will.

Genealogy today was 8.5 hours - including 1.5 hours doing email and Bloglines, 3.0 hours doing CVGS work, 2.0 hours blogging, and 2 hours watching genealogy on TV.

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