Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Genealogy Journal - 04/01/08

This was a really full genealogy day because I had a lot to do to get ready for the seminar on Saturday.

I was on the computer by 8:30 a.m., reading my email and blogs using Bloglines. I wrote "The Cars of My Life" on Genea-Musings for the next Carnival of Genealogy - I even found some useful pictures of them.

I spent the next three hours working on the research problems to be presented on Saturday by nine CVGS members. They submitted information on a form or in handwriting, so I transferred the info on each form onto a MSWord table, edited them, and sent them back to the member for final review. Then I wrote an email to all of them describing what was going to happen on Saturday so they aren't surprised that they have to stand up and present their problem to our expert panel and the audience. After lunch, I realized I'd better write "The Imminent Demise of Genea-Musings" before this day was over. Then I put all of the research problems together in one document and made a PDF of it and sent that to our expert panel - this isn't "Stump the Experts," it's "Help the Researcher." I also posted the "Genealogy Days in Chula Vista for April 2008" and the April 5 Seminar notice again on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog.

I played with the new and exciting (!) Ancestry search presentation (I'm still not thrilled, but they've modified it quite a bit to my liking) for awhile, and checked new Ancestry databases. Then I looked at the Ancestry vs. Rootsweb stats for the last week and was surprised - so I posted "Ancestry's Plan Seems to be Working." I went in at 5:15 p.m. to watch TV, read the paper, take a short nap and have dinner, but Linda didn't get home until after 6:30 tonight.

While the Padres game was on (we won 2-1), I read my genealogy blogs and political forums on the laptop, and then reviewed my Powerpoint presentation for Saturday. Linda had lots of email work tonight, so I didn't get on the desktop until after 10 tonight. Email, blogs, this post and good night.

Genealogy today was 10.0 hours - 1.0 hour of reading and writing emails, 1.0 hour of reading blogs, 2.5 hours of blogging, 4.5 hours of CVGS seminar preparation, and 1.0 hour of working on Ancestry and Rootsweb.

Tomorrow is the Board meeting and I have to give the final presentation material to Gary to install on the laptop.

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