Genealogy Journal - 07/22/08

It was a full genealogy day and I actually advanced the ball in my genealogy research - but not very far! Still, one will transcription and a cloud of dust is nothing to shake a stick at.

I was on the computer before 8 a.m. reading my email and blogs, and since not much important happened overnight, I was left to ponder what to write about. I've been pondering a lot about Indexing of things that we genealogy researchers can't easily find, so I wrote up and posted Indexing Periodicals, Manuscripts, and Collections for the world to see and comment on - only dear Jasia has so far. I spent a little time on the CVGS web site problem, got dressed and checked my political sites, and then posted "Are You Smarter Than a Grade-School Genealogist?" at noon time. I went in and had lunch (English muffin, strawberries, choc pudding) and came back determined to do something useful in the afternoon.

I dug out my Russell Smith work, and remembered that I had found one more useful deed in the Oneida County NY records, so I pulled Russell up in my database and entered the information from the deed. This deed in 1808 for David Smith referred to two other land transactions in 1793 and 1796 and named David Smith and Russell Smith together. Father and son, or brothers? I don't know yet. Then I pulled out my Rhode Island probate record collection, and found that I had only three more probate records to transcribe, all in Jamestown RI. So I did the probate record for Edward Carr. That took awhile, maybe I'll post the transcription on a slow blog day. Then I played on Facebook for awhile. It was 4 p.m., so I went in to read the paper, watch the Padres game, take my nap, eat dinner (Dinty Moore beef stew and strawberries, finished with a misshaped, broken and refrozen ice cream bar), and read more of my book. The Padres lost 4-3 in 10 innings, blowing a 3-0 lead.

I was back on the computer at 7:30 p.m., and email told me that the CVGS web site on Rootsweb was back in business. I got a message from Ancestry Technical Support saying a server was "moved" causing loss of our web site (and perhaps many others) for about two weeks. Being an unhappy camper, I blogged about it here. Then I figured I'd go explore in WorldVitalRecords a bit - what California records are on the site? I explored, got frustrated with the search process, and complained about it in "Using WVR to find State Resources." I was cranky tonight! I decided I wasn't going to do any more frustrating work tonight, so I wrote this post. Now I will look at my stats, go for a walk, and read my book while watching the news.

Genealogy today was 8.0 hours - 0.5 hour for doing email, 0.5 hour reading blog posts, 0.5 hour in Facebook, 2.5 hours researching and writing blog posts, 3.0 hours adding data (probate and land record notes) to my database, and 1.0 hour getting frustrated by working in WVR.