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.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Genea-Journal - 10/31/07
I really made little genealogy progress today - but I did clean up my desk a bit and caught up on some paperwork.
8:30 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. I changed my Genea-Musings blog colors from red and blue to Orange and Black for Hallowe'en. Then I found the Hallowe'en Personality web site and took the test, then posted "Your Hallowe'en Personality" to Genea-Musings. I thought up the idea of doing these daily journals and wrote up the last two days.
10:30 AM: Decided to go to the library to find the obituary for the CVGS query. I got there just in time to watch the toddler costume parade through the library - it was really cute. Some of the staff had great costumes, especially Queen Ariachnia (Kim). The microfilm machine was in use by someone else, so for the next two hours I shuffled books into their right places in the Genealogy collection, reviewed the stuff in the file cabinets and read the new issue of Everton's Genealogical Helper. I never did get to the obituary. Dropped my November CVGS flyers to the library staff. Off to McDonalds for lunch.
1:30 PM: Read email and bloglines. Worked on the Genea-Musings post "Trick or Treat?" I decided that I should try to thin my "in-box" paper stack so I input many bits of genealogy info into my databases and transferred the papers to my bookcase stacks. Such is the filing system of a geneaholic too lazy to file stuff away. This took quite awhile, and I discovered several useful things that I've been missing for awhile. At 4:30 PM, I stopped and went to watch the news.
7 PM: After dinner, I decided to write up the "Five Questions - Favorites" post on Genea-Musings. Read email and Bloglines. Then I figured out that I want to answer the question posed to me at the seminar about the future of genealogy. I Googled [future genealogy predictions] and got over 100,000 hits. Reading the first page, there were articles by Howells, Eastman and Myrtle, so I decided to review those. I wrote a blog post for tonight "The Future of Genealogy - Part 1 (1998 Version)" for Genea-Musings, and a second one for tomorrow (see, I occasionally do work ahead). Then I decided to change my blog colors to Orange and Light Blue - on Genea-Musings - do you like? Those are probably my favorite colors. Finally, I reviewed my blog statistics. Genea-Musings has the highest number of Visitors (over 6,600) and Page Views (over 10,500) ever for a month, according to SiteMeter. Woo hoo - I care, but not that much. OK, I do care a lot. So much for humility. Off at 10:30 to do dishes and read a bit.
8:30 AM: Read my email and Bloglines. I changed my Genea-Musings blog colors from red and blue to Orange and Black for Hallowe'en. Then I found the Hallowe'en Personality web site and took the test, then posted "Your Hallowe'en Personality" to Genea-Musings. I thought up the idea of doing these daily journals and wrote up the last two days.
10:30 AM: Decided to go to the library to find the obituary for the CVGS query. I got there just in time to watch the toddler costume parade through the library - it was really cute. Some of the staff had great costumes, especially Queen Ariachnia (Kim). The microfilm machine was in use by someone else, so for the next two hours I shuffled books into their right places in the Genealogy collection, reviewed the stuff in the file cabinets and read the new issue of Everton's Genealogical Helper. I never did get to the obituary. Dropped my November CVGS flyers to the library staff. Off to McDonalds for lunch.
1:30 PM: Read email and bloglines. Worked on the Genea-Musings post "Trick or Treat?" I decided that I should try to thin my "in-box" paper stack so I input many bits of genealogy info into my databases and transferred the papers to my bookcase stacks. Such is the filing system of a geneaholic too lazy to file stuff away. This took quite awhile, and I discovered several useful things that I've been missing for awhile. At 4:30 PM, I stopped and went to watch the news.
7 PM: After dinner, I decided to write up the "Five Questions - Favorites" post on Genea-Musings. Read email and Bloglines. Then I figured out that I want to answer the question posed to me at the seminar about the future of genealogy. I Googled [future genealogy predictions] and got over 100,000 hits. Reading the first page, there were articles by Howells, Eastman and Myrtle, so I decided to review those. I wrote a blog post for tonight "The Future of Genealogy - Part 1 (1998 Version)" for Genea-Musings, and a second one for tomorrow (see, I occasionally do work ahead). Then I decided to change my blog colors to Orange and Light Blue - on Genea-Musings - do you like? Those are probably my favorite colors. Finally, I reviewed my blog statistics. Genea-Musings has the highest number of Visitors (over 6,600) and Page Views (over 10,500) ever for a month, according to SiteMeter. Woo hoo - I care, but not that much. OK, I do care a lot. So much for humility. Off at 10:30 to do dishes and read a bit.
Genea-Journal - 10/30/07
Tuesday, 31 October 2007 (cooler, cloudy, no wind, a free day for genealogy):
8:00 AM: Read email and Bloglines. Arlene and Steve are on the road - reminds me of my trips. Write Genea-Musings post on "Genealogy road trips."
9:00 AM: Answer several emails. Research a query submitted to CVGS - go search San Diego county probate index and deed index. No luck there. Checked the San Diego Union-Tribune for a 1997 obituary - nope, they start in 2000. I'll have to go to the library to find the obituary.
9:30 AM: I opened my FTM database, and decided to see what I have for my RevWar Loyalist William Hutchinson, and try to find out how he got to New Brunswick and Ontario. I found that I had already captured notes from a WorldConnect database with lots of information form published books. I reviewed all of these and edited my notes - giving credit to the database owner and keeping the book citations. I added data for the children and their spouses of William and Catherine (Lewis) Hutchinson. Are there web sites for Loyalist information? Yep - I found several - some stuff on WmHutch too. Then I wrote the post "William Hutchinson (1745-1826) Family History - Part 1" on Genea-Musings. He was a really interesting guy! These notes will provide blog fodder for quite a while! Lunch time.
1:00 PM: Back at it - checked email and Bloglines. I still have to enter more data on the ancestry of Cornelia Bresee that I found back in the spring and summer. I'm pretty sure of the Bresee line from all of the Dutch church records in the Hudson River valley - it all hangs together well. I had found data on two of the maternal lines - the Van Deusen and Dyckman families, but not on the Scism family. The Dyckman data in the 1988 book by Marjorie Chamberlain is excellent - well sourced and very complete. I entered the vital records data and summarized the notes for four generations. Good stuff. Where did the time go? It's 5 PM - time for O'Reilly and dinner.
6:30 PM: Checked email and Bloglines. Wrote the "Testing 411.com to Find Living People" post on Genea-Musings. Printed out an ahnentafel report for Cornelia Bresee. I thought I could find something funny about haunted houses or cemetery apparitions in the historic newspapers - but I didn't find a lot of useful blog material. There were lots of long stories, but few short stories suitable for a blog post. Wasted a lot of time, I guess.
10:00 PM: I'm done...check my blog statistics and then go wash the dishes, read my book, watch the news. Yawn.
8:00 AM: Read email and Bloglines. Arlene and Steve are on the road - reminds me of my trips. Write Genea-Musings post on "Genealogy road trips."
9:00 AM: Answer several emails. Research a query submitted to CVGS - go search San Diego county probate index and deed index. No luck there. Checked the San Diego Union-Tribune for a 1997 obituary - nope, they start in 2000. I'll have to go to the library to find the obituary.
9:30 AM: I opened my FTM database, and decided to see what I have for my RevWar Loyalist William Hutchinson, and try to find out how he got to New Brunswick and Ontario. I found that I had already captured notes from a WorldConnect database with lots of information form published books. I reviewed all of these and edited my notes - giving credit to the database owner and keeping the book citations. I added data for the children and their spouses of William and Catherine (Lewis) Hutchinson. Are there web sites for Loyalist information? Yep - I found several - some stuff on WmHutch too. Then I wrote the post "William Hutchinson (1745-1826) Family History - Part 1" on Genea-Musings. He was a really interesting guy! These notes will provide blog fodder for quite a while! Lunch time.
1:00 PM: Back at it - checked email and Bloglines. I still have to enter more data on the ancestry of Cornelia Bresee that I found back in the spring and summer. I'm pretty sure of the Bresee line from all of the Dutch church records in the Hudson River valley - it all hangs together well. I had found data on two of the maternal lines - the Van Deusen and Dyckman families, but not on the Scism family. The Dyckman data in the 1988 book by Marjorie Chamberlain is excellent - well sourced and very complete. I entered the vital records data and summarized the notes for four generations. Good stuff. Where did the time go? It's 5 PM - time for O'Reilly and dinner.
6:30 PM: Checked email and Bloglines. Wrote the "Testing 411.com to Find Living People" post on Genea-Musings. Printed out an ahnentafel report for Cornelia Bresee. I thought I could find something funny about haunted houses or cemetery apparitions in the historic newspapers - but I didn't find a lot of useful blog material. There were lots of long stories, but few short stories suitable for a blog post. Wasted a lot of time, I guess.
10:00 PM: I'm done...check my blog statistics and then go wash the dishes, read my book, watch the news. Yawn.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Genea-journal - 10/29/07
I thought I would try a genealogy journal just to see how much time I spend on genealogy research.
Monday, October 29, 2007 (warm, high clouds, still):
8:00 AM: Read my email, checked Bloglines, wrote a post " 'Mastering Family Search' Videos" on Genea-Musings. Got my stuff together for the CVGS meeting. Programs, speaker handouts, syllabus copies, poster boards, sign, all set. Go to post office, then library. Enter auditorium early, put stuff out, wait for everybody else.
10:00 AM: Library doors open, speaker there - good. Uh-oh - the projector didn't make it, Gary goes to get it. Meet and greet while sign-ins occur. Start the meeting in the auditorium, go through agenda, no surprises. Gary comes with projector - hooks it up quickly, everything works. Speaker starts presentation - a good one!
12 noon: Speaker ends, we ask for questions. Thank you, here's certificate, clap-clap. Have some snacks, then go to lunch with speaker and 4 board members at Marie Callender's. We had a great conversation.
2:30 PM: Go Home. Post "Della's Journal - Week 44" on Genea-Musings. Hey, I printed off all of that Lewis and LaTourette surname material - I should put it into FamilyTreeMaker. I do that - including notes from old books found on Ancestry. The Lewis data in a WorldConnect database looks very good. I should check the LDS databases and see if the names/dates/places are in original records for NYC, Long Island and Staten Island. Nope - some are in LDS submitted family group sheets and sealings, but not in town records. There are birth and christening dates for some - probably taken from Bible records - I wonder where they are? Printed film notes for some sources. 5 PM - Dinner time.
7:00 PM: Wrote post on Genea-Musings for the "Digging Up the Un-Dead" program today. Check my email again, and Bloglines for posts. What now? Work on finding Hallowe'en oriented names in the WorldConnect databases. Didn't I do this last year? Yep - add to it, make it look like a new post. Posted on Genea-Musings "Hallowe'en Names." Go watch TV and read my book.
10:00 PM: Check my email and Bloglines, then check blog statistics and go do the dishes. 10:30 PM - Yawn.
Monday, October 29, 2007 (warm, high clouds, still):
8:00 AM: Read my email, checked Bloglines, wrote a post " 'Mastering Family Search' Videos" on Genea-Musings. Got my stuff together for the CVGS meeting. Programs, speaker handouts, syllabus copies, poster boards, sign, all set. Go to post office, then library. Enter auditorium early, put stuff out, wait for everybody else.
10:00 AM: Library doors open, speaker there - good. Uh-oh - the projector didn't make it, Gary goes to get it. Meet and greet while sign-ins occur. Start the meeting in the auditorium, go through agenda, no surprises. Gary comes with projector - hooks it up quickly, everything works. Speaker starts presentation - a good one!
12 noon: Speaker ends, we ask for questions. Thank you, here's certificate, clap-clap. Have some snacks, then go to lunch with speaker and 4 board members at Marie Callender's. We had a great conversation.
2:30 PM: Go Home. Post "Della's Journal - Week 44" on Genea-Musings. Hey, I printed off all of that Lewis and LaTourette surname material - I should put it into FamilyTreeMaker. I do that - including notes from old books found on Ancestry. The Lewis data in a WorldConnect database looks very good. I should check the LDS databases and see if the names/dates/places are in original records for NYC, Long Island and Staten Island. Nope - some are in LDS submitted family group sheets and sealings, but not in town records. There are birth and christening dates for some - probably taken from Bible records - I wonder where they are? Printed film notes for some sources. 5 PM - Dinner time.
7:00 PM: Wrote post on Genea-Musings for the "Digging Up the Un-Dead" program today. Check my email again, and Bloglines for posts. What now? Work on finding Hallowe'en oriented names in the WorldConnect databases. Didn't I do this last year? Yep - add to it, make it look like a new post. Posted on Genea-Musings "Hallowe'en Names." Go watch TV and read my book.
10:00 PM: Check my email and Bloglines, then check blog statistics and go do the dishes. 10:30 PM - Yawn.
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