Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Genealogy Journal - 04/22/09

Ah, a good day for me and genealogy. I gave a presentation and had a great dinner and conversation with my wife and another genea-blogger.

I didn't sleep well last night (perhaps the heat, perhaps anticipating the presentation?) and was up before 6 a.m. to have breakfast, read the paper and watch TV. At 7:15 a.m. I came in to read my email, blogs, and Twitter. Quickly wrote Family Photographs - Post 52: Ellen at the beach and Cape Cod History and Genealogy web site. I got the laptop set up and transferred files to it so that I could use it at the CVGS meeting at noon. Then I went through the three programs using a feature list to make sure I didn't miss anything important. I checked Ancestry's new databases, and saw the US to Canada Border Crossings database, tried it and found it was not in the US collection. I wrote Why does Ancestry.com do this? - it says US! It has US people in it, not Canadians. Why shouldn't it be in both collections? Ate lunch and left for the library.

The library opened at 12 noon and I got set up in the Conference Room. I couldn't make my laptop look "right" on the screen and messing with the Display numbers didn't help. We had 11 people, and I did the Genealogy Software Review showing features of Family Tree Maker 2009, Legacy Family Tree 7 and RootsMagic 4. I ended just after 2 pm. - not bad, that was my target time. I was home by 2:30 p.m.

After reading everything, I wrote Electronic Genealogy Magazine Publication. I checked Facebook for awhile, and answered a few emails. At 4:15, I went in and got ready to go out to dinner. We had a 5 pm. meeting time at the unknown genea-blogger's hotel. We were there right at 5 and she walked out to meet us. We went to Hob Nob Hill in San Diego and had an ice dinner, with much sharing and laughter and questions - Linda sat on one side of her and I sat opposite her, so we double-teamed her. She gave as well as she got, I think. It was fun getting to know her in person rather than just by blogging, email and Facebook. After dinner, we drove through Balboa Park, along the Bay front, Shelter Island, Point Loma and Ocean Beach before heading back to her hotel. We were home by 8 p.m. Can anyone guess who she is?

Linda did her email for awhile, and at 9:15 I got on to read everything and type this post.

Genealogy today was 9.5 hours - 0.5 hour doing email, 0.5 hour reading blogs, 0.5 hour on Twitter/Facebook, 2.0 hours writing blog posts, 3.5 hours on the software presentation, and 2.5 hours sharing with the mystery genea-blogger.

2 comments:

Irish Roots said...

Hi Randy,

I just wanted to let you know about Irish Roots magazine. I notice from your blog that you mention a lot of other magazines but actually Irish Roots is totally dedicated to Irish ancestral research and is getting terrific feedback. We are also available in digital format on barnes and noble or zinio.com
sites and also from our website www.irishrootsmagazine.com.

We really want to say to people although Irish ancestral research can be frustrating at times and so many people complain about 'hitting the brick wall' we are saying it is possible to trace your ancestors, don't give up, enjoy the journey and come and visit us in Ireland. Thanks Randy and really enjoy your blogs.

Cheers,

Julie

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you had a great day! The best days are ones that are filled with genealogy (at least, that's how it is in my opinion!).

Stephanie
webmaster at Irish Genealogical