Sunday, October 18, 2009

Genealogy Journal Saturday, October 17, 2009

Well I've decided to take a cue from Randy Seaver who has been detailing his genealogy escapades for a long time - well almost since day one - over at The Geneaholic.

I've wanted to keep a journal of my genealogy activities for the longest time and this morning I said to myself, "Thomas," I said, "just jump in and do it!"  Much like the way many of us started blogging in the first place, there comes a point where you must abandon your fears of "not getting it right" and go at it.  A rhythm and a writing style for the journal will develop over time - this is in line with my belief that the more you blog, the better your writing becomes.

Also, as I am in this career transitional phase from the Information Technology field over to genealogy with an emphasis on technology and social networking, I want to be able to look back and say, "so that's where all that time went!" Yeah, right.  So here goes.
  • Woke up at 7:00 am after only 3.5 hour sleep.  I was on a tear researching a friend's Jewish genealogy as a pro bono project.
  • Published the New Genealogy Blogs post for the week over at GeneaBloggers which was sitting ready to go in draft mode.  Fourteen new blogs this week with some great new areas covered such as Latvian genealogy.
  • Went through almost 200 blog posts from genealogy blogs during the day on Google Reader.  Also covered another 50 blog posts in the tech blogs - weekends are the slowest time for tech postings since much of them tend to be "breaking news" developments about technology.
  • Worked another 4 hours on my friend's genealogy.  If anyone has surnames Wiseblood, Herzfeld, Bornstein or Siegel/Siegal or knows of any variations please email me.  I think I've gone as far as I can using online resources and will need to visit The Newberry Library this week.
  • Went out for Ethiopian food and beer with my friend Erica - a short walk from my home.  Came back to an email from my cousin Wendy who was upset about a cemetery visit that afternoon.  It appears that all markers for a set of her ancestors had been removed.  She asked if I could do some research on this particular cemetery and ask my "cemetery friends" as she put it if they had any ideas as to why and how this happened.
  • Wrote my SNGF - A Family's Increase post which was fun.  For some reason I thought Grandma and Grandpa Austin had more descendants than just 87 - I think I need to contact living relatives and root out some more.  I also did the SNGF roll-up over at GeneaBloggers.
  • Well I'd like to say the day ended at 11:30 pm having had little sleep . . . but no.  Got hooked on PBS and next thing I knew it was 5:00 am and the American Masters: Joan Baez special had just ended.  Off to bed!
© 2009, copyright Thomas MacEntee

3 comments:

Amy Coffin said...

With all the work you do for the genealogy community, I still believe you have clones. There's no way one person can accomplish this much.

I'm glad you're doing these journal-like postings. I know it's hard to believe anyone would care about the day-to-day, but it's really quite interesting.

Family Curator said...

I second Amy, keep writing this journal, even if it becomes sporadic it will be a wonderful record in the years to come. You are indeed Superman to accomplish so much!

The Family Curator started as a memory-prompt for my sporadic work with Arline's letters, and now I can hardly believe how much has happened with my research and writing.

You Go Guy!

Donna Hague Wendt said...

I enjoyed your journal, gives me hope that I can do more. My, my you read 200 blog postings!
But I especially am commenting because I want to thank you very much for making a comment a while back at my blog (which I haven't been updating very frequently). It made me feel happy to see a response, and to know that at least one person actually read my blog posting. Thanks! Donna anotherdaywithdonna.blogspot.com