Showing posts with label volunteering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label volunteering. Show all posts

Sunday, February 6

Alan Jackson, Books and a lil' bit of Genealogy (Research Diary, no. 9)

My Research Diary:
Part to-do list...
Part dear diary...
Part Nosy-Nellie...

Weekly events, plans (and a question or two) from my oh-so exciting genealogy (and sometimes non-genealogy) life...

"The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television."
- Andrew Ross

~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~

What happened these past couple of weeks:

On a Personal Note... Mom and I went to see Alan Jackson in concert (for those of you that don't listen to him, he's a country artist). While he's not my favourite musician (though mom loves him, which is the main reason I got the tickets), I still can't believe that he came to Oshawa of all places! Artists of his caliber usually play in venues in Toronto or Hamilton or Casino Rama - not little ol' Oshawa! ;)

Blog housekeeping...
  • Thanks, as always, for reading! I appreciate your comments and I think I've followed everyone in turn, but if I haven't, please let me know!
  • I added a Resources page, on which I've listed (mainly) cemetery transcriptions and books I own... (It was also an experience in creating a Google Docs form - I work frequently in Google Docs documents, but I've done a form before. It was quite neat (and easy)!)
  • In addition to "Resources" tab, I merged the "Surnames" and "Locations" pages into a new "Research Interests" tab, deleted the "Brick Walls" page, and modified my "Research Plans" page (to which I added a category for future "Research Plans/Brick Walls" posts)!
  • I also played around with the new font styles! Let me know what you think! :)
  • I've added 33 new-to-me blogs to my reading lists - see below (though I'm sure there will be more, as always!)
Genealogy:
Books:
  • Two ILLOs later and it's finally finished!  ;)  I finished reading G. J. Meyer's A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 - 1918. While it wasn't a difficult read, it was an enjoyable one and I wanted to give it my full attention (and at just over 600 pages in hardback, it was also quite hefty!). Though I had some minor quibbles with it, on the whole it was an excellent, very readable, and comprehensive history of the war (mainly from a military perspective, but also including social and political overviews). I definitely recommend it!
  • I also finished (and was quite happy with the first three):
    • Sharon DeBartolo Carmack's Organizing Your Family History Search: Efficient & Effective Ways to Gather & Protect Your Genealogical Research - she not only covered personal genealogy resarch, but also touched on research projects and professional genealogy.
    • Charlotte Zeepvat's Prince Leopold: The Untold Story of Queen Victoria's Youngest Son
    • Ken McGoogan's How the Scots Invented Canada - short, 1 to 2 page biographies of various Scots and Scottish descendants who impacted Canadian life, culture, history, science, etc.
    • Harry Adler's Tracking Down Your Ancestors: Discover the Story Behind Your Ancestors and Bring Your Ancestors to Life (eBook) - I borrowed this mainly to play with our library's new eReaders, so I don't know if my dislike stemmed from the eReader itself (I can see the possibilites, but only for occasional use), or from the book (I ended up skimming most of it). I've found a few other eBook titles that I want to read, so we'll see about the eReader...
New-to-me blogs:

What's coming up:
  • Regular features, including Military Monday, Tombstone Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday (I just found some old photographs!), and Tabloid Thursday...as well as my continuation of the 2010 "52 Weeks to Better Genealogy" series (which I've ignored for a very long time!)
  • All the recent talk about Research Toolbox's has me thinking - the "Links" page will be replaced (sometime!) with a new "Toolbox" tab...though I haven't worked out all the details yet!
  • Edition #103 (Women's History) of the Carnival of Genealogy has been announced and I'm mulling over an entry...

My Question (among questions!):

Do you have a favourite cemetery website?

I have always like the Northeastern Gravemarker Gallery.  And then I've found it's expanded to all of Canada at the Canadian Gravemarker Gallery!  While there is a lot of gaps, it is turning into the premier site for Canadian cemeteries.  There's just so much to find - and all pictures! ;)

Thanks for reading!
Jenn

Tuesday, January 11

Better Late Than Never, Right? (Research Diary, no. 8)

My Research Diary:
Part to-do list...
Part dear diary...
Part Nosy-Nellie...

Weekly events, plans (and a question or two) from my oh-so exciting genealogy (and sometimes non-genealogy) life...

""I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
- Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson

~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~

What happened this week:

Blog housekeeping...
  • I gained 2 more followers...as always, thanks for following and reading! I appreciate your comments and I think I've followed everyone in turn, but if I haven't please let me know
  • Thanks to Lori, I've started to contain my blogrolls to a scroll list...
  • I've added 10 new-to-me blogs to my reading lists - see below (though I'm sure there will be more, as always!)
  • I posted my lists for the "Ancestor Approved" award I received last week from Lisa... Thanks again!
Genealogy:
  • Giving back: I signed up as a RAOGK volunteer (photographing select Oshawa cemeteries).  Does anyone else volunteer here?  Do you get many requests?
  • I've also continued indexing with FamilySearch - I posted about my initial foray into the indexing world at "Chronicles of a NFSI*" and I've since moved on (though still in the 1861 Ontario census project) to Orford tp., Kent co....  
  • Regular features were whittled down to Tombstone Tuesday (Oshawa Union) and Wordless Wednesday (Valcartier picture postcard)...
  • I've been working on organization: getting family group sheets and sources together...and it's a good thing to know that my yen to file by document type is not alone...
  • ...I also stumbled across Tribal Pages.  Has anyone created a site here?  What do you think about it?
  • Lastly, I started to (re) explore (since he's updated the site quite a bit) Murray Pletsch's Canadian Gravemarker Gallery. He started out with the north/northwest portions of Ontario, and has now expanded to all of Canada!
Books:
  • I finished 2 books this week, including...
    • Drew Smith's Social Networking For Genealogists
    • Megan Smolenyak's Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History, A Companion To the NBC Series.
  • ...and I'm almost done G. J. Meyer's A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 - 1918.
  • I've created a new account at Shelfari, added a few recent books, and plopped the widget on the sidebar. I've tried out a few different book tracking sites, but I always seem to return to Shelfari...
New-to-me blogs:
What's coming up:
  • Hopefully I can get back into the post-holiday swing of things and return to a regular posting (and research!) schedule...
  • Regular features, including Tombstone Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, and Tabloid Thursday...
  • ..."52 Weeks to Better Genealogy" result and challenge posts...
  • ...and I've finalized my plans for a series of Military Monday posts, to start January 17th...

Thanks for reading!
Jenn

My personal research and blog diary for the week ending 9 January 2011 (just a little belated).

Monday, January 3

Chronicles of a NFSI*

I completed my first batch as an indexer, and (of course) I had to pick an advanced one:

1861 census for Tuscarora tp, Brant co., Ontario (then Canada West), Canada, p.1.

I'm comfortable with the layout of census images, and I'm usually pretty good at deciphering the enumerator's scribbles, but this was a bad one (and was well worth the label of "advanced").  The handwriting (the enumerator was Benjamin Carpenter) wasn't too bad, but the condition was terrible.  There were some dark spots but in most areas the colour had faded to almost unreadable.

Surnames included Carpenter, Miller, Fish, Bomssary?, Aaron, Maracle, Staats?, Johnson, Smith, Burning?, Green?, Lottridge, Coffee?, Givins?, Davis, and German.  Question marks indicated the ones I had trouble reading.

I think it was fate that I happened to get this particular batch.  Not only is my maternal family from that area (Brant and the bordering Haldimand co.), but Carpenter is one of my family names!  I don't know if - or where - Benjamin and his family fits in, but it was a thrill spotting a familiar name in a familiar place, from a batch picked at random!

Now I just hope I submitted everything alright.  The first few pages I opened looked like the tail end of a previous census district (no names, just lots of numbers and tallies), plus an inserted sheet with Brant co. township names.  I marked them all as unindexable, since they included no names....

* Newbie Family Search Indexer