Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Were You Doing in 2001?

I know I did stuff in 2001, but how much of it will I remember for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge tonight?

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Do you recall what you were doing in 2001?  Family, school, work, hobbies, technology, genealogy, vacations, etc?

2.  Share your 2001 events in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or post in some other social media system.  Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.

Well, at least now I know how Randy is able to give so much detail about events from many years ago.  I, however, have never written a newsy annual letter, for Christmas or Chanukah, telling everyone what I was doing during the year.  And my recollections are pretty scant.

In 2001 I was living in Oakland, California.  I bought the house and moved into it in 1993, so by 2001 I was pretty well settled.  I think I had four pets:  Cody (dog), Kirby (dog), Hank (cat), and Sassy (cat).  I may have still had a housemate.

I was working at the Seismological Society of America (SSA).  My business card said I was the Junior Web Geek, but I don't remember what title I came up with for Publication Assistant.  The latter meant that I copyedited Seismological Research Letters, the monthly journal that was less of the hard science and more news and history, and I did administrative work for it and for Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, which was hard science, physics, geophysics.  Junior Web Geek meant that I assisted our contract computer person with maintaining our online presence.  I also helped with general administrative work in the office and at our conferences.

I do recall that our annual conference that year was held in San Francisco to commemorate the 95th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  I don't think I stayed at the hotel, but rather went back and forth every day from Oakland into San Francisco.  I distinctly remember taking BART at way too early in the morning on April 18 to be at Lotta's Fountain for the annual ceremony held there in remembrance of the quake.  I dressed in my finest vintage attire from the period and wore it for the rest of the day.

I might have attended one or two conferences during the year related to my work at SSA.

I was at work on September 11.  I don't remember how we learned what had happened.  I think we found a television and were able to watch some coverage.  When I went home, every TV station was showing replays of the same films from CNN except the Food Network, which had a slide expressing sympathy, and Comedy Central, which was airing an episode of The Daily Show with They Might Be Giants as guests.

In gaming, I probably attended GenCon that year, which was still being held in Milwaukee (it wouldn't move to Indianapolis until 2003).  At least I think I was still managing to go at that time.  I might have gone under the aegis of Reaper Miniatures, as I no longer worked full time for a game company.  I probably didn't make it to Origins, though.  I was still going to Strategicon events, so I'm pretty sure I went to OrcCon and Gateway; maybe I went to Gamex.  According to the list of credits I compiled for my own satisfaction, I did editing that year for Citizen Games, Fast Forward Entertainment, Grey Ghost Press, and Hobgoblynn Press and created indices for Alderac Entertainment Group, Reaper Miniatures, and Steve Jackson Games.

I started volunteering at the LDS Oakland Family History Center in 2000, so I'd been doing that for about a year.  My 6-hour volunteer shift was on Saturdays.  I enjoyed helping people with their family history research (and still do!).  And that's all I can think of for genealogy that year.

That's about all I can come up with.  I tried looking through my e-mail archive to see what it might tell me, but I had forgotten that I started my Gmail address in 2004, so it has nothing for 2001.  I think I was still using AOL then, and those messages are long gone, so nothing to look at.

Wordless Wednesday

World Heart Day 2026

September 29 is World Heart Day.  The main emphasis on World Heart Day is the steps that you as an individual can take regarding your health to try to have a heart that keeps on working for you.  But whenever I think of heart health, I think of my half-sister's mother's side of her family.

See, I'm an obsessed genealogist.  So I research just about everyone associated with my family.  And of course I researched my sister's mother's family.  Why wouldn't I?  I even knew her!  (And quite a fascinating character she was, too.)

I had done a fair amount of research on her family.  I was going to be visiting my brother, and my sister was coming too.  So I printed out an updated family tree to give to her.

But when I looked at it, I suddenly noticed an unnerving fact:  In four generations, every man but one had died before reaching the age of 60.  And every single one of them had died from a heart attack.  (I wrote about this aspect of Laurie's family a few years ago in detail.)

The only male member of the family to live to see 60, and quite a few years beyond that, may have noticed this trend himself.  I know that he retired early and enjoyed many years after that.  Coincidence?  You be the judge.

Amazing as it may be to some of us, family history isn't all that interesting to a lot of people.  Health histories, however, especially ones that indicate hereditary conditions, are one aspect of genealogy that attract more attention.  Tell someone his life may be affected by this, and his ears will perk up.

So as you research your family, take note of the causes of death on those death certificates.  If you see any trends, let other family members know.  Maybe they'll be able to stay around a little longer because you told them.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Oldest Confirmed Record

I unfortunately don't have records as old as Randy Seaver's, but I do have some old ones that qualify for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  What is "your oldest confirmed record?"  What is one of the oldest documents you've personally found for any ancestor?

2.  Share your oldest confirmed record:  what it is, where it came from, and what it revealed.

3.  Share your oldest confirmed record in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or a post in some other social media system.  Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.

Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this topic.

My family history database and documents are still missing in action due to a computer crash, but I believe the oldest confirmed record I have for an ancestor is the 1830 U.S. census for my 3x-great-grandfather Joel Armstrong in Mount Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.  It came from the U.S. National Archives.  In addition to letting me know where Joel and his family were living, it told me that three males and five females were in the household; no free or enslaved blacks were in the household; and there were no deaf, dumb, or blind individuals or foreigners not naturalized.

Joel Armstrong (sixth from top)
Mount Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey
1830 U.S. Census population schedule

Census records prior to 1830 do not survive for New Jersey, and I have not yet had the opportunity to search for Joel Armstrong in tax lists.  I have index information about his marriage but do not have the actual marriage record.  So this is the oldest confirmed record I have found for the biological part of my father's side of the family, and Joel is currently my end-of-line ancestor.  I have several earlier records for the Sellers side, which is our adoptive line.

The oldest confirmed record I have found for my mother's side of the family, in comparison, is from 1888.  I wrote about it for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post in 2024.

Yes, I need to recover my missing files, and I need to get back to researching my family.

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Unfinished Genealogy Projects

I'm pretty sure tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver is going to include everyone.  And if it doesn't, that person (could there be more than one?) is amazing and very, very special.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  What started but unfinished projects do you have?  Define one or more of them and how far along you are in the project(s).

2.  Share one or more of your unfinished projects in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or post in some other social media system.  Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.

Oh, I have so many, and it's hard to keep track of them all.  But some of the most important are:

• Enter all the information I gathered from research I did before my computer crashed, with citations.  I had a great research streak for a while, and I was finding lots and lots of information.  I probably had entered only about 20% of what I had found.  Oh, but this requires that I . . .

• Get my computer all fixed up, including connecting the storage disk I have already purchased and transferring all my retrieved files.  Part of the benefit of getting the computer fixed and transferring the retrieved files is that most of the research I haven't entered is among the retrieved files.  Oh, and the updated family tree program files are there also.  I think I have everything I need, it's just getting it done.  Since that's the time-consuming part, I'm only about 10% done?

• Properly file all those documents, both physical and electronic.  I have to regain access to the electronic files before I can file them properly, of course.  I haven't started this at all.

• Get my online back-ups started again.  I am woefully behind (about four or five years' worth).  Also not started at all.

• Like Randy, I need to regularize my locations in my family tree program.  Tedious but necessary.  I probably have done about 5–10% of them.  Maybe it isn't that bad.  Maybe about 20%.

• Restart sending updated copies of family information to every relative with whom I am in contact, for every family line each person is a descendant of.  This will be easier than when I used to do it, because previously I printed out everything on paper and mailed it to everyone.  That equaled about 50 to 75 big manila envelopes going out for Chanukah and Christmas every year.  This time around, I intend to send everyone electronic files, unless specifically requested otherwise.  I haven't started this at all.

Okay, that's enough to make me feel overwhelmed, so I better stop while I'm behind.

Wordless Wednesday