Friday, December 30, 2022

Randy's Genealogy Activity Highlights for 2022

  Looking back over the past year, I see that I pursued these genealogy and family history related activities - it was a Zoom-y year (again!) to say the least!  And a health challenge year for me (open heart bypass surgery and COVID).

1)  Speaking

*  I made no presentations to genealogical societies this year.
*  I was asked by several societies to give a talk via Zoom, but declined.
*  I created no new presentations this year.

2)  Genealogy Society Work

*  Moderated 10 CVGS Research Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 20 to 40 in attendance, usually providing an hour of content.
*  Moderated 10 CVGS DNA Interest Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 15 to 40 in attendance, usually providing an hour of content.
*  Hosted 10 CVGS monthly General Meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 30 to 70 in attendance.  We are recording the program meetings and putting them on the CVGS website for our members to view for a limited time.
*  Attended the annual picnic (June) and holiday party (December) in-person and enjoyed seeing my CVGS colleagues.
*  Wrote, edited, printed, mailed and emailed 6 CVGS monthly Newsletters (10-12 pages each month) to the CVGS membership, and helped the assistant editor to learn the ropes.
*  Served on the CVGS Board for the 20th consecutive year as Research Group Chair, DNA Group Chair, and Newsletter Editor, attending monthly Board meetings and General Society program meetings (10 in Zoom).

3)  Education

*  Watched about 30 Family Tree Webinars as part of my subscriptions to the service.
*  Attended RootsTech Connect 2022 virtually over three days, and watched over 100 presentations.
*  Attended the SDGS January and September seminars, and every SDGS online program meeting and special webinars on Zoom.  
*  Attended most of the SDGS DNA Interest Group meetings on Zoom from hosted by Colin Whitney, often with speakers.
*  Attended most of the SDGS British Isles Interest Group on Zoom hosted by Colin Whitney.
*  Participated in about 20 Mondays With Myrt webinars via Zoom contributing information, commentary and opinions about events in the genea-sphere.  DearMYRTLE retired in May and Cousin Russ died in May.
*  Watched hundreds of YouTube videos about genealogy-related topics - I subscribe to about 110 YouTube channels for genealogy.
*  Read the NEHGS magazines and downloaded them to my genealogy education folders.   American Ancestors also provides digital editions of a number of periodicals for New England which I search occasionally and download articles to my genealogy folders.
*  Downloaded syllabus articles from RootsTech, Family Tree Webinars and saved them to my education folders.
*  Read thousands of genealogy-related blog posts from hundreds of geneabloggers using Feedly on a daily basis.

4)  Blogging

*  Wrote about 830 blog posts on Genea-Musings in the 17th year of the blog.  Most of my posts are about my own research (e.g., Census Sunday, Amanuensis Monday, Genealogy Pot-Pourri, Carringers in the News, Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, Seavers in the News, 52 Ancestors, and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun), but some are genea-curation about the industry (e.g., New and Updated Ancestry Collections; New and Updated FamilySearch Collections; Genealogy News Bytes, Genealogy Education Bytes; and Best of the Genea-Blogs), occasional guest posts, press releases,  questions asked (e.g., Dear Randy posts), research summaries (Rabbit Holes with Randy), genealogy software, online collections, or industry issues.  See:
***  Randy's "Best Of" Genea-Musings Posts in 2022
***  Top 40 Most Viewed Posts in 2022 on Genea-Musings
*  I now have about 14.1 million page views on the Genea-Musings blog according to Google.

5)  DNA Tests and Analysis

*  I have autosomal DNA test results at AncestryDNA (test), MyHeritageDNA (upload), FamilyTreeDNA (test), 23andMe (test), and Living DNA (upload).
*  Reviewed my DNA matches on a regular basis, and made notes about the match data, including known relationships and common ancestors.  I have spreadsheets for the highest matches on AncestryDNA, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritageDNA matches with collected information.  I occasionally download my Shared DNA segments from MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.
*  Created updated AutoCluster groups for MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe  using the Genetic Affairs program.  
*  Did not add much to my DNA Painter chromosome mapping based on known common ancestors on MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, and 23andMe.

6)  Genealogy Research and Family Trees

*  Used RootsMagic as my "master" family tree program on my desktop and laptop computers.  See RootsMagic Genealogy Database Statistics Update - 1 January 2023 for my progress on my family tree.  
*  Continued to research, find, source and enter information on my ancestors and descendants of my 5th great-grandparents to help find common ancestors with DNA matches.
*  Used the WebHints for Ancestry, MyHeritage, Findmypast, and FamilySearch to add content (names, relationships, events, dates, places, notes and source citations) for records found that apply to each profile.  
*  Searched for more records for selected profiles on all of the sites, adding content and source citations for records found that apply to each person profile.  
*  Mined selected record collections on Ancestry (using the specific database tool for Ancestry Member Tree profiles), on MyHeritage (finding Record Matches for a specific collection for my MyHeritage tree profiles), on Findmypast (Record Hints on Findmypast tree profiles), and on FamilySearch Record Hints for FamilySearch Family Tree profiles.
*  TreeShared each week the changes to the RootsMagic tree to my latest Ancestry Member Tree, which generates more Record Hints for those profiles.  Updated my MyHeritage tree using GEDCOM in early 2022.
*  Matched my RootsMagic profiles with FamilySearch Family Tree profiles on a regular basis using the FamilySearch tools in RootsMagic, and added or edited Family Tree profiles and/or RootsMagic profiles to add content, notes and source citations.
*  Put on hold the General Society of Mayflower Descendants membership process after submitting the preliminary form ,and I was working on the application form and supporting documentation.  Suspended due to Linda's fall and hospitalization and my health issues.

7)  Digital Data Maintenance

*  Added digital images of genealogy records, including downloaded books or articles, to my ancestral education, surname and family files on a regular "as found" basis.
*  Added other genealogy-related documents (e.g., CVGS Newsletters, presentation slides and handouts, etc.) to my Genealogy file folder.  
*  Backed up the digital image files to Google Drive and iDrive in the cloud daily, and some files to Dropbox for transfer to the laptop on an as-needed basis.  

8)  Summary

*  I do this almost every day for 5 to 11 hours a day seemingly chained to my computer; plus eat and sleep, but I usually take a mid-day nap to recharge. A lot of my reading of email, blogs and social media are done on my phone now.  I worked about 2,000 hours on genealogy-related activities in 2022.  Didn't make any money.  I think I'm my own boss.  I made some discoveries and had a lot of genea-fun.  
*  The year saw significant health problems for me - lots of tests, and then open heart bypass surgery in May, recovery from that and anemia all summer, then a mild COVID sickness in December.
*   I still find some time for family activities (a few visits with the daughters and grandkids - some on Facetime and Duo), and church (some on Zoom).  I visit Linda in her skilled nursing and memory care facility almost every day for an hour.  I watched Padres baseball on TV, Chargers football on TV, and Aztecs football/basketball on TV, and read fiction books (especially Nathan Goodwin, Steve Robinson and MJ Lee genealogy books) while watching TV.  Then there's household chores (cooking, laundry and cleaning, but I'm lax).  I check Facebook and Twitter daily, and read or watch local news and political news/events online, on my phone, and on TV. 

================================================


Copyright (c) 2022, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

2 comments:

Seeds to Tree said...

You are very busy! Good luck in 2023.

Linda Stufflebean said...

Your list is incredible. You've accomplished a lot. Have a happy, healthy 2023!