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!
1) Genealogy Society Work
* Moderated 11 CVGS Research Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 20 to 40 in attendance, usually providing an hour of content.
* Moderated 11 CVGS DNA Interest Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 15 to 30 in attendance, usually providing an hour of content.
* Attended 11 CVGS monthly General Meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 30 to 70 in attendance.
* Attended 3 CVGS in-person education meetings and helped answer questions for new genealogists.
* Attended the annual picnic (June) and holiday party (December) in-person and enjoyed seeing my CVGS colleagues.
* Wrote, edited, published, and emailed 12 CVGS monthly Newsletters (10-12 pages each month) to the CVGS membership in the 14th year of my editorship.
* Served on the CVGS Board of Directors for the 21nd consecutive year as Research Group Chair, DNA Group Chair, and Newsletter Editor, attending monthly Board meetings and General Society program meetings (10 in Zoom).
* Served on the CVGS Board of Directors for the 21nd consecutive year as Research Group Chair, DNA Group Chair, and Newsletter Editor, attending monthly Board meetings and General Society program meetings (10 in Zoom).
2) Education
* Watched about 15 Legacy Family Tree Webinars as part of my subscription to the service.
* Watched about 15 Legacy Family Tree Webinars as part of my subscription to the service.
* Attended RootsTech Connect 2023 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.
* Watched hundreds of YouTube videos about genealogy-related topics - I subscribe to about 120 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, Legacy Family Tree Webinars, CVGS programs and SDGS programs and saved them to my education computer folders.
* Read thousands of genealogy-related blog posts from hundreds of geneabloggers using Feedly on a daily basis.
3) Blogging
* Wrote about 820 blog posts on Genea-Musings in the 18th year of the blog. Most of my posts are about my own research (e.g., Amanuensis Monday, Genealogy Pot-Pourri, Seavers in the News, Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, 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:
* 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, Legacy Family Tree Webinars, CVGS programs and SDGS programs and saved them to my education computer folders.
* Read thousands of genealogy-related blog posts from hundreds of geneabloggers using Feedly on a daily basis.
3) Blogging
* Wrote about 820 blog posts on Genea-Musings in the 18th year of the blog. Most of my posts are about my own research (e.g., Amanuensis Monday, Genealogy Pot-Pourri, Seavers in the News, Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, 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 2023
*** Top 40 Most Viewed Posts in 2023 on Genea-Musings
* I now have about 16,813 posts and 15.6 million page views on the Genea-Musings blog since 2006 according to Google.
*** Top 40 Most Viewed Posts in 2023 on Genea-Musings
* I now have about 16,813 posts and 15.6 million page views on the Genea-Musings blog since 2006 according to Google.
4) 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.
5) Genealogy Research and Family Trees
* Used RootsMagic 9 as my "master" family tree program on my desktop and laptop computers. See RootsMagic Genealogy Database Statistics Update - 1 January 2024 for my progress on my family tree.
5) Genealogy Research and Family Trees
* Used RootsMagic 9 as my "master" family tree program on my desktop and laptop computers. See RootsMagic Genealogy Database Statistics Update - 1 January 2024 for my progress on my family tree.
* Continued to research, find, source and enter information on my ancestors and descendants of my 4th 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 2023.
* 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.
* 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 2023.
* 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.
* The General Society of Mayflower Descendants membership application process is still on hold after submitting the preliminary form.
6) Family Photos
* Reorganized my family photos into major families - mine and Linda's, our daughter's families, my parents, Seavers, Carringers, Lelands.
* Found several caches of family photos and artifacts hiding in the genealogy cave closet, file cabinets, and file boxes.
* Used the MyHeritage Reimagine mobile app to image photo album pages and loose photos to add hundreds of photos to my collection.
* Colorized and enhanced over 600 family photos using the MyHeritage photograph tools.
7) Family Stories
* Wrote 37 stories about my life, many with photographs, for the StoryWorth book I received last year for Christmas. There are still more to do, and I should have the book ready for publication in 2024.
* Scanned and OCRed the 37 pages of my Aunt Geraldine Seaver's audio tape transcriptions of her family memories and edited them (the scans and OCR were imperfect!). I put them in an RTF and PDF document on my computer and saved them in Google Drive, iDrive and FOREVER for now.
* Made a presentation and Zoom video of our life since 1970 with over 200 slides, just in time for our wedding anniversary and birthday celebration in October.
* Started writing biographies about my close relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) for 52 Relatives series.
* Experimented with Artificial Intelligence programs to write ancestor biographies using ChatGPT and MyHeritage AI Biographer.
* 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 files to Google Drive occasionally and iDrive in the cloud daily, and some files to Dropbox for transfer to the laptop on an as-needed basis.
9) 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 2023. I didn't make any money doing this but spent some. I think I'm my own boss. I made some discoveries and had a lot of genea-fun.
* We celebrated our 53.5 year anniversary (we missed out on our 50th in March 2020), my 80th birthday and Linda's 81st birthday in October at our church with 70 in attendance, plus an Elvis impersonator who sang for 90 minutes. It was the first time Linda was seen by many of our friends since June 2021 when she broke her hip.
* The year saw improved health for me - I had a pacemaker installed in September to stabilize my heart rate, slept better, but have lapsed into eating sweets again. I'm trying to walk a bit every day.
* I love having time for family activities (occasional visits with the daughters and grandkids - some calls on Facetime). I visit Linda in her skilled nursing and memory care facility almost every day for an hour. I watched Padres baseball on TV, Chargers and NFL football on TV, and Aztecs football/basketball on TV, and read the newspaper, genealogy magazines, and fiction books (mostly mystery books) while watching TV. Then there's household chores (shopping, cooking, laundry and cleaning, but I'm lax - I did buy a Roomba to help!). I check Facebook and Twitter daily, and read or watch local news and political news/events online, on my phone, and on TV.
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Copyright (c) 2023, Randall J. Seaver
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