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) Speaking
* Gave no presentations to genealogical societies this year.* I had planned on cutting back in-person presentations due to travel issues, but COVID did the job for me. Plus, no one asked!
* I created no new presentations this year.
2) Society Work
* Moderated 12 CVGS Research Group monthly meetings (in Zoom meetings) with 12 to 30 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.
* Hosted 12 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.
* Wrote, edited, printed, mailed and emailed 12 CVGS monthly Newsletters (10-12 pages each month) to the CVGS membership.
* Served on the CVGS Board for the 19th consecutive year as Research Group Chair, DNA Group Chair, and Newsletter Editor, attending monthly Board meetings and General Society program meetings (12 in Zoom).
3) Education
* Watched about 50 Family Tree Webinars as part of my subscriptions to the service.
* Attended RootsTech Connect 2021 virtually over three days, and watched over 100 presentations.
* Attended the 2021 RootsTech conference virtually in March, attending classes, visiting the exhibit hall, etc.
* Attended the SDGS January and September seminars, and every SDGS online program meeting and special webinars on Zoom.
* Attended all 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 40 Mondays With Myrt webinars via Zoom contributing information, commentary and opinions about events in the genea-sphere. Also watched several Wacky Wednesday webinars.
* Watched hundreds of YouTube videos about genealogy-related topics - I subscribe to about 100 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 878 blog posts on Genea-Musings in the 16th year of the blog. Most of my posts are about my own research (e.g., 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; New and Updated MyHeritage collections; Genealogy News and Education Bytes on Tuesdays and Fridays; and Best of the Genea-Blogs on Sundays), occasional guest posts, press releases, questions asked (e.g., Dear Randy posts), genealogy software, online collections, or industry issues. See:
*** Randy's "Best" Genea-Musings Posts in 2021
*** Top 50 Most Viewed Posts in 2021 on Genea-Musings
* I now have about 13.2 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 and MyHeritageDNA matches with collected information. I occasionally download my Shared DNA segments from MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.
* Created AutoCluster groups for MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe using the Genetic Affairs program.
* Started 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 2022 for my progress on my family tree. Upgraded to RootsMagic Version 8 in early October and learned the ropes. * 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 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 weekly the changes to the RootsMagic tree to my Ancestry Member Tree, which generates more Record Hints for those profiles. Updated my Findmypast and MyHeritage trees using GEDCOM in early 2021.
* 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.
* Started the General Society of Mayflower Descendants membership process - submitted the preliminary form and was working on the application form and supporting documentation. Suspended due to Linda's fall and hospitalization.
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
* That's what I do 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. I worked about 3,000 hours on genealogy-related activities in 2021. Didn't make any money. I think I'm my own boss. Made a lot of discoveries and had a lot of genea-fun.
* I actually gained more genealogy and research time due to COVID, but now visit Linda every day for an hour at the memory care facility.
* 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). We went to five Padres games this year before Linda's fall, and watched Padres baseball on TV, Chargers football on TV, and Aztecs football/basketball on TV, and reading fiction 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 and on TV.
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