Research Trip
GeneaBlogie Grand Genealogy Journey – Day 1: Sacramento
Sacramento has often been overlooked by visitors to Northern California; the same visitors are frequently mesmerized by the city some 90 miles away called San Francisco. Dissing Sacramento used to be a favorite pastime of the cognoscenti. “It’s too hot!” “It’s too dry!” “It’s too flat!” “It’s got no culture!” Even the California Supreme Court refuses to have its …
June 30, 2010 Wednesday at 2:50 pm
The Grand Genealogy Journey 2010 (Virtual Edition) Starts Anew
Believe it or don’t, but it’s been three years since the Big Train Trip. I’m really ready to go again, but circumstances currently won’t allow that. So we started to lay out our virtual genealogical dream trip traveling via Amtrak and other conveyances. We ran into a set of difficulties soon after the beginning of the trip. As a result, …
June 30, 2010 Wednesday at 2:34 pm
The Grand Genealogy Journey (Virtual) Starts Saturday
Join us here Saturday p.m. for the start of the GeneaBlogie Grand Genealogy Journey! It’ll kick off with a tour of the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento, located at one of the most historic sites in American railroad history. Then, we’ll learn some more history about Sacramento and the Sierra foothill communities that are nearby. Finally, we board Amtrak’s California …
May 6, 2010 Thursday at 9:17 pm
Interviewing Family Members in the Field
How many times have you heard somebody [or even yourself] say, “I wish I had asked [insert name of now-deceased family member here] about this!” That’s the family historian’s lament. It’s also sometimes the motivation to seek out far-flung family members to get their stories. “Getting their stories” is the essential nature of what needs to be done. On the …
August 8, 2007 Wednesday at 3:03 am
Research Trip: The Don’t Overs
Sometimes when kids play games, they have rules that either allow or prohibit “do-overs,” that is, the opportunity to make the play again. In this post, we present the “don’t-overs” for genealogical research trips. 1. DON’T OVER-pack (Photo Grrl!): Remember, you’re not going to Mars. If you forget something, you can probably get it wherever you are. You don’t need …
August 8, 2007 Wednesday at 3:01 am
Is A Research Trip Worthwhile?
I’m back tonight at GeneaBlogie headquarters in Carmichael, California, after a trip of nearly three weeks to Missouri. A good deal of the time was taken by travel itself, since we opted to take Amtrak. We spent time in St Louis and Kansas City. As I’ve mentioned in some of the posts while on the trip, I’ll have in the …
August 6, 2007 Monday at 3:48 am
I’ll Be Workin’ on The Railroad
[Posted from Kansas City, Missouri] Tomorrow evening, we board the west-bound Southwest Chief to head back to GeneaBlogie Headquarters. Despite the shaky start, it’s been a good trip and we return with a treasure trove of information that we’ll be analyzing and writing about in the coming weeks. One of the difficulties of a trip like this is that you …
July 30, 2007 Monday at 3:19 am
A Couple of Uploads from Photo Grrl
Right: Our author takes a stroll off the train during a lenghty stop at Albuquerque. Left: Craig at St Louis Public Library, 7/23/07 Left: Kansas City Union Station, 7/19/07
July 27, 2007 Friday at 8:13 pm
Some Lessons Learned
On the first part of our on-going midsummer research trip, the following lessons became clear to me: Everything takes longer and costs more than estimates. Hauling octogenarians around on cemetery research in July heat is not necessarily a good idea, no matter how much they want to go. Socializing too much with old friends and acquaintances can be hazardous to …
July 26, 2007 Thursday at 1:54 pm
This Trip Has Got to Get Better Because . . .
. . . well, just because! [Posted from the St Louis Public Library, St Louis, Missouri]–So just after I completed the last post from Kansas City Union Station, Amtrak announced it was time to board the train for St Louis. Except that this day, it wouldn’t be a train, it would be a bus! Why? An Amtrak spokesman explained, “There’s …
July 20, 2007 Friday at 6:23 pm
