2020

Well, that was a year. Or eight. I lost track.

When the pandemic shut us down in March, my brain kind of went with it. I’m still trying to recover.

But, time kept ticking along. I had to do some things the hard way as people ordered records. That got easier later in the year when I regained access to a lot of records I usually need access to and had lost in March. Then I started working again. I finished off some work that clients had been waiting for. Record orders got easier.

Everything went to hell more in July when my mother passed away. I had no idea it was coming. She didn’t die of covid. She avoided getting treatment for something diagnosed months earlier, avoiding the hospital to avoid covid exposure. So yeah, she died because of covid, but not from it. I didn’t go to the funeral in Florida just as the pandemic was taking off there. Since I wasn’t unexpectedly traveling, I claimed her Find a Grave page moments after the obituary went online.

I inexplicably stopped reading books for a few months at that point. I had a goal to read 12 books again. Last year, I fell short of that goal by one. This year, well, it depends how I count them. I read 11 physical books and one on Kindle, because it was the third in the series that I didn’t own. And I’m about 2/3 through another. I’ll get that finished in another couple days or so.

2020 Books

In genealogy, I haven’t done much work on my own family research this year, that I can remember. I’ve done some more indexing work and I did some work for clients. I also have 150 emails in my inbox, some are from people asking for research. If you’re waiting, sorry. I’m determined to get them dealt with sooner rather than later. You will eventually hear from me.

After the summer, Dad sent a couple boxes of photos (and some other stuff). I got the two big photo albums (1960s to 1981), the album with the photos other relatives gave her, and a whole bunch of loose photos that she had stashed all over the place. I have been digitizing them for months. I have finished everything but the second big album that I just started. Some of the loose photos were my grandmother’s and my great aunts’ that Mom had. There were some interesting finds. I have many new favorites, but one is of my parents before they were married. I never saw a photo of them before their wedding. (I mean, it was in the album and I might have, but didn’t realize it. It would have been decades ago if I did see it.)

Dad and Mom, September 1963

The stuff that made 2020 suck will continue at least until January 20th, so today isn’t a big turning point. And vaccinations will take longer too, before we can get out again. According to the Utah “plan”, I’ll be in February or March. We’ll see. I can’t wait to get out of here. I haven’t left my house for anything but food and a few other necessities since March 10th, my last trip to the FHL. Those were the days.

2021 Goals

What’s up for next year? Procrastinating is my enemy.

  • Catch up on all those back-logged emails. This will also hopefully involve a lot of research for clients. And don’t let it get stupid out of control again.
  • Keep digitizing the photos and I have some plans for organizing all my photos better. And I need to scan in all of my own and pass some through MyHeritage to see if it can de-blur them.
  • Keep indexing records and getting them online. There’s always more.
  • Read another dozen books. More would be nice. I’ve already cut back on computer games, so I should have more time for that. Maybe start doing audio books to get in more.
  • Travel. I need to travel. I really want to go back to Europe and find more records. When can I get out of here?

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