Created by Julie Goucher, July 2019

The last Desk Ramblings post, which you can read HERE, was written as the UK went into COVID-19 lock-down, on 26 March. Since then it has been a strange time to be living in and I wonder what historians of the future will make of it?

Whilst some found the last 4 months a challenge, I was not especially bothered by not going out and about. We kept our interactions with others to a minimum, at least in the physical sense, despite that I still managed to be unwell, but am on the mend now. I taught two Pharos courses during  the period of March to July, the first running of the Practicalities of a One-Name Study and then an Introduction to One-Name Studies.

On a personal note, I decided to work through the online catalogues of a number of venues relating to my One-Name Studies. I started with West Sussex Records Office and whereas I expected to be able to conclude the whole of Sussex and Surrey, I have only managed to complete West Sussex. I also managed to watch a Society of Genealogists recording, Treasures of the Society of Genealogists, which was immensely helpful. I lectured twice during June to the Society of Genealogists, about Surnames, plus to a genealogical Society in the United States. I also wrote three presentations, one of which will be presented a bit later this month.

Readers may remember that I mentioned on the last Desk Ramblings that I was about to start a Moleskine Expanded notebook, which has 400 pages, well I did start it and finished it, the notebook did me the entire period of lock down, so that was well timed! Here is a brief snapshot:

As you can see here, I use quite a lot of those tabs of what material is located where. Moleskine does not have a index page, nor are there page numbers. For the first time in years, I did not leave space at the beginning of the book, in essence, I winged it. This book contains a host of material, journal entries, notes and research material. In a strange way, the lack of page numbers and an index did not, and has not prohibited me from locating material. My current notebook is the slimmer Moleskine, but I have another expanded lined up ready and waiting.

I note that I have a few posts completed, but not scheduled for two previous series, I shall complete these posts get them up this week. It is ironic, that having been home for the best part of more than four months, I still have outstanding tasks.

I have scheduled a Read-a-Long of the Surname Research Guide, which you can read about, and sign up HERE. The booklet is not a long read, but the concept of a group read was to bring together those who might be curious about surnames and want to focus on reading and discussion. We all have surnames, yet having a surname specific study is seen as unusual.

I hope everyone has been well and safe, stay tuned for more frequent posting.