Late Night Genealogy

Is it just me, or does a disproportionate amount of genealogical research get done late at night – maybe not the “wee, small hours of the night,” but at the end of the day, when you’ve put in a day’s worth (or two if you are a stay-at-home mother, work and take classes, etc.) of work and are tired and not at your sharpest? I’m sure there are people who get a significant amount research done during the day; this is probably the case with professional genealogists, but do they end up pushing their own family research back until after they’ve done their clients’ work?

In my case, during the work week, it is a good day when I’ve been able to devote half an hour to research, and that often comes at about 10:00 at night. At 10:30, as my eyelids start to droop and I can tell my brain is getting sluggish, I reluctantly have to stop my research for the day. It occurs to me that the quality of my research, i.e. thoroughness, soundness of conclusions, and so forth, may be suffering. Is that why I have so many strange handwritten notes everywhere that I can’t figure out the next day, let alone several weeks later?

Even on weekends, a good chunk of quality research time can be hard to find. That dust I can see on my bookshelves is calling to me. The cats want to play. My daughter needs a ride. Four hours of solid research feels like an awesome accomplishment.

And I really, really mean to finish this post, but, um, you know … it’s getting late and, um, … zzzz

The Strangest Thing Happened Last Night

Last night when I pulled my blog up on the laptop that I work on downstairs, the format didn't look quite the way it usually does. There was a darkish banner at the top and the words "ob-scene content" appeared. I was mystified. This is my blog: to say the content is innocuous is probably an understatement. Everything seemed slightly off and when I clicked on the list of "Blogs I Follow," the blogs were brought up in feed form, not as the regular blogs. I thought perhaps some sort of mischief must have been involved, so I switched to another browser. Everything seemed to be OK there, and the blog appeared as normal on my main computer in my home office.

The event bothered me all day at work, and I started to think: What was different; what could possibly be construed as obscene? For one thing, I realized that I had not used the laptop since the weekend and I had posted my last article (the one below, "Visiting with Grandma Brinlee") using my regular computer on Monday. I also remembered that the laptop is an old family computer and that the last two "owners" were my two daughters - and we had probably put some sort of screening program on the browser.

The only difference was the article. I am not sure if my conclusion is correct, but I think it is this: I had used a word which can mean "chewing tobacco" but can also mean a terrible type of movie, one which is not appropriate for anyone of any age, let alone children. I changed the wording of the article and am having no problems on either computer. But I am totally paranoid now, and I can empathize with Randy Seaver, who could not access his own blog at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as described here.