Happy New Year Fireworks Vectors by Vecteezy   The old year fades away and the new year enters brightly, bringing hope for health and prosperity in the days to come.  Cultures throughout the world have their own method of celebration, many with fireworks and joyful music. Last year, just before New Year's 2021, I discovered a Youtube three part presentation of Hogmanay over Edinburgh that made a great impression on me.  When I looked for  Hogmanay for 2022, I learned much more about the tradition in general and the 2021 Youtube presentation in particular.   Hogmanay is the Scottish word for the last day of the year or New Year’s Eve. Although Hogmanay is generally regarded as the most important Scottish holiday, the origins of both the word and the traditions are obscure. Many people think that the term comes from French but there are also theories that it may have Gaelic, Norse, or Anglo-Saxon origins. The traditions, as with most modern holidays, likely grew from pagan ones and m

  From Melanie Hinds: Growing up in Chicago we always had artificial Christmas trees, and my mom seemed to appreciate trees that were made of any material and any color other than a traditional green evergreen tree. One year we had a white flocked tree with turquoise garland and ornaments. (I thought it was so cool!)  This is a picture of a Christmas tree we had in the late 1960’s: silver aluminum with purple glass ornaments. What you can’t see behind all these presents is the color wheel that we always used to illuminate our Christmas trees. Many of you might remember the color wheel: it was an electric wheel contraption that was divided into 4 quarters, each quarter a different color (usually red, blue, yellow and green) that could reach temperatures of about 4000 degrees hot and cause 3rd degree burns if you were silly enough to touch it! (Don’t ask me how I know about that.)  And our color wheel squeaked as it made each revolution. I always wondered why my dad never oiled it but ma

Helen Lewis, 1923-2017 The South King County Genealogical Society is thrilled to have the opportunity to honor one of our founding members by nominating her for the National Genealogical Society's Hall of Fame. Helen Lewis spent much of her genealogical career in service to other researchers, and because of this we believe she deserves to be in the national Hall of Fame.  Helen McGreer: Early Life Helen Irene McGreer was born 3 January 1923 in  Condon, Gilliam, Oregon. According to her obituary, She was raised on a ranch in central Oregon where running water was a hand pump on the back porch and lighting was provided by kerosene lamps. She walked or rode a horse to a one-room schoolhouse in Clarno, OR until 8th grade. She boarded with an aunt to attend high school, graduating from West Seattle High School class of 1940. - https://www.rentonreporter.com/obituaries/helen-irene-lewis/   Family and Professional Life After marrying Carl Lewis, an engineer with the Idaho Power Company i

Collaboration and Cousin Bait Do you use Find a Grave in your genealogy research? I do, all the time! Right along with Ancestry, Google, Wikitree and FamilySearch. It shares with the most useful sites the power of collaboration and "cousin bait," which is advertising your name and contact information on profiles of relatives you share with your cousins, some of whom are researchers looking for you.  If you use Find a Grave only to find out the name of the cemetery in which your relative or ancestor is buried, you are missing out on much of the power of the site. And I'm not just talking about the clues such as date and place of birth, death, names of parents, spouse(s) and children. Before moving on think about who the  someone is who added information to the memorial. If it is not you, you can add information! And you can click over to their profile to find out which cousin is your benefactor. To make corrections or additions to a memorial click Suggest Edits as below: