Gratitude, and a Challenge

-


Greetings family history researchers, near and far, especially Members of the South King County Genealogical Society. Thank you for reelecting both Michele Mattoon as your Treasurer and me as your President. This past two years have been a challenge, but together with the Membership we have accomplished a lot. 


New SKCGS.org

One thing everyone has noticed is the new website, which is much less costly than our older site, and much easier to keep up-to-date. In addition, by building Zoom registration into our public calendar there, we've improved the security of our Zoom meetings. Each team now updates their part of the new site as needed. Thank you Tina! Tina has also streamlined much of the back end of SKCGS, making it easier to bring in new volunteers, and to share handouts and video to both Members and visitors alike. 

To stay up-to-date, check https://www.skcgs.org/home/announcements. 


Planning

Our Five-Year Planning committee has finished its work, which involved conducting a well-received survey, and testing a hybrid-meeting process, so it will be ready when local leadership for hybrid meetings steps up. Well done, Winona and crew! In addition, since one of top requests in the survey results was Beginning Genealogy classes, Winona is just finishing the first season. The society gained new members, and many newer genealogists did their homework and learned some hands-on research work. Thank you, Winona!


Member at Large

Your Member at Large, MaryLynn, formed a small Nominating Committee and ran this year's election. In addition, she has recently taken on heading up the small Membership committee, and with our Treasurer's help, cleaned up our Membership reporting system. This is a huge help to me and all the rest of the Board members who need up-to-date data. Thank you, MaryLynn!


Governing Documents

This is the season for planting, weeding, pruning, and so our ByLaws committee will soon be re-commencing work on both the Bylaws and Standing Rules to bring us into compliance with the long-awaited update to the laws governing Washington State non-profits. We'll be simplifying and updating as we go through both documents. 


Volunteer

We need your help, too! Among other things:

  • We are looking for another member of the SKCGS Education team. Please write to us at education@skcgs.org if you are interested in helping out. We share the work and have fun providing SKCGS with wonderful topics and speakers.
  • We also need two Member volunteers for a financial review to take place sometime in June. Estimated time to complete is less than two hours. Write to Treasurer@skcgs.org to volunteer.

More opportunities at https://www.skcgs.org/support-skcgs/volunteer.


Valorie Zimmerman


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Looking for a Needle in a Haystack? GAME CHANGER at FamilySearch

-
Image
Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will  eventually  allow us to do just that. It has been estimated that 75% or more of the records at FamilySearch were browsable but not searchable; the only indexes those found in the records themselves. Those records are certainly attainable by using those indexes and browsing to the record of interest, but the process is tedious, often frustrating, and slow. And once found, the record must be read and transcribed to be useful. This new Full Text Search tackles a
Read more

What's the Question?

-
Image
We genealogists are often told by experienced researchers how important it is to begin with a research question. I resisted doing this for a long time, but now that I use a series of questions to guide my research, the search is more focused and actually finds more of the history of the family I'm investigating. I use a Google Doc as the  research proceeds, where I keep the question(s), the plan, timelines, checklist of resources to search, etc. all in one place. I've seen others use spreadsheets in the same way, perhaps splitting up things in tabs (Excel or Google Sheets). I prefer a document because I add source citations as I find them and I can begin writing up the case right there in the doc as the hypotheses are proven. Specific Questions in Previous Successes As beginners we often have no clue how much and what details we already know about a person, event or relationship, so it's hard to specify what we want to know. But when looking back at successful research, it
Read more

Help Save This Abused and Neglected Cemetery

-
Image
Screen capture from Google Maps History In an exchange of emails this past week in both the main SKCGS group, and in the Washington-State-Genealogy group, many facts were revealed about the history of the I.O.O.F. Comet Lodge Cemetery, also known as the Old Burying Ground, the Georgetown Cemetery, the Graham Street Burying Ground and maybe more.  FindAGrave sums it up this way: "Since it was established in 1881, the Comet Lodge cemetery site has been whittled away to less than half its original 5 acres. Records are sketchy but it's safe to say that some 500 pioneers were buried here, atop unknown numbers of native Duwamish people. New burials ended in the 1930s. Since then, homes and streets were built on top of many of the plots as the neighborhood around the cemetery grew.  "Upkeep and ownership of the cemetery bounced between the city, civic groups, relatives of Comet Lodge residents, and nearby neighbors. For years, much of the property was allowed to deteriorate int
Read more