Honoring Winona Hahn Laird, Volunteer of the Year

-
Winona Hahn Laird, SKCGS Volunteer of the Year


Winona Hahn Laird is our Volunteer of the Year 2023. The Washington State Genealogical Society asks each member society to select one volunteer or team to honor, and in 2023 Winona was chosen unanimously by the South King County Genealogical Society Board. 

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯


How it Started

Winona has been doing genealogy for over 60 years.  She started as a young girl in a church class. One of the projects was to get her mother, father, and grandparents to write a one-page story of their lives and they all wrote their stories. 

Some years later, after Winona’s grandmother had passed, the family found reams of paper among her possessions which contained notes and stories she had written. Winona used this information to write and publish a book about her grandmother,  "Have You Ever Lived in a Mining Town;" see on Amazon or her website store.

Winona has researched most of her family lines back to the 16th and 17th centuries. 


Marriage, Family and Business

Family is very important to Winona. She was married for 56 years when her husband passed away, and is a mother of two daughters and has two grandchildren. She was the owner of an accounting and tax business in Kent, Washington for over 20 years. When she sold the business and retired as an accountant, she became a professional genealogist.  Her specialties are teaching and lecturing on genealogy. For three years Winona taught classes for the Continuing Education Department at Green River Community College in Auburn, Washington.


South King County Geanealogy Society Volunteer


SoKing News, Vol. 25, No. 3, page 5, "Family Tree Maker Users Group."

In November 2009, Winona started the FamilyTreeMaker User Group for the SKCGS, which has been ongoing support and education for FTM users in the local area. When the covid lockdowns began, Winona quickly learned how to run a virtual meeting, and the FTMUG has been meeting online ever since, drawing visitors from everywhere. 




For some years, Winona has been presenting Introduction to Genealogy classes and other genealogy education for free to the King County Public Library, and that continues; learn more here: https://www.skcgs.org/meetings-events/classes/kcls. 









Recently Winona wanted to serve SKCGS Members who needed the basics, and thus began her Beginning Genealogy classes, offered twice per month, once in the morning, and once in the evening so she can teach those who are still employed or live elsewhere in the world. Her class offerings have increased membership in SKCGS by 25% directly attributable to her classes earlier this year, and the growth continues!  

Details here: https://www.skcgs.org/meetings-events/classes/bgc.


Genealogy and Professional Memberships

Winona is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the National Genealogical Society, a Past President of South King County Genealogical Society, along with membership in several other genealogy societies in the United States.  She is a member of Mary Fell Stevenson Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, and is the Registrar for the Chapter and a faithful weekly volunteer at the Kent FamilySearch Center. Visit her website for beginning genealogy classes, her blog and videos.


Thank you Winona!





Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 18, 2023 at 4:31 PM

    Congratulations, Winona!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Darelyn GuinnDecember 19, 2023 at 7:02 AM

    Congratulations! I love to see you being recognized for all your work!

    ReplyDelete

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