2025: What Happened

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2025: What Happened, and a peek into 2026

“Father Time” by Linnaea Mallette: Public Domain license

In south King County, Washington, 2025 began with most folks still recovering from a major storm, a "bomb cyclone." Unfortunately, winter storms were punishing at the end of the year as well, with near-record flooding in much of western Washington. However, our society  handled disaster as our ancestors did: with courage, creativity and by working together. We had nine amazing speakers this year and were active weekly in small groups. Volunteers staff monthly Genealogy Help desks in three local libraries, and SKCGS publishes a weekly blog. 

2025 Speaker Series

  • January: Dr. Carol Gorman Friedel "The Invisible Man—Moving Through a Pre-1840 Burned County Brick Wall"
  • February: Michael Strauss “The Road to Independence: Revolutionary War Research”
  • March:  Amber Oldenburg "Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense Registration Cards: The Largest Census of American Women You've Never Heard About" 
  • April: Debbie Gurtler, AG "What's New at the FamilySearch Library"
  • May: Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, FMGS, FUGA "The WPA Era: Free Records Boom from the Government" 
  • June: Peggy Clemens Lauritzen "The Scots-Irish in America"
  • September: Roxanne Lowe "Write Your Own Obituary"
  • October: Craig K Gowens "The Border Reivers: The Beginnings of America's Scotch-Irish"
  • November: Mags Gaulden "WikiTree's DNA Features, With A Splash of mitoYDNA.org"

We are looking forward to:  

  • January 17 2026: Mary Kircher Roddy "Putting Your Learning to Work: Getting the Most From an Educational Opportunity"
  • February 21 2026: Robyn N. Smith "Cluster Research: Using Other People to Find Your People"
  • March 21 2026: Winona Laird "Publish Your Story using AI and Kindle Direct Publishing"
  • April 18 2026: Robbie Johnson "Writing for Relatives 101-–From Research to Family History"
  • May 16 2026 Elizabeth Swanay O'Neal "Research at the library...without leaving home!"
  • June 20 2026: Steven Morrison Part 1,"Digging Up New Dirt: Unearthing the Real New England Immigrant" AND Part 2, "Finding, Proving and Publishing"  

Our Saturday Speaker Series is free to all; if the speaker allows it, a recording of their talk is available to SKCGS Members for review for a short time after the lecture. Like all of our online meetings, registering withZoom  is necessary at SKCGS.org. 244 researchers learned from the experts who spoke to us this year.

 Small meetings

Many years ago, our first SKCGS special interest group (SIG) was the Computer Interest Group. Eventually as computers became widely used, that group morphed into the Tech User Group, TUG. We began 2025 by discussing platting "metes & bounds" which is how land was first described. Metes and bounds is still used in the 13 original colony states and a few other places. We also discussed using AI, Rootstech announcements, tools for FAN Club research, writing research reports, creating locality guides, using Ancestry's Card Catalog, explored FamilySearch, research plans, Full Text Search, and adding and using browser extensions for genealogy. 165 researchers attended TUG meetings this year. Check out all the meeting topics and links to the notes in the TUG Wiki.

Our newest user group first met in July, attracting genealogists from around the world. The Wikitree Users discussed how to get started in Wikitree, what to do next, how to use the built-in tools, then Digging into Wikitree's tools: Wikitree Sourcer, How to Add Categories to profiles and Why You Want to, and Projects, taking Collaboration to the Next Level. Join our free group at https://skcgs.groups.io/g/Wikitree-SIG. Read the notes and discussion there, and on the Wiki. 93 researchers attended in 2025.

We have an active and helpful Family Tree Maker User Group. Every meeting is based on user questions, demonstrations of exactly how to solve problems and use the software to move family history research forward. Join the free online group: https://skcgs.groups.io/g/FTMUG; read the discussions and see the meeting notes there, and on the Wiki. This year the group collaborated with other FTM User groups to host a special in-person meeting with a MacKiev representative; 27 people attended! 157 people attended FTM meetings in 2025.

 Our Genetic Genealogy/DNA group meets monthly, covering topics such as Research Planning, using the new DNA tools at all the sites: Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, Gedmatch, Living DNA, and the third-party tools such as DNA Painter. A recent topic was "Analyzing Your DNA Matches when the Site Tools Aren't Helping" which was enlightening. 123 researchers helped one another learn more about how to analyze and use DNA evidence with us this year.

 Each month we also host a Genealogy Chat. We have no agenda; we just like one another! Links to the notes here; we chat about everything. 79 researchers chatted with us this year.

Study Groups 

One study group wrapped up early this year; see more on the Research Group wiki. It began in August 2024; extended into early '25. 13 started; 8 finished. Our last study group, where we work our way through a book, was in 2024. 

SKCGS Blog posts every Monday at 10am Pacific: Post Index. Read our blog in our Groups.io or subscribe.  Send stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org

2025 Top 5 posts 


Lots happened this year; would you like to help? Write to volunteers@SKCGS.org and tell us! 

 

Valorie Zimmerman

 

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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org


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