It has come to my attention that people serving in their community are often involved with more than one organization.  It is also becoming very evident that organizations are collaborating with each other for the benefit of the general public.   SKCGS & KCLS For several years, South King County Genealogical Society has provided genealogical help at branches of the King County Library System.  As the Auburn Library Branch has re-opened after Covid closure, SKCGS volunteers are providing genealogical help once a month.  (We could do it  more often if we had more volunteers. Write to outreach@skcgs.org to volunteer.) SKCGS & GSMD and DAR Many of our society members are also involved with other heritage organizations such as  General Society of Mayflower Descendants , and  Daughters of the American Revolution .     "MFS is the Black Diamond 2022 Community Service Group Award recipient!!  The award ceremony will start...

  First, some naval gazing - a look at this blog, by the numbers: Blogger also tells us where people are when they read: This annual report is an abridged version of those reports submitted to the Board in advance of our planning meeting in August. The original reports are available to SKCGS Members on request. Change If we thought things would calm down after 2020, we were wrong. 2021 was another year of change. In May elections, we elected a new President, Valorie Zimmerman, which meant that our Vice-President Valorie Zimmerman needed to step down. Michele Mattoon was re-elected as Treasurer. At the next meeting of the Board, Alexis Hacker Scholz accepted the post of Vice-President. Barbara Mattoon, the former President chose not to take the post of Past President, so MaryLynn Strickland continues as Member At Large. Barbara accepted the position of Chair of the Education Committee, where she had been ably serving in an unofficial role for some ...

 I saw this cartoon in the past somewhere and could not forget it. No images I found online matched the image I remembered, so my talented husband Bob Zimmerman drew one for me:  Copyright Robert Zimmerman 2021. Courtesy of Bob Zimmerman The reason I love this cartoon is that we all know a simple question can open us to a new way of seeing the world, if we let it.  I felt this way at a recent presentation of the Association of King County Historical Organizations (AKCHO) called  Looking Back / Moving Forward: Getting Started with Institutional Genealogy presented by Aletheia Wittman. In that presentation, she showed us a timeline which blew my mind and got me thinking about our society in a whole new historical perspective. We formed first as a branch of Seattle Genealogical Society (SGS) in 1979, and formally as an independent non-profit in 1984.[1] Here is a portion of Aletheia Wittman's timeline; used by permission: 2. Courtesy Aletheia Wittman. Numbers in th...

Greetings! This is my first blog post as President of the South King County Genealogical Society. I'm so honored that the Members entrusted this office to me. But let me share a secret with you: I made up my own job. I did the same with my previous job with SKCGS, as Vice President and before that, leading the new Publicity team.  Make Your Own Job As I've aged, I adopted this tactic more and more, and I will tell you, it's great! For one thing, you know yourself better than anyone else does, and so when you create your own job description, it fits you well. It is a wonderful way to be effective and collaborate with others who share your values and enthusiasms. Most of all, you can choose to do the things that make you happy, and work with those who are happy in their work as well. It is the best of all possible worlds. Freedom and Happiness When I read our SKCGS  Bylaws and Standing Rules , I saw in those job descriptions a lot of latitude to fill the some of the needs of...