Education Everywhere I am an education junkie. What better addiction for a genealogist? I read books, mostly non- fiction, attend lectures and multi-session classes, listen to podcasts, and watch webinars. I  watch lots of webinars. During a recent week I had the privilege of watching three hour-long  video programs on genealogy topics. Descendancy Research The first was a presentation on Descendancy Research delivered to our own South King County  Genealogical Society by a professional genealogist located in Utah. Descendancy research is a  new topic for me. I remember attending a presentation on the topic when I was just beginning  genealogy, but it did not mean much to me then. Now I can see that it may hold the answer to  some problems in my family tree. I began watching in a vacation spot on Maui, but was soon  interrupted by a fire alarm emergency in the building. No problem: I was able to watch the full  recording of the presentatio...

Photo by  Fredrik Öhlander  on  Unsplash Family History Month in October always brings family stories to mind.   Fortunately, most of the stories I remember are humorous. Perhaps I have  forgotten the ones that are not.  My father was a writer, and many of his pieces  were humor. When I was a small girl, my Father joined my Grandfather in his hardware  business.   My Grandfather, in addition to operating his hardware business was the Mayor of  our small town. My Father soon was elected to the City Council. My Grandmother  had founded the first church in the community. My Grandmother was the most  dignified lady you could imagine. Even her husband called her “Mrs. _______.” We lived in an apartment above the hardware store. My Grandparents lived  downstairs, behind the store. The windows of my parents’ bedroom overlooked  the highway in front of the store and beyond that, there was a ditch separating the high...

    Ephemera--paper items (such as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles. [1]     While researching the resources available in the Daughters of the American Revolution library, I encountered an entire category labeled “Ephemera". In my mind, ephemera had just been the “stuff”, odds and ends, that we all acquire during our lifetimes. When I looked into it, I discovered that there are categories of ephemera. According to Wikipedia, over 500 categories are listed in the Encyclopedia of Ephemera. [2]   At that point, I realized that I have a lot of ephemera! As the only child of an only child on my maternal side, I inherited everything that had been saved on that side as well as the normal amount to be expected from my father. Of course, along the way, I have saved my fair share of bits and pieces from my own life. Newspaper Clippings The oldest clipping i...

The Daughters of the American Revolution Library contains valuable resources for genealogical research. The Library has books, family histories, genealogies, manuscripts, Bible records, and more. It is free and open to the public. What Resources Does the Library Have ·         Print and Microform Resources ·         The Revolutionary War Ancestor Records ·         The Descendants Database ·         Genealogical Records Committee Collection ·         The Native American Collection ·         The American Women’s History Collection ·         The National Huguenot Society Collection ·         United States Ephemera Collection ·         WPA Collection DAR Print a...

  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 o...

  SUICE, SOOS, OR SUISE CREEK?   EARLY IMMIGRANTS   AND THEIR STORIES The Cemetery In 1988, Louise (Melin) Merritt began gathering records of those buried in the Suise Creek Cemetery in preparation for publication of an Obituary Book in cooperation with the South King County Genealogical Society. “The cemetery was originally located above Suise Creek on SE 240th” [ 1 ] “In 1903, bodies were moved by horse and wagon from the old to the new burial grounds . . ..” located at SE 256th and 132nd Ave SE. [ 2 ] “A few years later some sort of a dispute arose between the Finns and the other Scandinavians, and henceforth most of the Swedes and Norwegians took their business elsewhere. They are predominately buried in the old Meridian Cemetery or the Hillcrest Cemetery in Kent, Washington” [ 3 ] Finnish Immigrants As the project progressed, Mrs. Merritt decided to compile a his...