Im age courtesy Unsplash    Online Research – a Book Review I have been reading The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy , by Kimberly Powell. [ 1 ] I hesitated to read the book because the world of online genealogy changes hourly, and I wondered if I would learn anything useful from a book published 17 years ago. I approached it with the idea that much of the information would be out of date, and it is. However, the ideas I can apply to my genealogical research, and suggestions of sources that had not occurred to me have justified the time I have spent reading the book.     Determine Your Goal Even though I have immigrant ancestors, as we all do unless we are indigenous people, I have always been most interested in my ancestors after they came to America. I was surprised to learn that by the time we have worked through 10 generations, we will have discovered more than 1000 direct ancestors. [2 ]  Whenever I am tempted to “jump across the pond”,...

Generated by CoPilot 16 March 2025 Why Preserve Stories? Have you ever casually said, “when I did . ..” and your children looked at you and said, “Huh? you did what?”  When this happens to you, it is time to record the story. Thirty or 100 years from now, that story will mean much more to your descendants than any family tree you create. Inland Empire Students at Music Sessions, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, 24 July 1949, p. 24, col. 2-3. If you think, “Someday, I will write a family history,” but you go right back to researching the marriage date of third Cousin Mary Missing, within five minutes the incident will have flitted from your mind. Kevin Kelly admonishes us to write down the idea within five minutes before it is gone. My list of experiences, events, and incidents is getting really long, so I have decided to get started so that my descendants will have SOMETHING. The summer of 1949, my mother attended a short course at the University of Washington to prepare her ...

  image credit: bunditinay -stock.adobe.com My 2024 Genealogy Resolutions For many people, year-end is a time of reflection on the past year and looking ahead to how we hope the next year will unfold. As I have worked on my genealogy development activities for my Kinship Determination Project during the past few days, I have thought about how I can be more effective going forward. Making genealogy resolutions for 2024 is a result of that thought. First: I will write a Research Plan for each project or new phase of a project. No longer will I just dive into acquiring names, dates, or facts in a haphazard fashion, hoping to emerge with a finished Research Report. (More on that later.) Second: I will create a complete citation for every date, fact, or other piece of information that is not general knowledge when I find it. I will not allow myself to think, “Oh, I’ll remember where I saw that.” Third: I will consult the original record whenever I can possibly find it. An abstract ...

(Continued from SKCGS Blog, December 7, 2020 ) Then I heard our inadequate anti-aircraft go into action. A figure leaped over the edge of the depression and slid down almost against me. In the split second that I glimpsed him against the sky, I recognized him as one of the kids of our outfit. I called my name and he answered, giving his own. “Listen, Hearn,” I said, “Doctor Land was on that Higgins boat with us coming in. I talked to him a little. You’ve got to get him and bring him here or this person will die.” “The Hell I will,” growled Hearn: “I’m gonna stay right here in this hole.” I was about to curse him but I stopped myself before the words came. I hit him from another angle. “Hearn,” I said, “I have often heard that this business of war was quick to separate the men from the boys. Your mother back in Kansas still thinks of you as her little boy, but deep down inside her heart she knows that she has a man out here fighting for her. If you are not too scar...

  Image from Facebook Last February, what seems like eons ago, a weekly blog started with the following: Year of Anniversaries 2020--Have you noticed that there are some momentous anniversaries this year?  The  Mayflower landed at Plymouth in 1620--400 years ago !  Do you have Mayflower ancestors?  Are you planning to attend any Mayflower celebrations? A bit closer to present day is the  100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment--Women's Suffrage .  Did you have an ancestor involved with that struggle for equality? There are many other anniversaries this year-- 75 years from the end of World War II ,  40 years after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens,   You can probably name many more and please do! Opportunity Knocks There followed a challenge, an opportunity for people to write stories. A few weeks later the world that we knew came to a screeching halt due to Covid 19. Fortunately, we learned how to have virtual meetings and in early April we w...

Was Sampson Caudill (1784 – 1863) the father of Hugh Caudle(1812--1859)? Genealogists and family historians have long speculated about the identity of the father of Hugh Caudle (1812 – 1859).   Clayton Cox, the genealogist and long-time authority on the Caudill family, never provided an answer. [1] An article in Cordell Clippings , the newsletter of the Cordell Family Association (now inactive) No.10, January 1994, may be the source of the many assertions that Hugh was the son of Sampson Caudle. [2] The Caudills (Caudles, Caddells, Coddles, Cordels, Codills, and many other spellings) are a large and well-documented family.   The first documentation of a Caudle in America is a Virginia Land Grant to Stephen “Cawdle” from King George of England in 1731. [3] By the time of the Revolutionary War, the family had migrated to North Carolina. [4] The family had begun migrating to eastern Kentucky by 1789. [5] TRACKING THE MIGRATION OF TWO FAMILIES In 1820, Sa...