Renton Highlands Library:  https://kcls.org/locations/renton-highlands/ Starting a new endeavor is magic! Recently, we ( SKCGS ) were asked to open a Genealogy Help Desk at the Renton Highlands Library, pictured above. Two of our newer volunteers have been there on the second Thursday mornings beginning this September. I was privileged to be there last Thursday and help a brand new genealogy researcher get started. He walked in with a copy of GenHelp Desk flyer which he picked up at a local senior center.  When I asked what his interests were, he said, his whole family. And I know that when starting something new, there are a lot of hard ways to do it. Please show me the best way. It is not often that I'm asked for advice! It was a pleasure to walk with him over to the KCLS computers, where he navigated to Ancestry.com , to create a new free tree. Ancestry really does make it easy to get started when some basic facts are known. Along the way, I explained that while he may get som

Village, Generated with Bing ImageCreator AI 5 October 2024 What is the " basic unit of society "? It is often said to be the family. However, even in so-called Western societies, where families are often defined as a husband, wife and their children, about half the families I find in records do not meet the monogamy  standard. Often one of the partners has died or divorced, and there are other family members living with them—parents or other relatives of one or more of the partners, former neighbors or their children, "fictive kin," such as a close neighbor or relative of an in-law or former spouse. FAN Principle The more we follow the FAN principle [1] , and research all the people in and around the family, the more strongly we find that the basic unit is the village or neighborhood . While people do occasionally move somewhere new all by themselves, that is often impelled by personal danger of some sort, such as a crime or other threat. Mostly, people moved with

Best Reason to Throw a Party The best excuse to clean your house , I once read, is to ready it for a party . While cleaning house, I thought, is the same true about "writing it up"? Writing the stories of our ancestors and relatives is the culmination of our work. When we know that our place is welcoming to guests, we feel free to celebrate; telling stories of the past unlocks the lives of our families to all who hear them. Writing the stories is t he best excuse to research. Write while researching so that that your thoughts have somewhere to go‒directly into the notes, before they evaporate. Writing soothes the itch in the brain instead of sending us down rabbit holes. Now is a great time to get started writing, in preparation for Family History Month in October . Courtesy of the National Genealogical Society Writing tests our research and thinking It is while writing that holes in the story are exposed, inconsistencies glare, and leaps of logic fall flat. If our analysis

Have you been spoiled by good fortune? Consider Joining Our New Study Group! Courtesy andreas_fischler; Creative Commons 2.0 Sometimes it is really easy to find records on the big genealogy sites, the hints make sense, and we begin to think that research is easy. So easy, that we may forget what to do when the ripe fruit isn't hanging easily in reach. That's when a study group would come in handy ,  to remind us of basic principles of research. Or for beginners on the family history journey to learn those habits and practices from the very best, right at the start. Recent Example I had given up with Seth Willis of Harrison County, Missouri, an ancestor of one of my McBee uncle's DNA matches, until I thought about what to focus on for the new Research Study Group, beginning Wednesday, 14 August . Seth was born early enough that there are no records of parentage, and his probable father's obituary does not mention him. So I created a timeline of facts and sources to se

Connecting people. Image courtesy of Dreamstime Doing Genealogy When we first start "doing genealogy" we're finding records, noting what we find, and trying to make sense of it all. As time goes on, we may turn into hobbyists, and begin using forms, consulting books, online repositories, and perhaps, building a tree on our computers, online, or both.  Eventually, it grows so much we don't know what we have, or where! This is where all those "genealogy do-over" or "filing Fridays" projects start. Both of those might be useful in your situation, but here is the ruling principle that can bring quality into your work and peace into your heart: genealogy projects using the Genealogical Proof Standard , the GPS . This principle is what professional genealogists use, but it is not for pros only. Fortunately, it's not a secret; it is the key to effective and efficient work for researchers all around the world.  Genealogical Proof Standard GPS Shapes a

Free public domain CC0 image, courtesy RawPixel Crack the Nut, or First Things First What is your  greatest challenge when writing up your research work? For me, it was always writing citations . Key step for me to resolving this was to change my habits and make writing the citation the first thing I do, right in the planning stage. Lead with a Citation How does that make sense, when I've not even found the source I'm looking for? One of the first steps in a research project is planning; narrowing the topic (research question), gathering the context (history and locality), then ranking the possible sources of the needed information by ease of access, reliability, accessibility, cost, and chance of success in answering the question. In the planning stage, we have identified the databases or record groups we want to consult, so this is the right time to craft a citation. All the information we need, except for the specific records you will find is available, so Just Do It Now. A

Research Workshop We had a full house at Friday's Research Workshop, which is what our superstar SKCGS Member Winona calls our Members-only monthly hours at the Kent FamilySearch Center.  CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED by David Gurteen: "Research Workshop" Every person with whom I had time to talk, whether new to research or life-long genealogists, talked about the stories they have uncovered and their inner pressure to tell them. Some feel most comfortable telling them only to family members who are interested; others want to put those stories in our Auburn Library Vertical Files, and/or in the files at the White River Museum or other local archives.   Ideas which came up in our conversations included adding those memories, stories, photos and record images to profiles in the FamilySearch Family Tree, on Wikitree  profiles  and even in Ancestry, MyHeritage or other public (or private, but shared with family) trees. Not everyone is comfortable sharing their research online, of cour

FAN Research: Riches Ahead! It isn't all mysteries and adventure; by following the FANs ( F amily, A ssociates & N eighbors), fascinating stories can be unearthed. Families intertwine in the most interesting patterns. Digging in the dirt, as in archaeology, beauty sometimes emerges.  I found an image which reminds me of this family, created centuries ago by the Minoans, now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. Isn't it gorgeous? Courtesy of Mark Cartwright, published on 4 September 2017. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Who are these Hamiltons who keep showing up in my tree and my DNA matches? This has been the question I've been asking myself more often lately. So far, no Hamilton ancestors have shown up, but the Hamiltons are the largest portion of my grandfather Harvey McBee' s ancestors' FAN club for four generations. In the screenshot below, you can