South King County Genealogical Society September Happenings Welcome back to a new program year! The Society has been so busy adopting new Bylaws and Standing Rules this summer that it does not feel as though we have been away. I am excited to begin working with the new governance structure developed by our hard-working Bylaws Committee. Dorothy Pretare, Marilyn Schunke, and Valorie Zimmerman have devoted countless hours during the past eleven months to bring the structure of our Society up-to-date. Please say “thank you” to each one of them when you see them. The Standing Rules were adopted at a Special Meeting of the Board of Directors, Monday, August 19. The President’s recommendations to fill the four Directors of Standing Committees were approved by the Board, and we now have a complete slate of Directors. Thank you to those who have agreed to serve: Education – Janet Camarata, Publicity – Valorie Zimmerman, Outreach – Rich Thayer, and Resource Management – Mari...

While you are enjoying the beautiful May flowers, take some time to advance your genealogy skills and research. The Family Tree Maker Users Group will meet on Saturday, May 4 , from 10:15 – 11:45 at the Auburn Public Library.  Contact Winona Laird, education@skcgs.org or Dave Liesse, at ftm-group@skcgs.org for more information. The excellent attendance at the April General Meeting featuring a program on DNA shows that there is a lot of interest among our members in this topic.  To learn more, consider attending the Genetic Genealogy/DNA Interest Group on Monday, May 13 , from 1:00 – 3:00 pm at WAPI, 28815 Pacific Highway South, Suite 7A, Federal Way .  The topic is “GEDmatch Analysis: One-to-One and One-to-Many DNA Comparison Tools”. For more information go to the GG/DNA tab under Interest Groups at skcgs.org. Have you ever done research with a group of genie friends?  It’s fun! Try it at the Research Group, Friday, May 17 , from 1 – 3 pm at the Kent Family...

By Barbara Mattoon As the busy holiday season winds down, have you begun to think about your genealogy goals for the coming year?  Do they include updating and enhancing your genealogical education and skills?  Just as science, technology, medicine and many other fields are advancing at an accelerating rate, so too is our hobby or avocation – genealogy-- changing all the time.  Planning your genealogy education rather than just taking what comes along for the coming year or two will help you achieve your goals. Your plan will be unique to you, taking into consideration the goals you have set for yourself and the amount of time and resources you have available to commit to continuing education.  Take into consideration what you want to learn and the learning style that is most effective for you.  Do you want to pursue a structured program, or will a “self-designed” program better achieve your goals?  Are you available to travel?  Is cost an is...

By Dave Liesse Family Tree Maker is, and always has been, a powerful genealogy database tool.  In fact, when I first adopted it decades ago it was because as a database professional myself I could recognize the excellence of the underlying database design.  At the time it may not have been the most intuitive program for non-technical users, but I definitely was not in that category! Over the years the program has changed owners several times and has been upgraded regularly.  Now it resembles the many office suites (Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Open Office, etc.) in one key respect: the number of features that go unused is constantly climbing!  The purpose of this post is to let you know about some of those features that you might have a good use for, if you only knew about them. Let's start with the task list.  If you're like I was you've seen the "Tasks" bar on the Plan page or perhaps on the Person tab on the People page. These are quite powe...