Early in our virtual meeting experiences of 2020 we began attracting visitors from around Washington State as well as other parts of the United States.  Among our visitors was Ron Sailer, a neighbor from the Sno-Isle Genealogical Society in Lynnwood, just north of Seattle. Ron shared information that his great grandfather was buried in the pioneer cemetery here in Auburn and gave us information regarding research that had been done. http://www.auburnpioneercemetery.net/biographies/hopkins.php#.YA9Id-hKiUl .  In February, 2021, we did a blog about the research that had been done, quite extensively, and that more newspaper articles had become available thus showing the progress of research possibilities. https://skcgs.blogspot.com/2021/02/newspaper-research-progress.html A few months ago MaryLynn made contact with Ron again when she found a common link at WikiTree.  Small world! Valorie received The StillyGen newsletter [1] in early January 2023, and read with shock: ...

Chance and Skill Intertwine Editor's note: Recently this story was submitted to society@skcgs.groups.io and several of you read it and commented.  It is such a great example of stating the problem, showing the methodology and resolving with that touch of serendipity we all desire, we felt it needed to be presented here. I had an unusual story to share that I thought this group would appreciate. Research Question: Find a Missing Half-Sibling My mother knows of my interest for genealogy and research and mentioned to me in February her friend has been searching for a half-sibling for a long time and maybe I could possibly help her. My mother is 80 and her friend 74. Skimpy Information of a First Marriage My mother's friend Linda shared that her father was married before he married her mother. She discovered this after he died 35 years ago. Her father's brother shared a newspaper clipping of an article written about the wedding with a photo of the couple seated at a table on an...

 President's Report:  Where We've Been and Where We're Going 2021 is now in the rear-view window, and South King County Genealogical Society is looking forward to what we have planned for 2022.  You have seen what some of the teams are planning, last week: https://skcgs.blogspot.com/2022/01/2021-in-review.html .  Highlights of 2021-2022 as we fulfill our mission: furthering genealogical research and interest in family and local history . Communication and Social Media Groups.io We've grown! Although we're less chatty than we were last year, we now have 228 members at  https://skcgs.groups.io/g/Society . Blog: http://skcgs.org/blog.html Read all over the world! Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SKCGenealogy Washington State Genealogical Society Blog  https://wasgs.org/blog/ . If you aren't subscribed, you're missing out. We post at least monthly, and so do other societies and people. Keep up! Conference Keeper Most of our new attendees from outside of t...

"All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." I don't mean the technical volumes we rely on to keep us current in our genealogical craft. I mean works of fiction that take us to another time or another world. Some may be biographical or historic fiction; others may be cleverly written mysteries. I may be generalizing too much but I think that genealogists enjoy mysteries; why else do we seek answers for our own family history? Historical fiction and mysteries A relatively new twist in the mystery genre is the genealogist as a main character. Several authors are writing series of books with these story lines. Nathan Dylan Goodwin My introduction to this genre was a few years ago when, as SKCGS newsletter editor, I was offered a complimentary copy of Nathan Dylan Goodwin's   The America Ground .  Since it was his third book, I thought it would be a good idea to read his first two books as well.  I was hooked not only on his books but similar books by other authors. Mort...

Rootsweb lists will be gone 2 March 2020 Perhaps you have heard that news that Rootsweb mail lists are going away, leaving only the list archives behind. At least those invaluable archives will remain. The notice: Beginning March 2nd, 2020 the Mailing Lists functionality on RootsWeb will be discontinued. Users will no longer be able to send outgoing emails or accept incoming emails. What are the alternatives? Twenty years ago, this would have been devastating. These days, we have lots of other places to place queries, ask questions, get answers and make connections. Where best to post? That depends on what you want to accomplish. We humans work best in connection with others, and getting your message out helps you find new collaborators and new cousins. Let's explore some of the options. Many (but not all) lists are moving elsewhere. Linkpendium.com , among others, will be keeping track of the new locations. A very popular destination for the lists is  groups.io  a...

The three kinds of DNA of use for family history research* Autosomal - what most of us use, via Ancestry , 23andMe , MyHeritage , FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder and LivingDNA Y - available from FamilyTreeDNA, Yseq and a few others Mt or mitochondrial - available from FamilyTreeDNA Autosomal DNA For autosomal DNA (AtDNA), to make best use of your results for research, you will "fish in all the ponds" by testing with Ancestry and 23andme since neither accept uploads, and then upload your raw data to Gedmatch , MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA, which do accept uploads - for free!  The value of autosomal DNA testing is that it covers all of your ancestry back four generations or so, and up to six or seven generations, which is quite long ago. However, as your matches are ever smaller as you go further back in time, your AtDNA will not take you back to your deep ancestry before surnames and record keeping. Y and Mt DNA Both Y and Mt DNA will take you back very f...

Using Social Media How would you like to have a conversation with Cyndi Ingles (of Cyndi's List ) every morning?  Or do you have a genealogically related legal question for Judy G. Russell, the Legal Genealogist ?  Who doesn't have questions about DNA and not sure how to ask them? SKCGS is celebrating one year of blog postings and twitter followers; thank you very much to all of our contributors for the diverse topics and your valuable experience.  We look forward to many more articles and invite others to share your ideas, experiences and pictures. Social media, in the form of Facebook groups, twitter accounts, blog pages and websites. creates opportunity for sharing ideas or expanding our knowledge in ways we've barely explored. Use Social Media Genealogically Google a surname and you will be offered websites and Facebook pages for individuals and groups with that name.  Perhaps it is the surname of a noted, or notorious, person who is your ancestor....

By Valorie Zimmerman 2018 was a great year for South King County Genealogical Society, and we anticipate 2019 will be even better. We began the year by launching our new website at http://skcgs.org . Our mail list at Rootsweb was down for awhile, but is back. Our Seminar was tremendous, and we're planning another for 2020. We have had some great speakers at our regular meetings, we've placed for our formerly traveling library at the Kent Family History Center , have renewed our contract with the King County Library System to present our book collection to south King County at the Auburn Library , and have many thriving special interest groups. We had a very successful Intermediate Genealogy class following our 2018 meetings, taught by Winona Baird. Winona also began offering our Research Workshops in 2018. Our Board of Directors meets monthly at the Auburn Fire Station; all meetings are open to SKCGS members. Volunteers staff Genealogy Help tables monthly at three so...