Assyrian clay tablet of proverbs from the Library of Ashurbanipal, Kouyunjik, Iraq. The British Museum, London. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 After watching the final episode of " A Brief History of the Future " on PBS, I recommend everyone watch it. We are surrounded by rapid change, and it can get scary sometimes. This long-form documentary is full of inspiring or even fun examples of people working together to create the world they want to see, in their own corner of the world.  It is an extended look at what It means to be human, which is to say to work in community, thinking together, figuring out how to make change work for all of us. PBS.org  says, “A Brief History of the Future,” [is] a unique PBS documentary series hosted by renowned futurist Ari Wallach. Ari unites perspectives from different fields, professions, geographic locations and walks of life to explore “being human.” From art to architecture, there are plenty of ways to think about our shared humanity and w...

Flickr:  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ We all knew how to do this as kids. Even once we started in school, there were summer vacations, and most of us -- at least the lucky ones -- played and did our chores without needing much direction. However, as we matured, the thoughts of jobs, careers, supporting ourselves, beginning families, created a structure that for many, left little feeling of creativity and freedom. In truth, the decisions we made in the past steered us to this moment, reading this post! Charter Members Forty years ago, folks in the south King County area, tired of driving across the lake, took the courageous step of creating the South King County Genealogical Society. Some of these wonderful people are still with us:  William L. Adams, Judith Dempsey Aeschliman, Margaret Oakley Alder, Lillian Wanamaker Anderson, Clemence Rhea Baker, John Baker, Mary Kitchell Baker, Elva Barber, Patsy Barber, Marilyn Bell, Peggy Bentz, CarolLe Stratton Berry, Laur...

Responsibility, Creative Commons Icon courtesy of TheNounProject “Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are those who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.” — Studs Terkel [1] I see the quote above from a few people in a project list for Wikitree. Why do we continue to do this work we call genealogy research? Is it for the money? I don't know any wealthy genealogists, do you? At least none who earned their riches through their findings, articles or book sales. Perhaps Alex Haley or a few other researcher stars such as Dr. Henry Louis Gates have created a good living for themselves by sales of their books, films and related work. But nobody goes into this work for the money or even fame. Service Instead, what I find is people who want to serve their families and communities by finding the records of their family, locating them in their place and time, and finding and telling their stories. Some end up creating works of art,...