Generated at Vecteezy 4 October 2026 Have you been surveyed?  I have.  I've received surveys by email and instant message; I no longer answer unidentified telephone calls and toss junk mail. It seems that every company, politician, utility, medical facility wants me to complete their survey.  I've noticed an increase lately that makes me cringe. I received an email to pre-check in before a doctor's appointment; great, no problem, very convenient.  But, was it really necessary to receive a follow-up survey so I could rate how convenient the process was? After receiving service from a technical company I received a survey asking how "Joe" helped me.  This wanted more than just a rating; it wanted specific things "Joe" did that merited that rating,  Another company wanted to know what impressed me most.  They didn't give me the choice to answer that the fact that I spoke to a real person was the greatest impression. My apartment complex has a new ...

Once again I lost control and devoured something I had vowed to savor slowly.  I tried to pace myself by thinking of household chores to distract me.  "I'll empty the dishwasher at the end of this chapter. . . three chapters ago." Yes, Nathan Dylan Goodwin has done it again.  His latest mystery, The Dover Trunk Murder,  is another enthralling work of intrigue.  Nathan always does meticulous research, thus his books transport the reader to another place, another time, with engaging characters. Dover, England circa 1914 In The Dover Trunk Murder , the reader is transported to Dover, England in August, 1914, days before Germany invaded Belgium sparking what would become World War I.  Our main character is Edwin Dalloway, Detective Inspector, lately of Scotland Yard and now newly employed by the Dover Burrough Police Department.   www.oldmapsonline.org Edwin has barely set foot in Dover when someone finds a severed woman's arm on the sand next to the ...

  First Labor Day parade, September 5,1882--U S Dept. of Labor image Where was your laborer ancestor on September 5, 1882? If he was in New York City, he may have marched in the first Labor Day parade. A brief timeline of the Industrial Revolution shows us the progression from home production to mass production in factories. Factories needed workers and workers needed residences near the factories, thus cities grew. Many of our young, penniless immigrant ancestors found their first occupation in East Coast factories. Factory workers developed unions in an effort to improve working conditions but it also resulted in a social network of sorts. By the 1880s, concern for workers was more evident and the first "Labor Day" was suggested. On the morning of September 5, 1882, a crowd of spectators filled the sidewalks of lower Manhattan near city hall and along Broadway. They had come early, well before the Labor Day parade marchers, to claim the best vantage points from which to...

Vecteezy--"Night Starry Sky and Pink Clouds Sunrise" "Land, give me land, under starry skies above," "Don't Fence Me In" You probably recognize these words penned in a 1934 text by Robert Fletcher, a poet and engineer with the Department of Highways in Helena, Montana.  When Cole Porter was asked to write a "cowboy" song, he used the text and "Don't Fence Me In" quickly became the #1 song in 1944.  It was recorded by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, by Kate Smith, and Roy Rogers used it in at least two movies. While the text and song may have been 1930s/1940s era and still popular today, the sentiment was anything but new.  The cry of "give me land!" has been heard in every corner of the United States since its birth in 1783.  "Give me land!" has been uttered in the language of every immigrant who ever set foot on our shores. The "don't fence me in" spirit was evident from the very beginning...

Mob tars and feathers revenue agent during Whiskey Rebellion 1794 Down the Rabbit Hole I don’t know what gave me the initial thought, whether it was the word "revenuers" or the Whisky Rebellion, let’s just say that one or the other led me down a very interesting rabbit hole. The Whiskey Rebellion was one of the first challenges for our young nation to face. It occurred in western Pennsylvania in 1794 when the farmers there had difficulties transporting their crops across the Allegheny mountains. It was much easier to distill their grains, producing whiskey that could be transported over the mountains. Eastern distillers, who produced much more whiskey did not like competition that the western distillers presented.  At the same time our young United States government needed money. So Alexander Hamilton As the first Secretary of the Treasury, attached a tax to whiskey. The tax on the western farmers was higher than that charged to the eastern distillers. Needless to say, people...

Probably a Seattle Middle School--June, 1954 When a picture speaks a thousand words, are you listening?  Are you following the obvious pathways as well as the subtle hints that whisper in the shadows? Recently, SKCGS received a large box of photographs that had been stored in a shed beyond the demise of the people in the photos. We have taken on the task of sorting and identifying snapshots and looking for people who are researching the families involved. Do you love solving mysteries? We're looking for volunteers; write to resources@skcgs.org with your offer of help. Some of the photos are beyond snapshots.  The image above is obviously a school photo; a stamp on the back is for the Perkins Studio, 507 North 68th St., Seattle 3, WA. There is nothing that tells us which school it is so we have to put on our observation hats to try to solve the mystery. Stamp on back of the photo "June 1954" is written in white in the lower right corner of the photo.  In the lower left c...

Why, why, why, why? by  dullhunk:  CC BY 2.0 Celebrities are making the circuit of talk shows with books about "Finding My Why", defining purpose and motivation in their lives.  This is an approach to self-help for overcoming some negative aspects of one's life and adapting positive thinking and actions.  The common denominator in most of these books is asking the question, "Why?" As genealogists, we have frequently asked "Why?" in our research.  "Why did they move there ?  Why did they leave wherever  they left.  Why, Why, Why?  It is often one of the first questions we ask. It also one of the last questions we answer.  We get the answers to who, what, when and where through our research in BMD information and census records.  We trace the growth of families and their movement from place to place through newspapers and obituaries. Answering the why question isn't always so simple.  One reason is our lack of knowledge about the...

  A Rose By Any Other Name...  Sheila Unwi n:   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ A Rose by Any Other Name This is a line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  Juliet  seems to argue that it does not matter that  Romeo  is from her family's rival house of Montague. The reference is used to state that the names of things do not affect what they really are.   What genealogists encounter As genealogists who depend on names to identify individuals in our family research, we know the importance of names.   Patronymic patterns When we think of research in Scandinavian families, we immediately prepare ourselves for the John's son, Lars' son, Anders' dotter people in the family tree. An enormous number of cultures around the world use naming systems like these; look at Wikipedia for a large list:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymic . Even many of the English names we're used to began as patronymics; think of all the f...

Ethan Allen and Captain de la Place. May 1775. The capture of Fort Ticonderoga, New York. Copy of engraving after Alonzo Chappel. How do you view the history you have learned while researching your families?  I recently read a great line, "History should feel like walking into someone's living room, not like sitting in a classroom." [ 1]   I hope the history I am about to share is comfortable.   Throughout my middle and high school years I always flunked the chapters of history that covered wars.  Thanks to my ancestors, I was able to learn a lot about the Revolutionary War period.   For several of my Stowe ancestors  I found muster roll cards and pay cards; these had enough information for me to search places and dates so I could picture how my ancestor was involved. I learned that, April 26, 1775, one week after Lexington and Concord, Jonah Stowe returned from Alstead, New Hampshire Colony to enlist in the Massachusetts Militia.  He fo...