In tennis lessons years ago, the instructor kept stressing "follow through" which meant that the stroke was not finished once I hit the ball, but only when my momentum was used to set up the return. I learned the same thing when learning to shoot a firearm—steady, aim, fire, follow through.  It has taken years to figure out that follow through is important in research, for the same reason.  In order to get around my stubborn streak, I began the research log for a new project by identifying and prioritizing the most useful databases, then creating a citation for each database before digging into the searches. Getting the "dirty work" out of the way first made it easier to gather the other details, such as date consulted, search terms used, FANs identified, and analysis of any useful records found—even when there were no or negative results. Momentum is powerful! Follow through results in more effective research and saves a great deal of time. A FamilyHistoryFanatic...

2025 Calendar Courtesy OpenClipart Whatcha Gonna Do This Year?  Some make New Year's resolutions; I usually try to set some goals, and look back and measure progress made during the year. Our former president and director of our Education team Barbara Mattoon has set an even higher bar, publicly announcing her goals in our SKCGS blog   2020--What's in Your New Year?  and   2024 Genealogy Resolutions . Lofty goals, and worthy of her dedication, skill and determination.  Inspiring. Back in 2021, I wrote "As I begin this new year, I was determined to not make any resolutions, yet I can't stop myself.  "The book Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones was a Christmas gift, and I immediately dived into reading it. I even started blogging about it on my personal blog, https://genweblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/end-of-2020-time-for-something-new.html . That's great, but unless I put the principles to work in my own research, what good does the reading and le...

The Wright Brothers test fly their aircraft on Fort Myer's parade field 2025: What's Ahead? This year in genealogy research has been momentous . Just as the Wright brothers' first flight revolutionized travel, 2024's genealogical advances are transforming how we explore our family histories. The Wright Brothers' Legacy On 17 December 1903, the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, made their first successful sustained flight. Some of the developments we've seen this year will change the amount of information available to us much like that event changed history, transportation, war, travel, and the way we humans viewed the world. In addition, we are getting tools to help us access, analyze and use that information to tell the stories of our families so they will not be lost. Before that fateful flight, we humans did not experience the entire world as being within our reach. Most of the world had rail, but to cross the oceans, one traveled to a port city and got o...

created by Bing ImageGenerator, February 4, 2024 As we approach the end of 2024, the South King County Genealogical Society (SKCGS) is brimming with exciting opportunities for community-minded individuals passionate about preserving local history. We see a bright future and many opportunities ahead in 2025. Leadership Positions Available Our society is seeking motivated individuals to step into key roles: Society President With our current president completing a second term in May, we're looking for a new leader to guide our organization. No prior experience necessary—just a passion for genealogy and community! Interested? Contact Board@skcgs.org or President@skcgs.org to learn more about this rewarding leadership opportunity. We are waiting to hear from you. Resources and Outreach Team Leaders We have vacancies in both our Resources and Outreach teams. While our current president has plans to lead Outreach beginning in May, we welcome enthusiastic volunteers. Want to make a dif...

The Family History AI Show The Family History AI Show recently discussed " the year's top AI breakthroughs for genealogists, " analyzing what we genealogists can do now at year's end which we could not on January one. Steve and Mark presented their list:  #5. Chatbots Learn How to Reason (OpenAI’s o1-preview)   Because it is still in "preview," this does not have widespread use yet, but both hosts agreed that it will be great for multi-step big projects.  #4. Content Creation Within Chatbots (Artifacts, Canvas)  Work entirely inside the chatbot, not hopping over to Word, Excel, Photoshop, or other tools for parts of your project. Changes, additions and corrections can happen real-time, not over in another tab, enabling a sense of flow and ease. #3. Collaborative Research Spaces (NotebookLM, Claude Projects, Perplexity Spaces) Chat with and query your own written work, documents for use in your ongoing project, research plans, and collaborate with workmates ...

AI generated by Pixlr 30 November 2024 The Tingle Don't you love that moment in your research when you realize, that YES, you were right when you went out on a limb, and found something not in other public trees? And then, when you find that some of the supporting research work ahead has already been done? O f course you soon also realize that that means you are probably related to this family in multiple ways, which is why some of the work has been completed. Filling In The Map Or is that just me who forgets research from a year or more ago? This is the mixed blessing of pedigree collapse [intermarriage in small communities], FAN research [ f amily, friends, a ssociates, n eighbors], and tracking down DNA matches [people with whom you share significant sized DNA segments]! I dare you to add intriguing DNA matches to your tree, and figure out how you connect. There are so many rewards to taking the chance. One of them is revisiting old research. Tool Kit With this Burnett line, I ...

Generated with Bing Image Creator AI, 21 September 2024 A recent article which I can't seem to find again got me thinking, mostly about the title, which was something close to " coming together in order to disengage ." As I recall, it might have been about dissipating political tensions post-election. But it got me thinking about why we gather together in genealogy and historical societies and associated groups. Research and writing can be lonely. Just yesterday I spent hours imaging and downloading the 100+ pages of my third-great-grandfather's Revolutionary War pension application. Both my son and husband clearly didn't understand why I bothered! But I bet all our readers here DO understand, and maybe that is why we gather so often, even just to chat with other researchers.  I found one article on the web about children's education which says, Children & adults must first feel safe in order to feel connected enough to learn. The adult’s job  is to keep ...

Local Archives and Other Repositories After Saturday's inspiring panel discussion about how to find the majority of the genealogy and family history records which have been collected for research, we thought to consult our own repository: the  blog index  on our great website, skcgs.org .  Since the beginning, we have been visiting local area archives and museums and reporting back to you, our readers. Katie led us off with  Black Diamond, Washington  about the history of Black Diamond and the great Black Diamond Museum and Historical Society. More here  also her visit to the  New England Historical and Genealogical Society  in Boston. Cheri Sayer came to SKCGS from the Greater Kent Historical Societ y and she also visited the Highline Heritage Museum . Note: Highline Heritage has a new link .  Barbara Mattoon visited and wrote about the   Des Moines Museum ;  r ead on to see even more examples of local repositories. Nearly every c...