Hilltop family cemetery still in use Gusher, Jetstream or Waterfall? Preparation I appreciated group guidance recently about preparing for a genealogy trip. I am going to a marvelous Appalachian region where a half dozen of my ancestral families settled. Their times in the mountains were exciting to me as they were part of the westward push in the wake of the Revolutionary War. They included patriot warriors, some guarding local lead mines against loyalists, several in the militia warding off raiding Shawnees, and one who was a Continental survivor of the siege of Fort Laurens. So much to explore! Four of these families landed in Philadelphia in 1738, coming from Bavaria and Prussia. They spent some  time in Lancaster, where German was as common as English. Were they working off indentures for their  passage? Then the Great Road called, and they travelled down the Shenandoah to the New River Valley.  I had visited southwest Virginia before, finding archival treasures abou...

By Barbara Mattoon Soos Creek Wetland  Photo courtesy of Scott Smithson A plateau rises between the valleys of the Green and Cedar Rivers stretching from the Springbrook area of Renton to an area near the salmon hatchery south of Auburn, an area of approximately 70 square miles.    The plateau is drained from Renton in a southeasterly direction toward where it empties into the Green River by Soos Creek and several smaller creeks. The first white settlers claimed land in the valleys because it was more suitable for farming than the land on the plateau.  Later arrivals had to content themselves with the rockier soil on the plateau which being less suitable for farming, was better suited for dairying, raising poultry and livestock. Early settlers on the plateau were primarily from Scandinavia.  They were driven to emigrate by severely depressed economic conditions in Europe in the latter half of the 19th century.  The Puget Sound area was attrac...