Mystery gift from afar It was an unexpected arrival – and as I strolled back from the mailbox I was full of anticipation at the surprise package from my father. Small, the size of a box full of checks, what on earth could this possibly contain – and why? It was between holidays – right after Thanksgiving and enough “before Christmas” not to be a Christmas gift. I smiled with delight. Packages from home and my parents were always fun. And in this case, somewhat mysterious, given the timing. In the house, I carefully cut through the layers of clear packing tape that encased the box. As I lifted the lid off, there was a note labelled in my father’s unmistakable handwriting: Care Package. Like any kid with a new toy, I laid the note aside (the adult kid did this very carefully) and then I just stared at the contents.    I took another look. Jumbled together in the bottom of the box were not quite a dozen crumpled red and silver foil balls, some with narrow wire sticking from...

James Wheeler: Free to use. Pitt Meadows, BC.  CanadaCrop Field Under Rainbow and Cloudy Skies at Daytime   Modern Blessing: Public Health   I am so thankful to live now, not 100 years ago. There are tiny figures next to the wife's name in the 1900 and 1910 US census, noting the number of children born and children living.  I feel relief when the numbers are the same; sadness when they are not.  Worse, we often never know the names of those who have died.  This past week I transcribed a long flowery obituary written by a grandchild of Kezia McGowan Husted, and this part touched me:  "Kizia McGowan was born in Wayne county, Ohio, February 18th 1830. Came to Illinois in 1845 and married Lyman Husted, 1847. To this union were born ten children of which four are living , namely: Mrs. Carrie Dudley, Mrs. Mary Cochran, William and James Husted. Six children preceded Grandma to heaven, when they were quite young... her angel children, whose names were: Ve...

   Collaboration :   creating with others. Synchronicity : apparent  simultaneous occurrences which seem related. These two concepts are different, but why  so often  do they seem to happen together? Perhaps because we think about projects  unconsciously for a while, then something prompts us to begin. If we collaborate with others who "sync" with us, magic seems to happen.  Here in the USA, we talk about independence more than interdependence. But we know that humans are social beings, so we need one another. Separation and loss are tragedy. In contrast, working toward common goals leads to good ends. I think this is why genealogy and family history are popular pursuits, and large projects such as Wikitree and FamilySearch rely on collaboration. It is about us humans and our family and friends, both now and in the past—and we hope into the future.  In most every discussion about doing genealogy, the twin threads of collaboration and synchro...

Creator: Gregg Evans  Copyright: © 2025 GCE Inc. Gregg Evans in the above comic illustrates a common dilemma, so I want to ask:  What excites you? What fills you with satisfaction?   There is a reason that every genealogy and family history expert advises starting projects with a research question, and demonstrates crafting the query into a research plan to save time and money, and success. Success inspires us work through hard problems.   I want to ask another question though, about how you enjoy learning . Whether researching your family, or learning about how to do better research, we all have different learning styles. Do you learn best all by yourself in a quiet place, or with others such as a research group, class, seminar or college class? Is in-person best for you, or recorded sessions you can view at your leisure? Do you prefer reading, listening, or watching videos? Since covid-19 propelled both online meeting and education, we have an abundance o...

  summer_in_seattle_baseball_safeco_baseball_stadium_seattle Courtesy of pxhere.com CCO:Public domain YES, Genealogy and BASEBALL!  🪾⚾ What?  how can genealogy and baseball be alike? SO many ways. First, baseball, like genealogy, is a team sport . While there are ways in baseball to practice specific skills like running, batting, throwing and catching by using machines. But playing baseball requires at least three people: a pitcher, a batter, and an outfielder. Many of us as kids played this way; we called it "work up" where there were no teams, just a bunch of kids playing baseball or softball (larger, softer ball).  Genealogy is a team sport . How much fun would it be to record only our own life? Some writers, videographers, podcasters, etc. do this, but I think you would agree that that is not genealogy. Genealogy is the study of our family and their ancestors, and we need a team to do that. We need, first, records of the lives who came before us. Think of all t...

Image by  Vilkasss  from  Pixabay WE ARE ALL CONNECTED I joined The South King County Genealogical Society years ago to learn about genealogy. The Society held a monthly meeting featuring educational speakers at a nearby church. It did not occur to me that I would meet people with similar interests who would become friends. I certainly didn’t realize that I would connect with relatives. It is a long-standing joke in the South King County Genealogical Society that MaryLynn Strickland is related to everyone. I am sure that I am related to her through the Dyer family in Colonial America. Recently, I hosted a social get-together for SKCGS volunteers. The group included members who had recently joined, as well as long-time members. I mentioned to one of the newer members that I had learned through a study group in which we had participated that our ancestors had married during the Revolutionary War era. At that moment, a very new member offered that she too was related to tha...

Growing Trees As genealogists and family historians, we think of our research as growing trees. In the field of science over the past few decades, there has been an effort to grow more trees, as a way to make up for all the forests that have been cleared as humans have moved in to farm, and build villages, cities and  businesses. Nurturing Forest Webs Recently, research has shown that "monoculture" where only one kind of tree is planted, does not have the same benefits as forests do. As a result, there has been more research to see why there is a difference. In short, what they have found is that a forest works as a system, not a just a group of plants and animals. The similarities to human communities were striking; forests operate as complex systems of interacting parts, including living members and other elements. Such interactions create intricate webs of interdependence, with key processes such as energy flow and nutrient cycling sustaining life for all who live there [1...

La Fenice Opera House from the stage. Pietro Tessarin, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons What Do You Want to Learn? and from Whom?  The 2024-5 SKCGS Speaker Series draws to a close Saturday, June 21, 10–11:30 am; Peggy Clemens Lauritzen, AG, FOGS will present " The Scots-Irish in America ." Register to attend at SKCGS.org . Doors open at 9:30am. Your Education team will meet tomorrow, Tuesday June 10 to plan the 2025-6 year , and would love your guidance. Have you heard a speaker who can take what you thought was a complicated subject, and not only make it understandable, but which leaves you eager to try it out?  How about someone who makes a method sing, instead of dread? Tell us! Write to:  education@skcgs.org Looking Back... In this past educational year, we've heard from both nationally-known speakers, and some of our own.  Our year began with Steve Little, "Today’s Limits Are Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs."...

  Im age courtesy Unsplash    Online Research – a Book Review I have been reading The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy , by Kimberly Powell. [ 1 ] I hesitated to read the book because the world of online genealogy changes hourly, and I wondered if I would learn anything useful from a book published 17 years ago. I approached it with the idea that much of the information would be out of date, and it is. However, the ideas I can apply to my genealogical research, and suggestions of sources that had not occurred to me have justified the time I have spent reading the book.     Determine Your Goal Even though I have immigrant ancestors, as we all do unless we are indigenous people, I have always been most interested in my ancestors after they came to America. I was surprised to learn that by the time we have worked through 10 generations, we will have discovered more than 1000 direct ancestors. [2 ]  Whenever I am tempted to “jump across the pond”,...