©Bizarro Piraro The comic above is funny, but history and our ancestor's stories are not always funny, pleasant, uplifting and inspiring. Life and thus history is full of tragedy and comedy, beauty and horror, and some parts are difficult to face. Survival is not guaranteed, because we are human. My family has endured crime and tragedy; my mother's father was convicted of child rape, and spent time in prison. My dad's only sibling, his little brother, drowned when only 13, and my Grampa Cowan, Donald's daddy, found his body. Terrible tragedy in the lives of both my parents, yet they went on to build a house and a life together. They raised my sister and I in that house, and my mother lived the rest of her life there. I think the security of living in a house they owned was a comfort to her, in contrast to the chaos in which she had been raised.  The reason I've been thinking about telling the whole truth of our families is that there is another a way of thinking abo...

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."...

Key in a door; public domain. Courtesy of Picryl. In genealogy and family history, context is "the examination of individual lives within the framework of a broader history" [1]. Context is Key Context is key because  context unlocks meaning in the records we uncover , and leads us to more (and better) records and collections. For instance, finding a land description and platting it is step one, then when the plat is on a map along with the neighbors, we can see who the ancestor knew, worked alongside, attended church with, and who the singles might have married. Learning the geology of the area leads to understanding what crops were grown, and so how the land shaped the daily lives of those living and working on it. Life on the Great Plains is very different from the hollers of Kentucky or the coastal plains of the East. People often migrated in groups, and in general chose to move to an area where their skills and knowledge would be useful.  Context for land acquisitio...

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 ...

Miners Day Sign on the way to the event Join SKCGS at Black Diamond Miners Day! We'll be there all day. Early birds can show up around 7 am to help us set up, or show up any time before 4 to help us greet people, answer their questions, or ask them about their family history.  At 4 pm, as the event ends, we would welcome help to pack up  and clean up.  Please write to Outreach@skcgs.org to volunteer.  Chalk drawing from 2023 Miners Day Black Diamond Area a Favorite Topic Over the history of SKCGS Blog and our previous newsletter, the Black Diamond and Franklin Mine areas have been a great source for stories.  We are especially grateful for the volumes of information available at the Black Diamond Museum and Historical Society. People who live in South King County, especially on the eastern side are familiar with the coal mining communities of Newcastle, Renton, and Black Diamond; some may even remember the names of Franklin, Cedar Mountain and other towns from l...

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...

  2023: Drawing to a Close Courtesy Picryl.com As we enter the holiday season, it felt like a good time to look back at the year.   Year of Collaboration In January, I said that for me, it would be the year of collaboration . In so many ways, it has turned out that way, both on a genealogy society level, personally and in my genealogy work.  Our society collaborated with Eastside Genealogical Society to sponsor two speakers, one ( Dr. Leah Larkin ) presented at one of their evening meetings, and one ( Angela Packer McGhie, CG ) will present at our general meeting in January. Both the Washington State Genealogical Society  and the Washington Presidents Council exist to promote and support local societies and rely on collaboration.  SKCGS is a member of the National Genealogical Society , which, since it merged with the Federation of Genealogical Societies a few years back recognized "the need to coordinate projects so societies, libraries, and archives would not...