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...

  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 I approached it with the idea that much of the information would be out of date, and it is.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”,...

Photo by genibee,  CC BY-NC 2.0 Have you ever had an old memory surface at the oddest time? I was in the dental chair having an implant screwed into my jaw, and there was so much pressure! When they were doing something else, I said, this feels just like the first time I ever put on a girdle. I was giggling about it, and nudged the assistant, and said, you know what I'm talking about! She was giggling too, and then she said to the doctor, you do NOT know, but ask your wife! The silliest thing about it was that I was in seventh grade! Who needs a girdle ever, much less in seventh grade? It was not about the boys; they never looked at us then. And really, we all thought the other girls were noticing, but I think all of us just wanted to fit in. For the record, let me just say that while I can't recall the last time I squeezed myself into a girdle, I do not miss that pressure one bit! Why mention this weird old memory? Well, it paints a picture of adolescent life before pantyhos...

 Summer is a great time to travel to the old home places and distant repositories. What's your first step?  Create Your Plan The longer your trip and farther away your destination, the more preparation you will need. Are passport, visa, special vaccinations required? Early on, write away for maps; some are available for free but arrive by mail; good local maps will help in the planning process. How about connections with researchers in the localities you will visit? Join some local societies, and start conversations with the local history groups, libraries, colleges, courthouses, archives and museums. Create a spreadsheet or table to gather names, contact information, closed dates, hours of operation. Before you leave, print your itinerary and the info sheet. Leave a copy at home with friends and family, too.  Prepare short biographies of ancestors who lived locally to leave in vertical files in libraries and archives. Ensure that each bio has your contact information; if...

Image from page 86 of "The diary of a birthday doll" (1908); Internet Archive Book Images; public domain Lies my Grandmother told me My Grandmother Billie was a character. She spoke her mind and had a Scot-Irish brogue and heritage. Born Wilhelmina Marian Gamble, after her father William. She always went by Billie. The following statements were not necessarily made directly to me. Some I found while researching our family tree. Though not surprised that stories are not altogether truthful, I was really surprised that some were made to government officials. Graduated from High School. In our family, it was understood that Grandma Billie “finished” high school. Though she lost a year to illness, she graduated early. She did have a severe illness at a young age, which may have led to her missing school and resulted in a mitral valve problem later in life. 1 However, it looks like her “graduating early” was due to marrying Oct 1926 2 , at the age of 17-3⁄4. Her first chi...

 Go There! Generated by BingImageCreator AI 'April 19, 2024 How times have changed in family history research! Traveling to your family's homeplace or writing letters to genealogy or historical societies, courthouses, local libraries and archives used to be the first step in beginning family history if there were no published books or periodicals we could consult.  Later, we had access to microfilm, which required traveling to where that microfilm was. Now, our first step is often to see what's online at Ancestry.com, other pay sites, and free sites such as FamilySearch.org . But as we know, no matter how fast these services add new databases, only a small percentage of records are or will ever be online.  Why Travel? Beyond records, though, why should we travel to gather our family history? Two reasons: everywhere is different, and only by going there can we experience that. Reading about the history, geology and social forces that shaped the community is one excellent w...