By Barbara Mattoon As the busy holiday season winds down, have you begun to think about your genealogy goals for the coming year?  Do they include updating and enhancing your genealogical education and skills?  Just as science, technology, medicine and many other fields are advancing at an accelerating rate, so too is our hobby or avocation – genealogy-- changing all the time.  Planning your genealogy education rather than just taking what comes along for the coming year or two will help you achieve your goals. Your plan will be unique to you, taking into consideration the goals you have set for yourself and the amount of time and resources you have available to commit to continuing education.  Take into consideration what you want to learn and the learning style that is most effective for you.  Do you want to pursue a structured program, or will a “self-designed” program better achieve your goals?  Are you available to travel?  Is cost an is...

6 November 2018 The meeting of the South King County Genealogical Society’s Board of Directors was held on 6 November 2018. Minutes from the October Board meeting and the October General Membership meeting were approved.  Financial statements were submitted by the Treasurer. Committees submitting reports included Blog, Bylaws, Circulating Library, Library Volunteers, Library GenHelp Desk, Membership, Programs, Publicity and Website. Interest Groups submitting reports included Family Tree Maker, Research and Technology User’s Group. Each Board member was asked to bring an idea about how to improve our membership and membership participation.  Ideas included: Contact individually the visitors to the GenHelp Desk when you are staffing. Keep the website up to date. Sending the found stuff to the person who requested it. Report our events to other societies. Post information on the Bulletin Board at the Family History Centers. Emails to members about meeting...

by Kathleen (Katie) MacLeod Hanzeli Mose’s Signature I had the privilege of visiting Boston and went to the Massachusetts State Archives to do research.  I worked on finding information about my great-great-great-great grandfather, Moses Jennerson, who was born in Shirley, Middlesex, Massachusetts on or about 17 November 1755.  A note in the town records said he was “a waif cast in here” which means they have no clue where he came from - or how to spell his name.  Seth Chandler in his History of Shirley, claimed that there were only two spellings of the name.  He was mistaken as I’ve found four different spellings for Moses alone.  Later in life, his wife, Sarah taught him to read and write.  Until then, he skipped the spelling problems and simply made his mark. Moses’ name in the book of Revolutionary War soldiers. I have learned over the years of researching my family history, that you cannot depend on name spelling, especially the further ...

By Dave Liesse Family Tree Maker is, and always has been, a powerful genealogy database tool.  In fact, when I first adopted it decades ago it was because as a database professional myself I could recognize the excellence of the underlying database design.  At the time it may not have been the most intuitive program for non-technical users, but I definitely was not in that category! Over the years the program has changed owners several times and has been upgraded regularly.  Now it resembles the many office suites (Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Open Office, etc.) in one key respect: the number of features that go unused is constantly climbing!  The purpose of this post is to let you know about some of those features that you might have a good use for, if you only knew about them. Let's start with the task list.  If you're like I was you've seen the "Tasks" bar on the Plan page or perhaps on the Person tab on the People page. These are quite powe...

By Michelle Lyons and Katie Hanzeli In October Katie Hanzeli & Michelle Lyons travelled to Boston to attend the Fall Research Getaway of the New England Historical & Genealogical Society. This research facility holds an enormous amount of material, covering seven floors, over 30,000 family histories, manuscripts, books, etc. - literally millions of records, covering not only New England but worldwide.                                                                                     In advance of our trip, NEHGS offered an hour-long webinar on preparing to do research at their facility.  It was essential viewing to make the best use of your time.  Also, prior to the workshop, participants were asked to write down information on the famil...

By Cheri Sayer In December 2018, the Greater Kent Historical Society (GKHS) will proudly mark their 25th anniversary!  There had been an “Old-Timers” group in Kent, WA, for many years, and it is still going strong with an annual awards event.  During a meeting in 1992, Rae Reitan, a native of Kent and the City Historian, suggested that Kent should have a legitimate Historical Society.  The idea was adopted, a committee was formed, and a campaign was held to collect artifacts and information about Kent and the surrounding area.  The Greater Kent Historical Society was formed and incorporated as a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization.  The next year a space at 209 W. Meeker in historic downtown Kent became the temporary home of the society and it’s collection for the next five years.  I remember well my visits to that small space with it’s artifacts and excellent exhibits. Interest in a larger space eventually settled on the historic Bereiter home on Smith...

By  Barbara Mattoon Dave Liesse presented “Lesser Known Features of Family Tree Maker” at the Family Tree Maker Users Group November 3.  It was a fast paced, fact-filled presentation.  Dave has agreed to write it as a blog post to be published December 17, 2018. The Board of Directors held its regular meeting November 6.  In addition to regular business we held a round-robin discussion on how each of us could personally recruit and retain members.  Everyone made a commitment to an action that they would personally take.  You will notice that the loop is now on our web page.  Those who staff Library Help Desks committed to write personal notes to those they helped, and the President committed to write personal notes to guests attending the general meeting.  Both of these actions have been effective. Publicity Chair, Cheri Sayer and President Barbara Mattoon attended a Media Strategy Workshop presented by SoCo Culture on November 14.  T...