While you are enjoying the beautiful May flowers, take some time to advance your genealogy skills and research. The Family Tree Maker Users Group will meet on Saturday, May 4 , from 10:15 – 11:45 at the Auburn Public Library.  Contact Winona Laird, education@skcgs.org or Dave Liesse, at ftm-group@skcgs.org for more information. The excellent attendance at the April General Meeting featuring a program on DNA shows that there is a lot of interest among our members in this topic.  To learn more, consider attending the Genetic Genealogy/DNA Interest Group on Monday, May 13 , from 1:00 – 3:00 pm at WAPI, 28815 Pacific Highway South, Suite 7A, Federal Way .  The topic is “GEDmatch Analysis: One-to-One and One-to-Many DNA Comparison Tools”. For more information go to the GG/DNA tab under Interest Groups at skcgs.org. Have you ever done research with a group of genie friends?  It’s fun! Try it at the Research Group, Friday, May 17 , from 1 – 3 pm at the Kent Family History Center, 12

By Barbara Mattoon                                                                                   1 I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. Joyce Kilmer 1914 The longer I live on this planet we call Earth, the more concerned I become about how we are treating it.  I have always been aware of Earth Day but have never participated in activities surrounding it.  This year I began to think about how Earth Day relates to genealogy, and that train of thought led me to trees. Why are trees important to the inhabitants of planet Earth?  Here are just a few of the reasons: Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen for us to breathe. Trees take in dust and other pollutants. Wood was the first fuel and is still used by about half the world’s population for heat and cooking. 2 Trees provide wood for building, furniture, sports equipment, and wood pulp for making paper. Quinine, aspirin and other drugs are derived from tree bark. Oranges, apples, nu

By Janet O'Conor Camarata Willis, Linda, Looking for Mr. Smith: Seeking the Truth Behind the Long Walk, the Greatest Survival Story Ever Told., New York, New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010. Readers familiar with the book, The Long Walk , first published in 1956, remember a survival story about a group of men caught up in the events preceding World War II. Each was sent to a labor camp in Siberia where they joined together in escaping during a blizzard and walking south-southeast for over a year. They walked from Siberia through Mongolia, into China, skirting Tibet and into India between April 1941 and the spring of 1942. The group experienced difficulties and hardships suffered defeats and deaths, and finally, as a much-shrunken band of survivors, they reached India and freedom. The men who began their walk to freedom are all East European: young and old, skilled and unskilled workers from Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkans. The oldest escapee at fifty-one

By Barbara Mattoon My daughter-in-law, Michele Mattoon, and I had long planned a trip to the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society Library in Union Gap, Washington, to research the Mattoon family.  Because my son Eric is a student of wine, and particularly Washington wine, we decided to combine our genealogy research trip with wine tasting in the Yakima Valley. On Thursday, July 16, 2015, we embarked on the trip. Our first stop was  Lake Mattoon on the outskirts of Ellensburg.  Michele had planned it to be a surprise for me, but I had discovered Lake Mattoon just a few days previously while researching my father-in-law’s younger brother, Buzz Mattoon.  It is a very small lake, clearly visible from the I-90 freeway. From Lake Mattoon we traveled south – southeasterly on Hwy 82 over Manastash and Umtanum ridges to Yakima and Union Gap. After several wrong turns we arrived at the Library.  We were warmly greeted by knowledgeable volunteers and were able to gather a number of fami

By Valorie Zimmerman This is not April Fools joke! A few years back, my husband was walking through the forest near our cabin outside Mt. Rainier National Park when he came across a grave for a Civil War soldier. Henry C Allen grave site Astonished, he took us there to honor the soldier and find more about him. Just a hundred feet or so off Highway 410, we saw a beautiful grave site with a headstone of marble, covered with flags and other remembrances. Reading part of his story on signs at the site was fascinating, and Bob created a web page about the site and the man:  http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~bobofwa/family/HCAllen_grave.htm Henry C. Allen, 16 Wis. Inf. 1848-1896 Last year there was a notice in the Washington State Genealogy Blog about a group gathering information about all Civil War soldiers buried in Washington State , so I wrote to report this grave site in case they had not heard of it. They had not, and asked me to find out more about this veteran.

By Barbara Mattoon Longer, lighter days beckon us outside to enjoy spring flowers, sunshine and warm breezes, but there are still many opportunities to advance our genealogy knowledge and practice.  March 31 is World Backup Day.  One small accident or failure could destroy all your important stuff, including your genealogy research.  Genealogy pundits recommend backing up three ways.  There is plenty of information online on how to do it. Watch for Valorie Zimmerman’s April 1 blog post titled Civil War Veteran Found in the Woods.  Is it an April Fools’ joke? The Board of Directors will meet Tuesday, April 2, at the Valley Regional Fire Authority, 1101 D St. NE, Auburn, at 7:00 pm.  It will be preceded by  a 2020 Seminar Committee meeting at 6:00 pm.  All members are encouraged to attend both meetings.  There are several open committee assignments for the seminar. Saturday, April 6, Winona Laird will present Family Tree Maker’s new Family Atlas and Family Book Creator program

Genealogical How-to Letters By Vera McDowell A book review by MaryLynn Strickland “That’s a very good book,” someone said, pointing to a bright orange and yellow volume on the book sales table. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I’ll have to remember that.  Someday I’ll buy it.”  A few years later I did just that.  Then, from time to time, I glanced at pages as the book was moved from coffee table to bookshelf.  I can’t say that I ever fulfilled my intention to read all of it. Recently, when I was looking for reading material in the middle of the night, the book literally fell off the shelf and opened to page 54 where I read: “To understand the four nationalities that make up the United Kingdom, we must recognize that: “SCOTS: Keep the Sabbath and everything else they can get their hands on. “IRISH:  Don’t believe in anything and will fight like hell to defend it. “WELSH:  Pray on their knees and everybody else. “ENGLISH:  Feel like they were born to rule the world and relieve t