Needpix.com  T h is is the time of year when we think about the sacrifices our ancestors made coming to a new land seeking a better life for themselves and their unknown descendants.   Many of them braved perilous voyages over rough seas in tiny ships seeking religious freedom.   One hundred and fifty years later, their grandsons fought in the Revolutionary War for the right of self-government.   As genealogists, we have the privilege of gathering their stories and preserving them for our descendants.   I hope you will share their stories as you gather with your family this month.   On October 5, Katie Hanzeli, Marilyn Schunke and I attended the Seattle Genealogical Society’s Fall Seminar featuring Dr. Thomas W. Jones.   The topic of the Seminar was “Creating Credible Conclusions While Circumnavigating Walls”, learning how to forge innovative paths around research brick walls with confidence and ethics.   Learning from Dr. Jones is like drinking from a firehose.   Sunday, I

23andMe Wants You!  In the early years of 23andMe DNA testing, the site seemed like a useful site for researchers. Then all that changed. For the next few years, many genealogists and family history researchers felt unwelcome at 23andMe. Family trees were removed from the site, and moved to MyHeritage. There was no useful linking to these trees, and match profiles were closed by default. Among active researchers, 23andMe matches were notorious for never answering messages (in site), rarely granting matching, and not being interested in finding common ancestors, even if they replied. The messaging system was so bad that there was a Chrome add-on to make it usable! Times have changed - family tree tools The designers of the site seem to changing all that, and inviting us researchers back in. If you have a 23andMe kit and log onto the site, open up Settings and scroll to Preferences at the bottom of the Settings page, you will find the Beta. Select Become a tester , and you w

The three kinds of DNA of use for family history research* Autosomal - what most of us use, via Ancestry , 23andMe , MyHeritage , FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder and LivingDNA Y - available from FamilyTreeDNA, Yseq and a few others Mt or mitochondrial - available from FamilyTreeDNA Autosomal DNA For autosomal DNA (AtDNA), to make best use of your results for research, you will "fish in all the ponds" by testing with Ancestry and 23andme since neither accept uploads, and then upload your raw data to Gedmatch , MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA, which do accept uploads - for free!  The value of autosomal DNA testing is that it covers all of your ancestry back four generations or so, and up to six or seven generations, which is quite long ago. However, as your matches are ever smaller as you go further back in time, your AtDNA will not take you back to your deep ancestry before surnames and record keeping. Y and Mt DNA Both Y and Mt DNA will take you back very f

Newspapers are wonderful sources for your genealogy and family history research -- and they are available FREE! You might think that your ancestors would never be found in the newspaper, but if they lived in a small city or town, or even out on a farm -- you will find them, and not just in obituaries. The fire referred to in the above "Card of Thanks" was not reported in the newspaper, but the notice was. And without this little notice we would never have known about the fire suffered by my great-uncle Sidney and his family. Obituaries can be a goldmine, though, even if you already know the date of death and place of burial. Especially if the surviving children are mentioned, you then know that they are alive at that date, and sometimes their locality and spouse are mentioned as well. Those who are *not* mentioned is sometimes meaningful too. A caution that "facts" reported in an obit are not necessarily true. Top of 1944 Seattle Daily Times article about B

SOCIETY ACTIVITIES The September General Meeting featured the presentation of a Washington State Genealogical Society Outstanding Volunteer award to our long-time member, Katie Hanzeli.  The award highlighted the many areas in which she has served and continues to serve SKCGS.  Lori Lee Sauber presented a method of organizing genealogical research using project management methodology.   The advantage of this method of organization is that it is easily customized to meet the needs of any researcher.   She urged using a version of this method to avoid “abandoned” genealogy projects   It also helps keep the researcher on track to complete a project by a self-imposed or outside imposed deadline.   As a result of her presentation, I have revisited Trello.   It is easy to set up the project board. You receive positive reinforcement when you move the task card to the “Completed” column. We welcomed one returning member, Pat Noecker, and three new members at the September 21 me

Who Does Your DNA Think You Are? Save the Date! And get involved with the preparations! We've got a tremendous seminar coming up next June and the Seminar Committee members, headed by Winona Laird, are already working hard to make this a success.  Valorie Zimmerman is in charge of publicity.  Last May we mailed "Save the Date" postcards to nearly 100 genealogy societies, historical societies and other organizations. Linda Blais is in charge of the Silent Auction and Raffle.  She has a list of items she plans to put in baskets and bundles for either the auction or raffle.  You may have one of the items you would be happy to donate or procure.  Linda would love to hear from you. The flyer above is available on our website  skcgs.org   Please download it, print a few copies to hand out or email it to friends.    The seminar is eight months away but it will go quickly.   Between now and next June there will be several tasks to accomplish and we co

FGS National Conference by Janet Camarata and Michelle Lyons The Federation of Genealogical Societies national conference was August 21-24, 2019, in Washington DC.  SKCGS members Janet Camarata and Michelle Lyons attended and are sharing their highlights. Janet: “We arrived at the FGS conference one day early and spent Tuesday at NARA (National Archives and Records Administration).  I was able to locate two homestead applications for my husband's family--his grandmother and his great-grandfather--a cash-sale receipt for land for his 2-great-grandfather and the bounty land claim based on his 4-great-grandfather's service in the War of 1812 and claimed by his wife in Hickory County, MO.  While we were there, over the PA system an announcement was made that a thunderstorm was passing over the building and we were asked not to leave until it passed.  I then got on the computers and was able to collect all the military records, including pay and rank records of an uncle who l