Onc e upon a time, in a land right next door, South King County Genealogical Society  had regular, person-to-person meetings on the third Saturday of most mon ths of the year.  People got up early and drove to the meeting place, were greeted at the door and received a printed handout provided by the speaker of the day.  People visited with each other and learned new techniques for researching their family trees.  They went h ome and tried new links from the printed handouts and then saved the paper copy in a file or notebook.   Life was routine, predictable.                                                                                                                                                                   Then something happened; the people started learning new words—CoronaVirus, Covid-19, pandemic, social distancing, Zoom, Amazon ordering, curbside groceries, webcams, Google Meets.                               People at SKCGS have learned how to conduct virtual meetings

Oh boy, there was William Williams, right age, immigrant from England, working in a mine in southwest Idaho on the 1900 census.  But having chased Bill from England to Michigan then to South Dakota and eventually to Wardner, Idaho, how could I be sure this was the right one? The picture below was among family photos passed down to Ken Williams, a great grandson of Bill.  In fact there were two copies of the photo, a pretty good indication that there was a family member in it. Will the real Bill Williams please stand up?  That is, if the real Bill Williams is in this picture.  We'll probably never know which man is Bill but there is enough circumstantial evidence to place him in Owyhee County in 1900.  The clue--the photographer.  C. E. Joy had a photograph studio in Salt Lake City around 1900 and probably made trips to neighboring communities. Looking for the clues There are many clues for dating and identifying photos.  Prominent among those is researching the  photographer. The t

Back when SKCGS Special Interest Groups could still meet in person, I attended the DNA/Genetic Genealogy Group meeting in early February. The subject was using Ancestry tools such as Thru-Lines tool to “group” your DNA ancestors, and was led by our Publicity Chair Valorie Zimmerman. This tutorial only works if you have tested your DNA through Ancestry, and have a tree where you are linked to yourself on that tree. It’s best to have a subscription, so you can follow up on suspected common ancestors. The class was very hands-on and we were immediately getting signed in to Ancestry and clicking on our list of “DNA Matches” at the top of the page under the DNA tab. Other people you share DNA with and have tested with Ancestry will appear on your list. First on the list will be close relations, and you will most likely recognize the names and know them. From there you will get a longer list of DNA third and fourth, and fifth and sixth cousins. Note that this list seems to grow

It's all about the chromosomes (and mitochondria) The 23 chromosomes of a human male . Courtesy: National Human Genome Research Institute X, Y and Mitochondrial DNA are less well-known and not used by many genealogical researchers. Both Y and MtDNA tests are more expensive than the more common autosomal DNA tests.  X is always tested in an autosomal DNA test. However X results are less reported (FTDNA, 23andMe) or not reported at all (Ancestry, MyHeritage, LivingDNA), with the exception of Gedmatch. Rather than covering generations of your ancestry, each of these DNA types cover a smaller portion of your tree, which some see as a weakness.  However, because of that restriction, the researcher gets a focused result, which can be powerful, if the test will help you answer your research question.  Y DNA tests were first offered to the consumer in 2000 by only one company: FamilyTreeDNA. Ancestry also offered Y and mitochondrial tests between 2012 and 2014  but not sin

Where We Have Been Back in February 2020, we at SKCGS were proud of ourselves because we had moved our newsletter from a quarterly print publication mailed to our members and friends, to a weekly blog posted on our website and emailed to members and friends.  We had taken the unprecedented step of accepting credit card payments online! Where We  Are On March 1, news that the novel Corona virus, which up until then was something we had read about or seen a news story about on TV in Wuhan, China, suddenly was here, in our country, in King County, in Kirkland , for heaven’s sake.   Just to be safe, the March Board and General Meetings were canceled.   Surely this would be under control in just a short time!   At about this time, our wise members, Valorie Zimmerman and MaryLynn Strickland realized that our members were not comfortable attending in-person meetings and began investigating online meeting options. An online platform was selected, and with some trepidation,

Have you heard of the new book by journalist Libby Copeland: The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are . American Ancestors and the Boston Public Library had an interview and Q & A with her this week, full of stories and insight. I was struck by the advice from one of the "search angels" in her book, who says that she no longer tries to persuade people to DNA test. After hearing Judy Russell's webinar  DNA Rights and Wrongs: The Ethical Side of Testing , I think I would have to agree. To our cousins or others we would like to test, we owe a complete description of what testing entails, and we need to offer them fine-grained choices such as:  whether their profile will have their name or an anonymised nickname, what email will be associated with a kit, whether or not they will allow sharing of the test results, and to whom, whether or not they want to access the test results, if there are unexpected results, do they want to know those results? and so m

Why Use Multiple Sites? The most effective research advice is to focus your efforts by asking a question, and creating a plan to find the information you need to answer that question. No one site has all the sources, information, matches, or cousins. I'm going to quote here from Wikipedia : The Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) is a guideline for establishing the reliability ("proof") of a genealogical conclusion with reasonable certainty. It is important within the genealogical community for clearly communicating the quality of research performed, such as by a professional genealogist. It is also useful for helping new genealogists understand what is needed to do high-quality research. It has five elements: reasonably exhaustive research; complete and accurate source citations; analysis and correlation of the collected information; resolution of any conflicting evidence; and a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.    - summarizing Board for Cert