Posts

Brick Wall -- Dissolved?

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My longest standing brick wall has been DISSOLVED, thanks to lectures by Alexis Hacker Scholz on using probate and Carol Friedel using LucidChart for genealogy. I'm also advocating getting enough sleep and awakening slowly, and just thinking, before springing out of bed. 💤 That is where my inspiration arose, on my pillow.  If we've met and talked about genealogy, you have heard about my McBees and the mystery William McBee, known only as a name on his son Samuel B's death certificate. After Alexis' probate lecture, the gears were turning about how to look for probate files - but where to look? When I heard Carol thinking aloud, and saw her charting out a mystery DNA match, something clicked. The descendancies she was charting look like the Ancestry.com Thrulines®, so why not mine those and see if William's purported father, George Henry McBee and Martha 'Patsey' Willis, could be proven to be his parents? Not just by DNA matches, but by records. Thrulines® ...

1950 US Census Community Project

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Review and Improve the Index of the 1950 United States Census https://www.familysearch.org/en/info/1950-census-community-project This is going to be fun, and we want to be part of it. South King County Genealogical Society has applied to be part of the 1950 US Census Community Project. We hope as many of you as possible register to be part of the fun as well.  Not just fun, but also important It is important because states will be released as they are marked 100% complete, and we would love Washington to be one of the first! Which is why we're hoping that all the other Washington state genealogy societies get involved as well. And, we hope to show up as one of the most active, effective and involved societies in the state.  It is important because this is the first census to be completely indexed. Complete , meaning that every field is being indexed! Can you imagine how powerful search will be, when we can narrow the search by field?  It is important because the 1950 is a...

Wonderful Women: Grandma Lolas

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Lolas? Yes, my children had two grandma Lolas! My mother, Lola McBee Cowan and my husband's mother, Lola Kammer Zimmerman. Even more amazing, their birthdays are one day apart, although separated by some years. My mother was born 11 November 1926, 'Lola Z' November 10, 1919.  Lola Cowan and Lola Zimmerman, ~1997 And they were friends. My mom even briefly worked at Lola Z's business, The Herbfarm in Fall City, Washington. Sadly, they also died a day apart, although again, separated by some years. My mother died 19 February 2001, Lola Z 18 February 2004.  Lola McBee Cowan Lola McBee was born in Indianola, Iowa, the seventh of eleven children. Her father was remodeling their house when she was born, so her first months were spent in a tent! Then he sold their property for $700 and they began a trek up to Alberta, Canada where he believed he would strike it rich. They began by traveling to nearby Des Moines to say goodbye to family there, when illness struck. According to K...

Ball State University Archives and Special Collections

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 The Life of Sarah Ann Mitchell Editor's note:  Today's blog is the result of a comment posted to a recent blog about finding context in research. Thanks for your comments! Military bounty check for Sarah Ann’s husband, Fantley H. Naylor. https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/LSTACivWar/id/11319/rec/1 Civil War Ancestors I had several Civil War ancestors' families near Muncie, Indiana. A few months ago I found an Indiana militia bounty check (like a signing bonus) from the county. It was endorsed by the first husband of my great-great-grandmother, Sarah Ann. I love his name: Fantley Hopkins Naylor. This was in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ball State University Library in Muncie. Digital Media Repository at Ball State University Library’s Archives and Special Collections    https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/LSTACivWar    My discoveries were in the Delaware County section.  I have yet to peruse the rest!  Location Search on...

The Power of One Little Detail

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  Which family would you rather see on your tree?  This? Ethelyn Stephens Jones & her parents Or this. Ethelyn, parents, husband, sisters and their husbands I wanted the whole family. But a fter extensive searching in Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, FamilySearch.org and elsewhere, I had almost given up on having anything more than names and estimated dates for Ethelyn's parents, no records beyond her death certificate connecting them, or any other birth family. In other words, settling for the first image. Then FamilySearch found the death certificate, which gave her exact date and place of birth along with the full names of her parents. Of course immediately I added the parent names and other information on both trees, Ancestry and FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT). Birth and family information on death certificates is secondary information, and not always reliable. Still, names are clues, and the birthplace in the death certificate was close to what she stated in her marriag...

Day of Remembrance--Japanese American WWII Internment

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  Japanese Americans travel between housing barracks with Heart Mountain on the horizon.  Public Domain, Department of the Interior. War Relocation Authority. Day of Remembrance February 19, 2022, marked 80 years of racial reckoning since the signing of Executive Order 9066 that led to the wrongful incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. On that date in 1942, community leaders were imprisoned without arrest or trial. Families, the majority of them naturalized or US born citizens, were moved to relocation centers before final settlement in ten internment camps throughout the United States. From November, 1942, until early 1945, Heart Mountain Internment Center housed approximately 10,000 people on a bleak high plain in Wyoming. That treeless plain suffers the extremes of weather--hot in the summer and buffeted by wind, snow and cold in winter. When the camp was abandoned in 1945, it was the property of the U S government. Homesteading was encouraged and...

Saturday General Meeting

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  It's the third Saturday of the month, about 9:45 am, and you are at your computer, ready to join the South King County Genealogical Society meeting. You are looking forward to hearing that great speaker who is presenting that hot topic!  You registered several days ago and you are ready to be informed.  You did register, didn't you?  If you forgot, do it right now! But, you can't find the link to get into the meeting! Time is ticking by and you are about to panic.  You send a text/phone call/email to Valorie/MaryLynn/Tina/any other tech person you can think of to get the link. They aren't answering because they are already hosting the meeting or otherwise tied up.  What to do? The best advice we can give is to avoid that problem in the first place.  When you register for the meeting a few days in advance, you immediately get a confirming email that contains the link to the meeting.  It will be sent to the email address that you used when you reg...