A suggested topic for this blog was A Favorite Tool for Research We received a couple of replies which have spurred conversations from our editors.  We hope more of you will submit your favorite tools. From Deborah Wigen-Noble:    My “tool” right now is webinars. The speaker/presenter, the chat (gleaning all kinds of ideas and suggestions from others watching), and the opportunity to ask and have my questions answered - this often leads to more questions . -  Debbi From Annette Weiss:  DNA is my tool ... can't beat the accuracy! I've been able to connect with a long-lost branch of my daily tree, adding over 100 descendants in the past 2 years. - Annette From Kathleen Hanzeli:  This probably sounds silly, but last week, when I was in Boston, I chose to travel light, meaning I left my big camera at home.  I did take my Magic Wand Scanner but it never came out of my bag. Instead, I used my iPhone to scan (the scanning app associated with Evernote) and copy documents, etc.  It work

freepik.com/free-photo/daily-planner-dream-big-concept_ How have you learned to do genealogy? Some of us began with basic classes that introduced us to census records, land records, military records and other basic resources. Some of us did wide open internet searches and got lucky on our first or second attempt; others had piles of material handed to them by older relatives. No matter how we started, if we have stayed with our quest, we have refined our methodology in order to get to more accurate or obscure information. If you have subscribed to SKCGS.groups.io you may have seen messages between people who are in the current study group working on the book, Research Like a Pro.  I admire the work these people are putting in on their projects, knowing they are developing strong research habits. Another Way To Learn But I don't have the time or inclination to put out that sort of effort. I have found another source for learning methodology--genealogical crime mysteries! Give me th

Photo by  Fredrik Öhlander  on  Unsplash Family History Month in October always brings family stories to mind.   Fortunately, most of the stories I remember are humorous. Perhaps I have  forgotten the ones that are not.  My father was a writer, and many of his pieces  were humor. When I was a small girl, my Father joined my Grandfather in his hardware  business.   My Grandfather, in addition to operating his hardware business was the Mayor of  our small town. My Father soon was elected to the City Council. My Grandmother  had founded the first church in the community. My Grandmother was the most  dignified lady you could imagine. Even her husband called her “Mrs. _______.” We lived in an apartment above the hardware store. My Grandparents lived  downstairs, behind the store. The windows of my parents’ bedroom overlooked  the highway in front of the store and beyond that, there was a ditch separating the highway  from a driveway that ran from the Police Station to cages housing the dogs

 Odd title to this blog, I know! But I've been learning some things in our latest study group, where we are reading " Research Like A Pro " by Diana Elder and we're following the strategy (RLP). I can't say that some of it is not painful. For instance, while compiling a Locality Research Guide I wanted to follow those meaty links I was finding so much! However, that step comes after we finish the critical parts of those research guides, and get into the Research Planning step. Here are the Research Planning steps, restated in my own words: Research Like A Pro cover 1. State a clear objective, revised if necessary. 2. Summarize the important known facts 3. Clear, specific hypothesis (or multiple if necessary). 4. Identify the best sources to pursue to test your hypothesis/es. 5. Prioritize your research strategy. Of course each of us chose a research subject before we began meeting together, and began to refine a research objective, summarize the sources we alre

Our ancestors in the US faced all kinds of challenges, many of which have been overcome or lessen through time, such as transportation difficulties, food spoilage, lack of medical care, and slow or nonexistent communication methods.  Goldilocks? A common predator which still threatens humans and our pets remains though -- BEARS! Yes, we have bears in south King County! Years ago I used to get milk from a family locally in Black Diamond. One week when I stopped by for my gallon of milk, she told me that a bear attacking their beehives out in the orchard scared the cow which was giving milk and made her dry up! I guess it's true that bears love honey. A year or two after that, as I was coming home in the evening after dark, I saw shadowy figures on the road. As I slowed, I thought, what are clowns tumbling across the road for? As I got close enough for the headlights to let me see just who was crossing the road, I saw a mama bear and her two cubs walk into the woods! No clue why my b

A timeline gets you where you want to go! We've discussed timelines many times here on the blog. Here is one 2-year-old example: The Timeline: Your Guide Through the Twists and Turns of Research . In the latest SKCGS Study Group, working our way through "Research Like A Pro," by Diana Elder, AG with Nicole Dyer. The second chapter is all about how to use a timeline to analyze sources and likely evidence found in those sources.   But how exactly do you create one? And is one way better than another? Elder advocates for a spreadsheet or relational database. While most of us have not yet tried Airtable , the relational database she uses now, I tried creating the spreadsheet from the information I had been collecting in a timeline using Google Sheets. While it was useful as a place to collect the direct links to record images and a good prompt to create source citations, I didn't find it useful to reason out what was happening behind the records.  Here is a snippet of tha

October Is Family History Month Please share some of your stories here. Send us a sentence or paragraph and pictures: m.strickland@skcgs.org SeattleBGRG.org Telling Our Stories I heard a wonderful radio show this morning about story telling, which followed a great Black Genealogy Research Group of Seattle (BGRG) meeting yesterday about telling our stories. The focus of both the radio show and the BGRG meeting was not just telling our stories aloud, but in getting them OUT -- to our families, to our friends, to legislators or whoever needs to hear and remember them. The radio show is available for listening here:  Three comedians share their thoughts...  (31 minutes),  ...discover the power of sadness   (22 minutes),  both highly recommended.  In genealogy we tell stories about all sorts of things - some technical, such as how to use various record types or sets, how to locate repositories and find what we need, and most important, who our ancestors were and what they did and even stori