2023: Drawing to a Close Courtesy Picryl.com As we enter the holiday season, it felt like a good time to look back at the year.   Year of Collaboration In January, I said that for me, it would be the year of collaboration . In so many ways, it has turned out that way, both on a genealogy society level, personally and in my genealogy work.  Our society collaborated with Eastside Genealogical Society to sponsor two speakers, one ( Dr. Leah Larkin ) presented at one of their evening meetings, and one ( Angela Packer McGhie, CG ) will present at our general meeting in January. Both the Washington State Genealogical Society  and the Washington Presidents Council exist to promote and support local societies and rely on collaboration.  SKCGS is a member of the National Genealogical Society , which, since it merged with the Federation of Genealogical Societies a few years back recognized "the need to coordinate projects so societies, libraries, and archives would not duplicate the work

https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/about Last week, we shared some reasons for gratitude. As I write, tomorrow, a blessing is offered to all SKCGS Members: the chance to come to our local FamilySearch Center with Winona Laird as our host and guide. We'll have the place all to ourselves. She is able to schedule this treat about ten times every year. Look for the announcement for 19 January 2024, and RSVP! Why is this so special? First, we have access in the FSC to almost all the "locked" files found in the FamilySearch Catalog .  The catalog is where you will find records from countries around the world, US states, counties and many other categories of records as well. Most are open to all, 24 hours a day, from anywhere, but some can only be used in FamilySearch Centers. There are a few to be used only in Salt Lake at the main FamilySearch Library .  The catalog is your way into the approximately 80% of the  records in FamilySearch which are not every-name searchable

  Giving Thanks Those Who Served Ted Cowan 1926-2016 As I write, it is Veteran's Day, and also my mother's birthday. If she were alive, she would be 95. I'm thankful for her time on Earth, and that of my father, who served as a medic in the Pacific, WWII. I recently placed this photo of him at as a young recruit in the Veterans Legacy Memorial . Search for your ancestor, friend or relative here:  vlm.cem.va.gov/search .  Those Who Gave Their All John Franklin Zimmerman Jr 1908-1943 Th e database does not cover those buried overseas, such as my husband's uncle Frank, killed in action in Italy, and buried in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy. He had worked in the Post Office in California during the war, and when killed was Staff Sergeant of the Combat Organization: 2nd Army Post Office. He was killed the 7th of October 1943 and was awarded the Purple Heart.  https://www.abmc.gov / <- Search for overseas burials. Military Service Members I'm gratefu

Generated by Bing Image Creator In your research experience have you been contacted by someone who had a picture or other item that belonged to your family and they wanted to give it to you? If it was something you have sought for years, weren't you thrilled to finally have it and so grateful for the person who sent it to you? Maybe you have been on the other side, instrumental in connecting an orphaned heirloom with its family. Didn't it feel great to make that connection? I've had it happen a few times and I always feel so satisfied when I succeed.  Several years ago I was researching the history of photography for a presentation I was doing for the society. I needed examples of antique photos because I didn't have very many in my own family. I went to antique stores and shopped on Ebay for good examples of very early photography. When people found a stray photo in their collections that they didn't want, they offered them to me for my use. Making Trans-Continenta

If you are living in the midst of a story, as all of us are, do we know how it turns out in the end?  What if there is more than one story happening, and more than one challenge along the way? Courtesy of Steve Czajka creativecommons Once upon a time, there was a girl who was given the responsibility to care for her younger brother and sister after school. She was unhappy with these duties, and her siblings did not obey her and do the things she told them to do. She began to grow apart from her sister and brother, and once they were all adults, was not close to them.  As life continued, she thought about making peace with her brother. Perhaps it was losing her younger sister which prompted her to visit him, and ask how he remembered their childhood. To her surprise, her brother said, I was always jealous of you. Our mother trusted you to care for us; why didn't she trust me? I could have helped out. Many of us have compared stories and memories from our childhood with family member

Responsibility, Creative Commons Icon courtesy of TheNounProject “Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are those who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.” — Studs Terkel [1] I see the quote above from a few people in a project list for Wikitree. Why do we continue to do this work we call genealogy research? Is it for the money? I don't know any wealthy genealogists, do you? At least none who earned their riches through their findings, articles or book sales. Perhaps Alex Haley or a few other researcher stars such as Dr. Henry Louis Gates have created a good living for themselves by sales of their books, films and related work. But nobody goes into this work for the money or even fame. Service Instead, what I find is people who want to serve their families and communities by finding the records of their family, locating them in their place and time, and finding and telling their stories. Some end up creating works of art,

Dealing with the lack of records is one thing, but how do you confront multiple records of crimes such as robbery, horrors visited upon the indigenous, child abuse, rape, pogroms, murders, enslavement, massacres, genocides, and other disasters? I think we all encounter family history that is difficult to handle.  The discovery of a child rape left my mother, sister and me sobbing as we read the court records of what my mother's father had done.   Years ago, when I  found a record indicating that a probable direct ancestor owned other human beings as slaves, my response was simple. I stopped researching for a while.  Eventually I decided that I needed to learn more about the institution of slavery in the US, the records I would find, and the harder part; doing the work to document the enslaved people and their descendancies. In this way, descendants of enslavers can help repair some of the historical damage, because many of the records which can help descendants are only found in th