Illustration Vectors by Vecteezy I love serendipity!  I've been toying with a blog topic for a couple of weeks and have even received a couple of responses for future publication.  The basic topic is storytelling and title of the blog asks people to "Tell Me A Story".  More on this below. Friday April 26,2024, on ABC's Good Morning, America  there was an item about a new book, Cemetery for Untold Stories  by Julia Alvarez.  Brief synopsis of the book: an author decides to literally bury a pile of unfinished manuscripts in a cemetery plot and be done with them.  But the characters in the manuscripts protest and haunt her to finish their stories.  That sounded so intriguing, I had to go on Amazon and purchase the book! I am about one third into the book and Alma, the protagonist is expressing some of my exact thoughts.  The epigraph is a simple four words: Tell me a story.   I swear, and have witnesses, that I started using that phrase before I obtained the book.  No pl

 Go There! Generated by BingImageCreator AI 'April 19, 2024 How times have changed in family history research! Traveling to your family's homeplace or writing letters to genealogy or historical societies, courthouses, local libraries and archives used to be the first step in beginning family history if there were no published books or periodicals we could consult.  Later, we had access to microfilm, which required traveling to where that microfilm was. Now, our first step is often to see what's online at Ancestry.com, other pay sites, and free sites such as FamilySearch.org . But as we know, no matter how fast these services add new databases, only a small percentage of records are or will ever be online.  Why Travel? Beyond records, though, why should we travel to gather our family history? Two reasons: everywhere is different, and only by going there can we experience that. Reading about the history, geology and social forces that shaped the community is one excellent way

Generated with AI Bing Image Creator 10 April 202, 8:46 PM If you have been thinking about using DNA in your family history research, but are not sure how useful it could be, or how to go about it, parts of this post may help.  If you have been using DNA a little, but are not finding it helpful, perhaps this post will change your mind.  Or  you have been using it, but are having trouble applying findings to the rest of your research, read on.  If you don't understand how to use the dot system to help you in your research goals, watch this Youtube (under 7 minutes):  AncestryDNA Dot System: How to Use It!   Large-size DNA Mystery Match? Don't give up hope! You have a solid foundation of research if you have: Tested on AncestryDNA, and connected yourself on your tree to your test ,  Built much of your line of interest from ancestors down to the living generation, and  Applied the dot system to all matches down to  ~25-30cM. Gold Ring Process Use ALL the Ancestry DNA tools in bot

Courtesy of Islington.gov.uk Thank You! Volunteer Recognition Day is observed every year on April 20. In addition, National Volunteer Week is celebrated from April 14 to 20. During this week, volunteers are recognized for their selfless contributions to help others and promote good causes. At SKCGS we are always appreciative of the efforts of our many volunteers, regardless of the size of the job or amount of time of involvement.  As in an exquisite machine, every cog, regardless of size, is important for the smooth operation of the whole. SKCGS operates totally on the service of its volunteers.  Among those are the elected officers of the Board of Directors.  Nominations are now open for the positions of Vice President and Secretary, to be elected at the annual meeting, May 18, 2024. We are happy to announce that we have a candidate for each of the pending positions, but more nominations are welcome.    Nominees Alexis Hacker Scholz Currently Vice President of South King County Genea

https://www.vecteezy.com/free-photos/blockchain  Stock photos by Vecteezy Why? Why do we continue to do this work of family history and genealogy? After all, it can be very difficult sometimes, and depending on what we uncover, even painful. We often deal with records that many people regard as dusty old relics of the past, boring or even impossible  to read and understand. It can be expensive; many of the repositories and relatives we need to consult with are distant; travel is not free! Even when we use online services, the prices of most of them keeps rising. We want more than anything to pass along our findings to our families, and yet often  they seem uninterested. Flow Nevertheless, we persist! I think the answer may lie in what brain science calls "flow." The article " Flow: The Science Behind Deep Focus ," says " Athletes often describe being “in the zone” when doing their sport. This is known as the flow state: You’re completely focused on the task at

Your Research Question Equals the Size of the Puzzle As usual, when trying to think of what to write about, something prompts the writer; and for me that is often what I've been recently working on. These days, I'm puzzling over my DNA matches tracing back to my third-great-grandparents, George Henry and Martha Willis McBee. Thrulines ®  at Ancestry.com has been a useful map from my ancestors to the matches.  The Map Is Not The Territory But  ThruLines®  are not "True" lines. They are created by algorithms from Ancestry user trees including our own; all trees are imperfect, including ours. The same process creates  The Theory of Family Relativity™  at MyHeritage. Neither tool  reveals all the details we might wish about living people, so they leave us with work to do. Fortunately, I began my research to understand my family and find living cousins, so I've been "building down" for many years. When DNA became a useful new record source, I was already part

Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will  eventually  allow us to do just that. It has been estimated that 75% or more of the records at FamilySearch were browsable but not searchable; the only indexes those found in the records themselves. Those records are certainly attainable by using those indexes and browsing to the record of interest, but the process is tedious, often frustrating, and slow. And once found, the record must be read and transcribed to be useful. This new Full Text Search tackles a