Author Archives: Charles Hansen

Genealogical Forum of Oregon Wednesday News

by Charles Hansen

GenForum

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM OF OREGON’S

Wednesday Evening E-News

16 December 2015

For more information visit www.gfo.org, contact us at info@gfo.org, or call our library at 503-963-1932. We love hearing from you!

For a complete GFO CALENDAR go to www.gfo.org/calendar.htm.

Also, if you missed your free copy of last month’s newletter, The Insider, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy at http://www.gfo.org/insider/15-Nov.pdf. Look for the January 2016 Insider coming soon! Check on our website for the link on our Newsletter page.

Annual Appeal – End of the Year Donations

Don’t forget that as a 503(c)(3) non-profit organization, all gifts, devices and contributions made toward the GFO are tax deductible!
Consider giving before the end of the year for a tax break on your 2015 filing.

Click here for a link to our Annual Appeal letter for more information. Or simply donate via your Paypay account by sending any amount to payments@gfo.org.

Holiday Hours – What are you still doing here? Go celebrate the season!  

Please remember to be safe out there, and happy holidays to all from the GFO!

The Library will be close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, December 23rd, and from 1 p.m. on Thursday, December 24th, until 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, December 26th.

We will also be observing the world’s most recent revolution around the sun the last week of this month. In other words, the Library will be closed from 1 p.m. on Thursday, December 31st, until 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, January 2nd.

January Seminar – “Discover Your House History”
 

HouseHistory

Come hear our very own Connie Lenzen, author, researcher and board-certified genealogist, teach about the histories of houses.

Have you ever wondered who lived in your home or building before you? Have you ever wondered when your house was built, and maybe WHY?? Connie will lead us through the process of researching the history of your house. While her examples will begin from Multomah and Clackamas County, the principles are applicable to any location you might be curious about.

So register early, and be quick about it, as this session is limited to 50 attendees! Click here for a registration form.

What’s Happening this Week at the GFO?

Hunting and Gathering – Saturday, December 19th, 9:30am – 11am

Join us for a monthly support group where we help each other find information about a family line. We will share expertise about resources and search strategies. We will learn to do a reasonably exhaustive search and develop research plans. The focus will shift depending on the needs of the group. Free to members. Visitors may request a guest pass at education@gfo.org.

Library Work Party – Sunday, December 20th and 27th, 9am – noon

There’s another work party at the GFO library today for those of you who can come. There’s lots to do and we’d love to have your help. Doors open at 9 and work usually wraps up around noon. Some people come for just an hour or so and you’re welcome to do the same. Any time you can share is valuable. Hope to see you there.

Don’t forget: GFO Book Group to meet Saturday, January 9th, at 11:45am – Author Harold Hinds will lead the discussion about his book Crafting a Personal Family History. A Guide Plus a Case Study: Three Generations of the Hinds Family in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. There are 3 copies of the book available at the library. Please call the front desk (503-963-1932) to ask if any are still available, as they’re goin’ fast!

Announcement, announcement – Class hours have been changed!
Don’t let the printed version of the January Insider fool you. We’re shaking a couple things up.

Firstly, some sad news. Our “Photoshop Elements” class will be MIA in January, but we’ll keep you posted on the February schedule.

Secondly, some awesome news! For lovers of our “Learn & Chat” sessions with Connie Lenzen, these will now be held the same days as our “DNA Q&A” classes with Lisa McCullough. So come spend the day, we dare you! Start with Connie’s class from 10 a.m. to noon, and move right into Lisa’s class from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., but don’t forget to pop on upstairs for a snack in between.

©2015 Genealogical Forum Of Oregon | 2505 SE 11th Ave., Suite B-18, Portland, OR 97202

Seattle Genealogical Society Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen

Seattle

 

TIP OF THE WEEK –  Improve Your Google Search Results

Presented below are a couple lesser known operators that will benefit the genealogist doing Google searches. Search operators are words that can be added to searches to help narrow down the results. You can use search operators and other punctuation to get more specific results from your Google search.

Many of us already know to use quotes around two or more words in order  to search for that exact phrase, the same exact words in the same exact order.  A search for Philander Smith will return millions of  hits; pages that contain the word Philander and/or the word Smith.

Not what we were expecting, right? So try  “Philander Smith” in quotes; this will return 237,000 hits. Closer, but there is still room for improvement.

Did you know when you use a dash before a word, it excludes sites with that info from your results?  In our example try “Philander Smith”  -college   ; this returns 9,970 hits; gone are the pages for Philander Smith College because we are looking for people named Philander Smith, not information about the college.

Another thing to consider when searching for genealogy data is often names are stored last name, first name.       Try searching “Smith, Philander” instead of “Philander Smith” .

One more trick; did you know there is syntax for specifying a date range?  It’s year two dots year.   In our example let’s add the date range 1820 through 1825.    “Smith, Philander” or “Philander Smith”   1820..1825 –college

To recap, when searching for genealogical data remember : •Formatting names as last name comma first name might be beneficial
•Use of the year range function and the minus sign function helps exclude inconsequential data
•In most searches,  using quotes around your phrase will get you better results

Next time we’ll explore using  “*” (the wild card function) along with something I just learned about  “site:” (the site operator).

Seattle Genealogical Society News

by Charles Hansen

Seattle

UPDATE ON THE SGS KING COUNTY COURT CASES INDEX

The SGS King County Court Cases Index, 1881-1980 (KC3I for short) is a wonderful database of King County court cases spanning one hundred years.  This index includes every divorce and probate case in King County during this time span, and is a valuable new tool for local researchers.

SGS just completed its first year of providing this service. In this period, we completed 181 lookups for 81 different individuals.  Roughly two-thirds of the searches produced one or more “hits.”  Turnaround time was less than two days in the vast majority of requests.

This service is free for SGS members, and members accounted for most of the requests.  Requests by non-members generated $335 in revenue for the Society in the first year.

If you are researching in King County, Washington and have not yet checked the KC3I, visit our web page, http://seattlegenealogicalsociety.org/kc3i for more information about its contents, and how to make use of this valuable resource.  We’d love to check it for you!

SGS CALENDAR OF EVENTS

All programs are at the SGS Library at 6200 Sand Point Way unless otherwise indicated. Please Check the SGS Web Site for additions, changes, and corrections. Programs may be cancelled or postponed due to inclement weather.
DECEMBER Continue reading →

Lewis County Genealogical Society Ulster Historical Foundation Conference

by Charles Hansen

The Lewis County Genealogical Society presents…
Researching Your Irish & Scots Ancestors

Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, Northern Ireland,
Featuring Fintan Mullan & Gillian Hunt
Monday, March 14, 2016,   8:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Bethel Assembly of God Church
132 Kirkland Road, Chehalis, Washington  98532

The Lewis County Genealogical Society website, www.walcgs.org  is fully updated with our Ulster Historical Foundation conference information.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Leslee Dunlap

LCGS

 

“Our” Jerri Thorpe McCoy’s article in the Mayflower Descendant

by Charles Hansen

Mayflower

Our own Jerri Thorpe McCoy, who has been active with the Washington State Genealogical Society and many other related societies, is a published author!

I was recently in the Family History Library doing some documenting work on my several Mayflower lines and came upon a reference in The Mayflower Descendant, Winter 2 008, Vol. 57, No. 1, “Huldah Gross, wife of Jehiel Gates of East Haddam and Litchfield, Connecticut.” This was a ten page article with 107 source citations. I was most impressed.

Jerri is currently the historian for the Washington State Chapter of the Mayflower (Descendants) Society. If you think you are (or know you are) a Mayflower descendant, and would like to join this group, here is the official link:

http://www.washingtonmayflower.org/04-application.html

We are proud of you, Jerri Thorpe McCoy.

2016 Northwest Genealogy Conference Announced

by Charles Hansen

2016 Northwest Genealogy Conference Announced

2016 Northwest Genealogy Conference
August 17 – 20, 2016
The Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society is excited to announce the 2016 Northwest Genealogy Conference to be held at the Byrnes Performing Arts Center in Arlington, Washington.  The conference theme will be “Family Secrets Uncovered – Lost History Found”.

Key speakers will be:
Blaine Bettinger, The Genetic Genealogist,
Lisa Louise Cooke, Genealogy Gems
Claudia Breland, Writer and Researcher

We invite you to save the dates.  Registration will begin February 15, 2016; mark your calendar to register. Visit www.nwgc.org for more information on the conference and watch for the announcement of other speakers.

Genealogical Forum of Oregon Wednesday Evening E-News

by Charles Hansen

GenForum

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM OF OREGON’S Wednesday Evening E-News

9 December 2015

For more information visit www.gfo.org, contact us at info@gfo.org, or call our library at 503-963-1932. We love hearing from you!

For a complete GFO CALENDAR go to www.gfo.org/calendar.htm.

Also, if you missed your free copy of last month’s newletter, The Insider, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy at http://www.gfo.org/insider/15-Nov.pdf.

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Suplus Books are 50% off now through December 24th! Did someone say Holiday shopping?

Looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? All of our Surplus books are 50% off now through December 24th.

Search our available titles on our website here!

To find just the item you’re looking for, please remember that our Surplus Books List is organized by geographical location. For faster searching, however, users may want to try holding down the “Ctrl” key on their keyboards and tapping the “F” key and then type in a search term, such as “England”, “Soldiers”, “Passengers” or “Dutch”.

To order books from the list, please email booksales@gfo.org, and include the ID, title and price. Payments may be made on PayPal or by check.

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Fiske Genealogical Library MAC Interest Group

by Charles Hansen
SPECIAL GIFTS….FOR YOU OR?
 
The new iPad Pro or watch,
some professional research time
or maybe a professional family video?
We will have speakers on all of these topics and more
Hope to see you at the…
Mac Interest Group
Wednesday evening 7:00 p.m.
December 9th, 2015
Fiske Genealogical Library
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Mac Group
is a special interest group of
 
the Fiske Genealogical Library
1644 43rd Ave E, Seattle 98112 
 
dBug Mac Users Group
 
Seattle Genealogical Society
 
Lou Daly, Chair  loudaly@nwlink.com
Diane Hettrick, Co-Chair  dhettrick@earthlink.net
Lisa Marker, Reunion Guru  lmarker@earthlink.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Genealogical Forum of Oregon Newsletter

by Charles Hansen

GenForum

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM OF OREGON’S  Wednesday Evening E-News

2 December 2015

For more information visit www.gfo.org, contact us at info@gfo.org, or call our library at 503-963-1932. We love hearing from you!

For a complete GFO CALENDAR go to www.gfo.org/calendar.htm.

Also, if you missed your free copy of last month’s newletter, The Insider, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy at http://www.gfo.org/insider/15-Nov.pdf.

That’s right, you heard it here: Genealogy in the News!

Ever wonder what use handwritten letters might have in the future?

Will anyone want to cherish these scraps of paper the way you feel they should be cherished? Will anyone care at all to read and study the tales of family history contained in their ink-stained pages?

An article from The Guardian, November 08, 2015 shows just how valuable long lost letters can be, both to scholars of general history, but also to genealogical research.

Did someone say census data??

Portland State Univesity has created a wonderfully insightful and interactive collection of maps and graphs showing “Oregon’s Road to 4 Million” via census records data from 1859 to current. Researchers with Oregon genealogy in their history can find some very telling information just by viewing the trends in population growth and migration changes over the last 150 years.

Announcing, not one, but TWO new indexes at the GFO!

Indexes

Try to contain your excitement, folks, but not too much, because the GFO’s Friday Morning Data Extraction Team needs a huge three cheers of thanks.

Because of the hard work of the Extraction Team, we now have two new indexes of Oregon State Divorce records.

The new indexes are available at $10 each and may be purchased as eityher a CD or on a USB drive.

Come get them while they’re still hot:
•Volume 1: Oregon State Divorces 1925-1929
•Volume 2: Oregon State Divorces 1930-1934
•

The team is currently working on divorces from 1935-1939 (expected index availability is 2016) and is in the early stages of working on divorces from 1940 – 1945. Continue reading →

Seattle Genealogical Society Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen

Seattle

TIP OF THE WEEK – DEMYSTIFYING THE CENSUSES
1790 TO 2000

In 2002, Jason Gauthier of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Economics and Statistics Administration produced a 148-page document called Measuring America: The Decennial Census from 1790 to 2000. It explains, in detail, exactly what the census takers were told to do for each and every U.S. Census from the first census in 1790 through the twenty-second census of 2000.

This document will prove invaluable.   Besides a good, clear image of each census form itself, you’ll find an expanded definition for every column on the form.   No more straining your eyes or guessing.

Reading the instructions to the enumerators tells you what terms such a “housekeeper” vs “keeping house”, “farmer” vs “planter”, or “inmate” meant in the context of the census. And why “indians not taxed” weren’t included in the enumerations.   Were you even aware there was a separate questionnaire for “Indian Population” in many of the censuses?

There is just a wealth of information in this document.  Check it out.  It’s available to read on-line, or to download, absolutely free, at: https://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/pol02-ma.pdf