Category Archives: Society News

Northeast Washington Genealogical Society Civil War Tombstone Dedication

by Charles Hansen

On Saturday, July 1st, NeWGS held a very special dedication ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery in Colville to honor and memorialize the burials of four American Civil War veterans. Extensive research by our Evergreen Cemetery Chairperson, Lora Rose, had turned up four Civil War soldiers who are definitely buried in Evergreen but the exact location is unknown since they have no headstones.With the assistance of our local monument maker, Colville Monument Works, a new headstone was created honoring those four soldiers. Emceeing the ceremony to dedicate that stone was Gordy Struve, a member of NeWGS and Sons of the Union Veterans of the CivilWar. Also participating in the ceremony were the Washington CivilWar Association, Artillery Division, and Boy Scout Troop #921. General Ulysses S. Grant (aka Don McConnell) was even in attendance. The stone was placed in the plot already dedicated to honoring our CivilWar soldiers highlighted by the Corse monument originally erected in 1912 through donations by the local school children.

WAGS Library Open an Extra Day

by Roxanne Lowe

Take advantage of the Wenatchee Area Genealogical Society (WAGS) Library’s extra day open next week! WAGS doesn’t usually have a membership meeting in December, so their librarians took matters into their own hands, and decided to open their library an extra day. Stop by on Monday, December 12, anytime from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Even in the midst of all your December busy-ness, here is an opportunity to do a bit of quiet research. Be sure to check out their new digital preservation equipment, and see how this technique might fit your goals for preserving and sharing your family’s genealogy!

The WAGS Library is located in the Museum Annex Building, 127 South Mission Street, Wenatchee (corner of Mission and Yakima). Besides this extra day, their regular library hours are 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday and Saturday. Call the Library at 509-888-6246 or visit their website for more information.

EWGS President Pat Bayonne-Johnson meets Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia

by Charles Hansen

On the EWGS Facebook page today was a link from an article by Megan Smolenyak  telling about an article in the Washington Post by Terrance McCoy on the Georgetown University sale of 272 slaves to pay off debts owed by Georgetown University:Link here ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/06/17/georgetowns-priests-sold-her-ancestors-into-slavery-heres-how-she-cracked-the-mystery/ )

This is a copy of the Blog post I did for the EWGS blog a few days ago where Pat Bayonne-Johnson met the President of Georgetown University:

EWGS President Patricia Bayonne-Johnson descendant of slaves that were sold by Georgetown University in 1838, meets with Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia at the Spokane Public Library. Read the article by Rachel L. Swarns of the New York Times. (https://goodblacknews.org/author/goodblacknews/ ) or the article in the Spokesman Review

Here is some pictures of the meeting:

Pat and John DeGioia

Greeting the team of researchers.

Sitting down to talk about the research.

Genealogists In the News

by Charles Hansen

Genealogists in the news

ewg-nyt

We are honored to share that the President of Eastern Washington Genealogical Society (EWGS), Pat Bayonne-Johnson, appeared in a story on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday, April 17. We hope you’ll find the story as interesting as we do. You can read the entire story here.

Bayonne-Johnson first learned her ancestors were reported to have been enslaved by the Jesuits of St. Mary’s Count, Maryland in 2004 while making plans for a family reunion. She sent documents to a genealogist in Baton Rouge for examination who discovered that Pat’s great-grandmother was born in Maryland. The rest might in fact be history but it’s a history worth uncovering.

In November 2015, Bayonne-Johnson formed the Butler Team at the library (pictured above) to continue to do research on her ancestors. Janette Birch (not pictured) is also a member of the team. Seated Pat Ayers, Pat Bayonne- Johnson, Dolly Webb. Standing Juanita McBride, Mary Holcomb, Carol Anderson and Barbara Brazington.

This is just one of many projects the genealogists are working on in any given week.

We invite you to stop by the downtown library on Tuesdays between 10 am and noon and 1 pm and 3 pm when volunteers are at the library to provide assistance to our customers on their own genealogical research. In addition to EWGS on Tuesdays (and some Thursdays—ask the downtown staff for more specifics on those dates), our reference librarian, Becky Menzel is our resident genealogist. She can assist you in getting started or answer any questions you might have while sending you in the right direction toward doing your own research.

The library also has a number of local history items as well as access to Family Search and American Ancestors, the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s database, which Becky can show you how to use.

More about the Eastern Washington Genealogy Society →

From the Spokane Public Library Newsletter copied with permission

MyHeritage Newsflash!

by Charles Hansen

Dear friends,  I hope you are well.

I’m delighted to let you know that MyHeritage has just released Record Detective™ II, a powerful new technology that significantly builds on the original Record Detective™, adding over 2.2 billion new matches to historical records.

With the Record Detective™, records found in MyHeritage SuperSearch™ automatically point to additional records and family tree profiles relating to the same person. For example, if you’re viewing a birth certificate you found in SuperSearch™, Record Detective™ may point you to a census record containing information about the child’s grandmother, a marriage license for their parents, a family tree profile of a connected ancestor, and so on, giving you new leads for your research. However, the Record Detective™ was only able to find information when there was at least one family tree profile on MyHeritage matching the record.

The new Record Detective™ II adds direct record-to-record matches, even for records that have no matching family tree profiles on MyHeritage, and has yielded a staggering 2.2 billion additional highly-accurate matching documents.

Record Detective™ II provides new information and clues to take your family history research to newer heights.

For more information and examples, please see the blog post: http://blog.myheritage.com/2016/02/introducing-record-detective-ii or contact my colleague Aaron, on aaron@myheritage.com
Best regards!
Daniel Horowitz

Chief Genealogist Officer & Translation Team Leader

MyHeritage Ltd., 3 Ariel Sharon St., Or Yehuda 60250, Israel

 

Yakima Valley Gen Society News Flash

by Charles Hansen

If you need yet another good reason to visit the stupendous genealogy library housed in the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society headquarters building, here it is!  Better make travel reservations at a local hotel for one day in this library (just like potato chips) is not nearly enough!

YVGS

Union Gap, WA. – The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society has recently been donated the Vernie Smith Bennett Collection, a major and significant collection of genealogical research material, by a benefactor in Texas. The collection consists of approximately 670 bound volumes of genealogical books and records. The donated material mainly covers the southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas) but does include some books with records from the northern states. This is a major addition to the existing collection which already consists of over 18,000 bound volumes on the shelf, 6,000 microfilm and 6,000 microfiche. The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society operates a library in Union Gap, Washington. It is one of the largest genealogical libraries in the Pacific Northwest and is open to the public free of charge 6 days a week. For the catalogue of the society holdings, the library address and it’s hours of operation you can go to their website at yvgs.net.

Thank-you,
Susan J. Boatright, Publicity Chairperson, YVGS

A List of Don’ts Revealed from the TriCity Genealogical Society Archived Document Contest

by Charles Hansen

For the August Archived Document Contest, John Covey shared much more than an amazing document that he acquired off-line. He showed that it is possible to find clues that may take his research back to the 1500s. By reviewing his entry we can determine some “Don’ts” regarding family history research.JCovey

John Covey has arranged the annual fieldtrip for members of the TriCity Genealogical Society to research in Salt Lake’s Family History Library for many years. He knows that the vast amount of holdings have information important to his research. Even though John has made this trip several times, he continues to take the trip each year.

In June 2015 John discovered the baptismal record of his 8th great grandfather which was created in 1664. John did not arrive at the Family History Library expecting to locate this record, but rather found information leading to this record when he visited the basement of the library and researched German records. In this section of records he found a book that not only listed his 8th great grandfather’s information, but information continuing back for about another hundred years. Being a seasoned genealogist, John admits that the clues were a great find but that they were not documented. This gives him ideas, but in and of itself it is not a solid record.

John shared the 1664 baptismal record and his explanation in this entry to the Archived Document Contest.

Continue reading →

Write for the FGS Forum

by Charles Hansen

The FGS Forum is looking for authors to write articles for upcoming issues:

Genealogy-Related Articles

  • How to Choose the Genealogy Database Program That’s Right for You
  • Cousin Connection: Reaching Out to Distant Relatives
  • ## Tips for Finding Your African American Roots
  • DNA Research Strategies for Adoptees
  • How to Plan an Unforgettable Family Reunion
  • Best Tools for Creating Interactive Family Histories

Society-Related Articles

  • Cloud Computing, Can Your Society Benefit?
  • ## Unique Project Ideas for Your Society
  • Is It Time to Bring Your Bylaws Into the 21st Century?
  • Enhance Your Membership Benefits with Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
  • ## Ways to Engage Your Long-Distance Members
  • Take Advantage of Discounted Technology Products with TechSoup

For more information

( http://voice.fgs.org/2015/08/share-your-knowledge-write-for-fgs-forum.html )

Clallam County Gen Society News Flash

by Charles Hansen

Press Release for the WASGS Blog:

Clallam County Gen. Soc. is moving into the digital age! Although it is still a work in progress, but we are very proud to announce the birth of our new website, http://clallamcogs.org .  Please stop by and visit.  Critiques are welcome.  We are working on adding indexes to our obituary collection, pioneer files, birth and death records and much more.   A huge thank you to all of our volunteers who are working on this project and to Tom at www.easynetsite.com for patience and help.

Ginny
(Virginia Majewski)