Let’s Talk About…Gateway Arch In St. Louis

I’ve been to St. Louis and took the tiny tram to the top of the Gateway Arch several times but it’s always a thrill. From the viewing window at the top, look how teeny the cruise ship looks! (Ship nearest the bridge.)

Arch Trivia:

The cost to build the Arch in 1967 was the same as the Louisiana Purchase, $15,000,000.
The Arch sits on the smallest national park in the U.S., only 98 acres.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the park in 1935.
Construction on the Arch was begun in 1965 and was finished in only two years.
The Arch is 630-feet high and there is 630-feet between the ends of the Arch legs.
The purpose of the Arch was to commemorate Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase and all the pioneers settling the United States.
To go to the top, only 5 people can squeeze into the little tram cars for the 5-minute ride to the top.
You get 10-minutes up there and then it’s back down.
Then they sell you a $20 photo!!

Next trip to the Midwest, you MUST visit the Gateway Arch …. with or without the official photo.

How to Post Your Meetings & Events on the WSGS Blog & Website

Feb13 by Roxanne Lowe

Do you want to broadcast information about your local society, workshop, genealogical tip, or a research query? Just send it to the WSGS Blog and WSGS Meetings and Events! You can reach hundreds of genealogists from around the state. Just email a Word document, text file, PDF or graphic to WSGSBlog@wasgs.org and WebManager@wasgs.org and we’ll do the rest!

We’re always looking to publicize local events and workshops, feature stories, updates from your society, and other genealogical information that might be of interest to our many subscribers and viewers.

We hope to hear from you soon! And don’t forget to encourage your Society members to subscribe to the Blog for the most up-to-date information from around the state.

You may manage your subscription options from your profile.

LeeRoy Kind Named One of 2022’s Outstanding Volunteers

Feb11 by Roxanne Lowe

Since 2003, the Washington State Genealogical Society has recognized over 600 outstanding volunteers and teams, nominated by their local society or genealogical organization for their service and dedication. These volunteers are the backbone of their local society, giving their time and expertise, to the organization and the field of genealogy. In the coming months, you will be introduced to each of the 2022 award recipients and learn why they received the 2022 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer and Team Award.

Today we’re introducing LeeRoy Kind of Marysville, Washington, who was nominated by the Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society (SVGS).

As a volunteer, LeeRoy enjoys training patrons: 1) how to do research on their own and, 2) how to use the SVGS library. He became a volunteer in 2009, and served as parking lot attendant coordinator and speaker monitor for the Northwest Genealogy Conference. In his earliest days with SVGS, he digitized obituaries and entered data from area newspapers for SVGS’s online Death Index. More currently, he has been the driving force behind the Weller Funeral Home Card Digitization Project.

In LeeRoy’s opinion, one of the most important things to remember when doing research is that we’re not going to find everything we’re looking for the first time we type a name into a database. It’s “…a continual search.”

LeeRoy was born in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota and moved with his job at Hewlett- Packard from Detroit to California and finally to Marysville, Washington where he has lived since 1982.

For more information on the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award program, visit the Recognition page of the WSGS website or contact Info@wasgs.org. Please type “Volunteer Award.”

Let’s Talk About…Rock Island Arsenal

Feb10 by Donna Phillips

When our cruise ship was near Davenport, Iowa, I learned about the Rock Island Arsenal. I had heard about the Black Hawk War but had no idea that disputes over ownership of this place sparked that conflict.

Located on an island in the Mississippi, it was established as a government site in 1816 first as a defensive fort and then, in the 1880s, a government-owned weapons manufacturing arsenal in the U.S. Still in use, and even as being designated as a National Historic Landmark, the arsenal still produces ordinance (bullets), artillery, gun mounts, small arms, aircraft weapons sub-systems, grenade launchers and a host of associated components. Some 250 military personnel work there along with 6000 civilian workers.

Back to the Black Hawk war. In his autobiography, Black Hawk wrote: “When we arrived (to our tribal summer camp) we found that the troops had come to build a fort on Rock Island…We did not object, however, to their building their fort on the island, but were very sorry, as this was the best one on the Mississippi, and had long been the resort of our young people during the summer. It was our garden, like the white people have near their big villages, which supplied us with strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, plums, apples and nuts of different kinds.”

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln served in the Illinois Militia in 1832 in this conflict…..”he never saw action.”

Last but not least, Rock Island holds a Confederate cemetery; nearly 2000 prisoners, including Union Colored Troops who served as guards, are buried there.

AND, last of all, the Rock Island Arsenal Museum was established on July 4, 1905. It is the second oldest US Army Museum after the West Point Museum.

Think of all the Jeopardy trivia you just learned! 🙂

Tacoma Pierce County Genealogical Society Book Club

Feb8 by Charles Hansen

Tacoma Pierce County Genealogical Society Book Club

Saturday, February 18^th at 3:00 pm via Zoom

Please join us as we discuss a genealogical murder mystery.

This month’s book is The Moving Pictures: An Ella Graepenteck Genealogy Mystery by Erika Maren Steiger

WorldCat: https://worldcat.org/title/1284980875

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09C6DJC3D

We will also discuss the direction in which we would like this group to go and choose future books.

Meeting link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81999213610?pwd=Qkk2WFZTZ2Rzdzc1Z0szN1AzdEZCUT09

Tacoma Pierce County Genealogical Society Parkland’s Journey from Indigenous Resource to PLU Campus

Feb8 by Charles Hansen

Tacoma Pierce County Genealogical Society General Membership Meeting
Tuesday, February 14^th at 6:30 pm via Zoom

Speaker: Marianne Lincoln, “Parkland’s Journey From Indigenous Resource to PLU Campus” Before the fur trade, or British and American settlers arrived, the Parkland area was a shared resource for multiple populations of local Native Americans. In the early 1800’s, change arrived by sea and over the continent from far away. This story will tell of the major events and people that arrived and changed the Parkland area to what it is now. Meeting link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86718143644?pwd=S0FjYU5acVVKbDEyamdXWWZVekFjdz0

Legacy Family Tree Webinars in February

Feb8 by Charles Hansen

We have some fantastic free webinars from Legacy Family Tree Webinars in February. Check out the details below and let your audience know about February 2023’s live webinars:

Using Mitochondrial DNA Testing for Genealogical Problem Solving by Michael D. Lacopo, DVM
Gradual Emancipation and Enslavement in the North by Ari Wilkins
Hints & Tips for solving Irish cases of Unknown Parentage by Maurice Gleeson
Les derniers outils et ressources sur MyHeritage by Elisabeth Zetland
Family Statistics on MyHeritage by Uri Gonen
When a Place is New by Michelle Patient
Family History on the Canadian Prairies by Dave Obee
The Bengali and English Ancestry of Thomas Chapman: A Case Study with DNA by Meryl Schumacker, CG
Flying Under the Radar – Discovering Charles Olin’s Alias by Mary Kircher Roddy, CG
Tips and Tools for Navigating the English Probate System by Paul Milner, FUGA, MDiv

Click here to register.

The Best of Elizabeth Shown Mills: Genealogy Problem Solving – a member’s only webinar series

Join us each month as Elizabeth encores her top-12 most beloved classes, teaching us how to break down our genealogy problems and create solutions with innovative strategies and sound methods.

On Friday, February 24 Elizabeth will teach “Smiths & Jones: Success with Families of Common Name”. Visit www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/esm to learn more or to register.

Be sure to spread the news far and wide so your friends and followers don’t miss out on this fantastic content! You can use the graphic above.

Flynn Kennedy Named One of 2022’s Outstanding Volunteers

Feb7 by Roxanne Lowe

Today we’re introducing Flynn Kennedy of Marysville, Washington, who was nominated by the Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society (SVGS).

In 2011, Flynn became a volunteer librarian with SVGS. She worked with the Northwest Genealogy Conference for three years as a Jackie-of-all-Trades, serving in a variety of roles. Her current projects include creating a four-generation history for a patron who is related to Noah Webster, transcribing a 33-page application for a claim against the U.S. Southern Claims Commission, and attempting to solve a family history mystery in Vermont in the 1830’s.

In Flynn’s opinion, the three most important things to remember when trying to break through a brick wall are “… collaboration, collaboration, collaboration.”

Flynn was born in Toledo, Ohio and moved to Seattle on September 28, 1980. She earned a B.A. from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio (during the Punic Wars) and earned a Post Graduate Certificate in Genealogy Research from Boston University in 2014.

For more information on the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award program, visit the Recognition page of the WSGS website or contact Info@wasgs.org. Please type “Volunteer Award.”

Let’s Talk About…. Pirates On The Mississippi?

Feb7 by Donna Phillips

When you imagine a pirate, Johnny Depp might come to mind. The Mississippi River pirates were real but they weren’t as colorful as Johnny depicted. Between about 1806 and 1844, there certainly were pirates prowling on the Mississippi River. Any of you remember this Walt Disney movie:

I had no idea there were pirates on the Mississippi and when the ship’s education guy told about these fellows, I was really surprised. I never learned about this before! River pirates have operated along rivers all over the world. Quoting from Wikipedia:

“American river piracy in the late 18th and mid-19th century was primarily concentrated along the Ohio River and Mississippi River valleys. River pirates usually operated in isolated frontier settlements which were sparsely populated areas lacking the protection of civil authority and institutions. These pirates resorted to a variety of tactics depending on the number of pirates and the size of the boat crews involved, including deception, concealment, ambush and assaults in open combat near natural obstacles and curiosities, such as shelter caves, islands, river narrows, rapids, swamps and marshes. River travelers were robbed, captured and murdered, and their livestock, slaves, cargo and flatboats, keelboats and rafts were sunk or sold downriver.“

Did your ancestor float down the Ohio or Mississippi Rivers and were they attacked by pirates?

What a story!

Heritage Quest Research Library Ins and Outs of Indexes

Feb6 by Charles Hansen

Mary Kircher Roddy CG lectures in Washington State and across the US and is a regular presenter for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Mary has written for Internet Genealogy, NGS Magazine, FGS Forum, Family Chronicle and other publications. You can read more about her at MKR Genealogy – https://www.mkrgenealogy.com

Ins and Outs of Indexes – Keys to Unlock Probates, Deeds and More

Indexes for county records can be the key to finding deeds, probates and more. As Family Search continues to digitize and make available more and more records, it’s crucial to to familiar with different indexing systems and how to use them.
February 16, 2023
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (PST)
ZOOM
Members $20
Non-Members $25
Sign-up and payments:
Go to hqrl.com and go to HQRL Store
(Sign in as a member to receive the discount)

A ZOOM LINK WILL BE SENT TO YOUR EMAIL 1-2 DAYS BEFORE THE CLASS.

Our mailing address is:
Heritage Quest Research LIbrary
1007 Main St
Sumner, WA 98390-1412

Add us to your address book