July 14, 1789 is the day that marks the symbolic start of the French Revolution. Bastille Day, celebrated on July 14th each year, is France’s largest national holiday. In honor of Bastille Day, FamilySearch has scheduled four back-to-back webinars on French genealogical research. Register through your FamilySearch free account. Here’s the schedule for Family History Library Bastille Day 2022:
8:00 AM MDT/7:00 AM PDT; Reading French Civil Registration Records (60 min) – This class will cover basic French paleography by teaching you how to read and navigate French civil registration records.
9:15 AM MDT/8:15 AM PDT; Accessing the Archives of France Online (45 minutes) – Every department in France has placed the records of greatest genealogical value online, freely accessible to all. This class will demonstrate some tips and tricks to help you navigate these websites.
10:15 AM MDT/9:15 AM PDT; How Geneanet Can Help You with French Research (45 min) – The website Geneanet.org is one of the best resources for French research. Not only does it contain thousands of family trees, it also houses indexed collections of genealogical society publications, books newspapers, and vital records. Learn how to access each of these collections and use them to optimize your French research.
11:15 AM MDT/10:15 AM PDT; Using the French Genealogy Website Filae (45 min) – Come learn the basics of navigating and searching on the website Filae. This site is a wonderful resource when searching your French ancestry.
The Washington State Genealogical Society (WSGS) has restarted its awards programs and five SGS members received awards this year. Four SGS members received a WSGS Outstanding Volunteer award. This award is given by WSGS based on recommendations from local societies. The SGS recipients are:
Kathi M and Rob Sexton (team award) were recognized for their efforts in planning and executing the move and restructuring of the SGS library.
Cary Bright was honored for her many years of running the SGS DNA Special Interest Group.
And accolades go to Christine Schomaker for being, in essence, the SGS Swiss army knife, doing whatever is needed, and doing it well, for so many years.
Created in 2015, the WSGS President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement is not given out each year. It was designed and is reserved to single out that rare individual, society, or organization who has demonstrated exemplary service, above and beyond expectations. For 2022 this award was given to SGS’s past president, Jill Morelli. Everyone who knows Jill also knows that she has earned this award for her many efforts, not only within SGS, but within the genealogical community at large.
Our congratulations, and thanks, to all the award recipients!
A MESSAGE FROM THE SGS PRESIDENT
What Should We Be Doing?
At the July meeting of the SGS Board we will be having a discussion of what we should be doing over the next year or so. Our time these past couple of years has been consumed by responding to COVID-19, the move to the Good Shepherd Center, and the library restructuring project. So, now what?
ANOTHER REMINDER TO RENEW OR JOIN THE SEATTLE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY
For Members – to renew online log in at Members Home, go to your Member Profile, and then click the green “Renew Membership” button. If you’d rather renew by postal mail, click print a membership application and send it together with your dues payment to SGS. Or better yet, stop by the SGS Library and renew in person!
Not a member yet? Join online today and enjoy discounted class and Seminar fees, free research requests, special interest groups, and access to exclusive SGS publications and databases. Find out more about membership at Join SGS.
Take part as SGS enters it 100th Year!
Help wanted! A few more volunteers are needed to man the SGS booth at the Scottish Highland Games & Clan Gathering, Saturday, July 23, or Sunday, July 24. Volunteers will get a free entry ticket to the games that day. Also we have one volunteer from the Northgate area who needs a ride to the games. If you can help in the booth and/or provide a ride, call or text Jean Roth at 206 510-5202. Please make that call today. Thank you.
SAVE THE DATE
Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State, 2nd Monday meetings usually 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PST
JGSWS meets on the second Monday of each month, from Sept-June. Doors open at 6:30 PM unless noted otherwise.
Pacific NW Scottish Highland Games & Clan Gathering, Enumclaw Expo Center, Enumclaw, WA Friday, July 22, 2022 – Sunday, July 24, 2022
Mark your calendar and show up for plenty of fun at the 75th Annual Pacific NW Scottish Highland Games & Clan Gathering. For full details visit: https://www.sshga.org/daily-event-schedule/
SGS CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Good Shepherd Center, Suite 302 4649 Sunnyside Ave N Seattle, WA 98103 206 522-8658 New Hours : Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Masks are recommended inside the Good Shepherd Center. Due to COVID the events listed below continue to be virtual, online via Zoom. Always check the SGS Website Calendar of Events for the meeting links, registration, or for last minute updates or changes to the schedule. Be advised you may need to register in advance to join a meeting.
NOTICE: SGS has imposed more security on our Zoom meetings. Some meetings will begin with a waiting room. The host must take action to let people into each meeting. The host will try to open the waiting room about 10 minutes ahead of time. Please be patient.
All times listed are Pacific Time unless otherwise noted
Wednesday, July 6, 2022, 10:00 am-11:30 am, Brags & Bricks Social Interest Group (Virtual), Join us for an informal social gathering. Share your recent genealogical successes and challenges, or just come to hang out with other genealogists.
Sunday, July 10, 2022, 1:00 pm-3:00 pm, Scandinavian Interest Group, Jill Morelli will speak about Scandinavian Handwriting at this meeting. Hosted by Karen Knudson.
Tuesday, July 12 2022, 10:00 am-11:00 am, Tech Tuesday (Virtual), back by popular demand, the informal consultation time on DNA, genealogy software, or genealogy-related technical issues. All are welcome. No appointment necessary.
Wednesday, July 13, 2022, 10:00 am-11:30 am, Brags & Bricks Social Interest Group (Virtual), Join us for an informal social gathering. Share your recent genealogical successes and challenges, or just come to hang out with other genealogists.
Wednesday, July 13, 2022, 7:00 pm-9:00 pm, MAC Computer SIG, Jointly sponsored by SGS and Fiske Genealogical Library, this group meets every other month from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Meetings are open to the public and address topics and resources helpful for those using MacIntosh (Apple) computers and the Reunion program in their genealogy research. Meetings are virtual via Zoom until in-person meetings can resume. The link to logon will be sent to the MAC SIG email list. People wishing to attend should email macusersig@seagensoc.org to be added to the mailing list.
Saturday, July 16, 2022, 10:00 am- 12:00 pm, Irish SIG, with Susan McKee and Jim Ryan. See the SGS website Calendar of Events for further information. Notice there is a new Zoom link.
Sunday, July 17, 2022, 1:00 pm-2:30 pm, Virtual Sundays: Something Old, Something New, Jill Morelli is the host. Visit the SGS website Calendar for details and updates. Please register in advance. Topic this month is “150 Years of Burned Records: Parents for Elna Johansdotter”.
Wednesday, July 20, 2022, 10:00 am-11:30 am, Brags & Bricks Social Interest Group (Virtual), Join us for an informal social gathering. Share your recent genealogical successes and challenges, or just come to hang out with other genealogists.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022, 10:00 am-11:00 am, Tech Tuesday (Virtual), back by popular demand, the informal consultation time on DNA, genealogy software, or genealogy-related technical issues. All are welcome. No appointment necessary.
Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 10:00 am-11:30 am, Brags & Bricks Social Interest Group (Virtual), Join us for an informal social gathering. Share your recent genealogical successes and challenges, or just come to hang out with other genealogists.
We have some fantastic free webinars from Legacy Family Tree Webinars in July, plus a free genealogy conference AND a new benefit for your society members. Check out the details below and let your audience know about July 2022’s live webinars:
The Madness of ‘Mc’ Surnames by Carol Baxter
What’s New at DNA Painter by Jonny Perl
Exploring Your Ethnicities on MyHeritage by Gal Zrihen
Montana Genealogy Treasures by Janet Thomson, Ed.D.
Colonial Spanish & Mexican Censuses & Census Substitutes by Henrietta Martinez Christmas
Les nouvelles collections belges sur MyHeritage (French) by Marie Cappart
Ancestors’ Religions in the U.S. by Carolyn L. Whitton, CG
Our hour to master your camera settings by Jared Hodges
MyHeritage’s Latest Photo Innovations by Tal Erlichman
Treat yourself to a genealogy conference Saturday, July 23! Join us at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/conference to enjoy five, completely FREE, pre-recorded classes on the topic of Military Research. No registration is required.
Be sure to spread the news far and wide so your friends and followers don’t miss out on this fantastic FREE content! You can use the graphic above.
New benefit for your society members
I know of the challenge of recruiting new members for your society and hoping that your current members will renew. We’ve now created a new membership benefit that you can offer to your members and potential members that I think will help solve these challenges.
In addition to the free webinars at Legacy, the complete back-library of 1,700+ webinar recordings is available with a webinar membership. As a new membership benefit for your society members, you can now offer them a first-year 50% off discount for a webinar membership (regular pricing is $49.95, the discount would make it $24.98, valid for new memberships only). Included in the membership are:
Anytime access to the recorded webinars (currently 1,798 classes)
Anytime access to the instructor syllabus (currently 6,643 pages)
Anytime access to the chat logs of the live webinars
Bonus members-only webinars
Lots of other goodies
Please write to Geoff Rasmussen at Geoff@LegacyFamilyTree.com to obtain your society’s unique coupon code or if you have any questions. He has also prepared a draft announcement you can share with your group. Sounds like a great opportunity.
Best regards!
Daniel Horowitz
Genealogy Expert
MyHeritage Ltd., P.O.Box 50, 3 Ariel Sharon Blvd., Or Yehuda, Israel 6037606, Israel, +972-3-6280000
A quick note from over the border here at Surrey Libraries Family History… We have two FREE online Eastern Europe research programs in August, on the heels of our really popular Eastern Europe program earlier this year. Are you able to promote to your gen folks? I’d be grateful for whatever you are able to do. Posters are attached, and blurbs are below.
Genealogy: Eastern Europe Border Changes
ONLINE program
Tuesday, August 16
10:00 – 11:30am PDT
Anyone researching their family history in Eastern Europe probably has faced the challenges that changing borders present. In this program, Edie Adam will use findings from her family history research to demonstrate the key factors — time and place — and how to use them to your advantage.
The ability to search for birth, marriage and death records in regions now in Poland has enabled genealogy research most of us never thought possible. However, to many these resources are a perplexing maze of random searches. This presentation will provide a brief overview of two primary databases which reveal parish and civil registry records in Poland encompassing many Polish, German and Jewish residents of in the 19th – early 20th centuries: Geneteka and Metryki.Genealodzy.PL
Carmen Merrells, BA, MLIS | Information Services Librarian
Cloverdale Branch, Family History Department
5642 – 176A Street, Surrey, BC, Canada V3S 4G9 T 604.598-7447 | F 604.598-7321 | www.surreylibraries.ca [1]
_Discover something new at Surrey Libraries!_ [2]__
_Surrey Libraries recognizes that our work takes place on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territories of the SEMYOME (Semiahmoo), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), qiqéyt (Qayqayt), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nations and on the ancestral and traditional territory of the sc̓əwaθən məsteyəxʷ (Tsawwassen) First Nation._
I’m excited to tell you that MyHeritage has just completed an additional update to the data for our ultimate genetic genealogy tool, Theory of Family Relativity™!
In case you’re still unfamiliar with Theory of Family Relativity™, this feature pulls together billions of data points from across all the family tree profiles and historical records on MyHeritage to bring you theories about how your DNA Matches may be related to you. The calculations are run on a periodic basis, and since our last update, countless new DNA kits, family tree profiles, and historical records have been added to MyHeritage.
This means that the number of theories, the number of DNA Matches that include a theory, and the number of kits that have a theory have all increased significantly — and so have your chances of getting a new theory! As a result of this new update 25,636,711 Theories of Family Relativity™ were added.
Check out our blog post to learn more about this update, and feel free to use the graphic below and spread the news.
Best regards!
Daniel Horowitz
Genealogy Expert
MyHeritage Ltd., P.O.Box 50, 3 Ariel Sharon Blvd., Or Yehuda, Israel 6037606, Israel, +972-3-6280000
Legacy Special Interest Group Meeting July 5th, 2022, 7:00 pm
This week we will be viewing two short videos and starting 1 long video done by Geoff that are free and available from the Help tab in Legacy by clicking to the QuickTip Videos icon. The direct link to each video is listed below its title:
Please take some time this week to review the “FREE” videos available on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars site and bring your list of videos you would like to review back to the group next Tuesday.
We hope to see you this coming Tuesday, July 5th!
Our meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month from 7:00 pm until 8:30. Links to the reoccurring Zoom Meetings are located at the bottom of this page, one for the 1st Tuesday and one for the 3rd Tuesday of each month.
The first half of each meeting we will work thru training videos, watching, and then pausing to talk about the section we just watched before moving on to the next section. The second half will be used for open discussion of topics related to using Legacy. This could include any questions or problems we are having with the program or tips and features we have discovered. If you think of something you would like to bring up, please write it down so you can share it with the group.
Railroads were lifelines across America to our ancestors. Anything we can learn about railroads and railroading will benefit the social history we seek to fill out our ancestors’ lives. Do keep in mind that it was our ancestors who did this railroad building not “hired workers from elsewhere.”
David Norris authored a special issue from Internet Genealogy Magazines titled The History of Railroads. This issue was 50 pages all about the topic of railroads and you might want to order a copy for yourself. I do quote from that publication.
In the beginning, there were two railroads: the Central Pacific in the west and the Union Pacific in the east. Soon after the Civil War, it was apparent that the need to connect both side of the county was sorely needed. So the government gave financial incentives to these two railroad companies, with greater benefits going to the Central Pacific for they had the far rougher terrain to conquer. Railroad companies were granted up to 6400 acres of public land and $48,000 in government bonds for every mile of track; this was to the Central Pacific with lesser amounts to the Union Pacific.
First, surveyors had to map the path. Then crews wee assigned to build bridges, culverts or tunnels. Next came the graders to shape the track bed. Most work was done by hand with pick, shovel and wheel barrows. Other crews cut timber along the way for lumber to build these structures, for the ties and for fuel.
Working at top speed, crews could lay over 100 feet of track per minute…or less than one hour to lay a mile of track. Each mile of track required 380 rails, 2600 ties and 10,000 spikes which were transported to the work site along the newly-laid tracks.
This last paragraph applies to the work across the midwestern plains. Work crawled along with much greater difficulty through the Rocky Mountains.
Beginning your family historyPART A: GETTING STARTED What is it? Why do it? Where do I begin? How do I get organized? So, you want to start a little project? How can Heritage Quest Research Library help you? We can start with a FREE Beginning Class taught by our very own research librarians.
WHEN: July 7, 2022, 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM WHERE: ZOOM or in-person at HQRL (Please note that we are limited to 8 in-person attendees) SIGN UP: Come in: 1007 Main Street, Sumner, WA 98390 Call: 253-863-1806 Online: hqrl.com at the HQRL Store
Lower Columbia Genealogical Society will be vacationing in July.
Please have a safe and sane Fourth of July.
We will return in August on our usual schedule.
You are free to copy articles to any non-commercial web site or message board or printed publication you wish. Don’t bother to ask permission, just do it.
