Please join us in Burlington, USA for
a program by Eastern European
genealogy expert, Canadian journalist, genealogy author and lecturer —
Dave Obee.
Dave’s topic is “Germans from Russia” and he will discuss the
historical
context of this unique population in both Europe and North America. Dave
will
also illustrate this subject through a family case study. Feel free to
bring a genealogy
guest as the Skagit Valley Genealogical Societies meetings are free and
open to everyone who wishes to attend.
The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society will present its January general
meeting and program Saturday, January 5 at the library at 1901 S. 12th
Avenue in Union Gap. Snacks and good company will be provided and the
public is welcome. Jim Macica will present “Hunting for Ancestors in
Old Books.” Call 509-248-1328 for information.
We Need YOU to Help Us Reach Our Goal! The new year is just days away and the GFO needs your help! We are just $2094 away from reaching our year-end fundraising goal. The GFO asks for your financial support only once a year. Donations fuel our very operations. Member dues don’t come close to covering our budget. This once-a-year appeal for contributions makes all the difference in our being able to keep the library open every day. The
amount you spend to buy lunch out could make the difference. Even small
gifts help us tremendously when many people come together. You can make it happen! Please make your tax deductible donation to the GFO today! Thank you for your continued support. Preserving and Sharing Heritage since 1946.
The
Oregon State Regent for DAR, Rebecca Taylor, came into the GFO recently
to pick up some books that we were clearing from our shelves. She is
not a genealogist.
Rebecca told us of a book about her family, Lafollette, and that she had not been able to locate a copy anywhere. Just for fun, our Research Assistant on duty checked the GFO catalog and found L’histoire de la familie LaFollette en Amerique. This
was the exact book she was looking for! Rebecca was ecstatic, thrilled
to find the book and will be back one day soon to sit and browse through
it. Check our catalog. You may find your family on our shelves, too.
Own This Piece of History
During
our recent inventory, we discovered we had two books about a piece of
American history many have forgotten. On Dec. 30, 1903, fire swept
through the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago. More than 600 perished, making
it the deadliest fire in a single building in U.S. history. Since we don’t need two copies, we are selling “The Great Chicago Theater Disaster, The Complete Story Told by the Survivors.” If you know a theater or Chicago history buff, get this book for just $25. Contact booksales@gfo.org if you’d like to buy it. As
you can see from the photo above, the binding is damaged and has been
repaired but all the pages inside appear fine. This this 114-year-old
“Memorial Edition” was published in 1904. Don’t forget to check out all the hundreds of surplus historic books we have for sale online.
Deadline Soon to Register for Boot Camp
Our popular quarterly class is filling up! Registration closes January 3rd for Beginners’ Boot Camp on January 8th. Join Laurel Smith to learn how to get your research organized and the best techniques for finding family records. This is an all day lesson, even during lunch! Beginners’ Boot Camp is FREE for GFO members, $20 for non-members.
We’re all
volunteer. That means we don’t have to track payroll. But we do need to
track how many hours people contribute to keep the GFO running. If you volunteer during the month, please remember to tell us how many hours you generously give us. We’ve made it easy to report on this handy online form.
MONDAY, December 31 Library Closed TUESDAY, January 1 Library Closed WEDNESDAY, January 2 Learn & Chat 10 a.m. – noon Jan. 16. It will not meet next week. At Learn & Chat some of the learning comes from speakers with particular expertise but most of it comes from the sharing of experiences and knowledge of attendees who have developed methods that work for them. Join us to talk about your genealogy questions and help provide support to others. Facilitated by Jeanne Quan. DNA Q&A 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Lisa McCullough will be available to help answer your DNA questions, whether you are new and just getting started or have more involved questions. Questions? Email her ahead of time. Library Open late to 8 p.m.
2018 is quickly drawing to a close. Year’s end is always a good time for retrospection and planning for next year and years to come. Each year I evaluate my genealogical successes, failures and unfulfilled plans. I use this information to prioritize my to-do lists and come up with a new research plan for the next year. We are doing a similar process at WSGS.
WSGS President Ginny Majewski
As genealogists, you are aware of all the changes which have come about in our industry. Some of those changes have drastically changed the way we do business, the way we work, the way we communicate, the way we educate and so much more. What societies did for years, no longer works as well today. This means WSGS must continue to change if we wish to remain alive and relevant.
Several years ago, WSGS began an evaluation of itself by looking at what we were doing well and what we weren’t doing so well. As a result, we began making changes in the Society. Our first changes were to improve the WSGS website and the Blog. Next, improvements were made to the Recognition and Awards program. We initiated the Innovative Grant program to help societies with special projects and educational events. For the most part, these endeavors have been successful.
This past year, we focused on making further improvements to the website. Our goal was to provide better access to resources for genealogists and for genealogical societies. Information on each genealogical society in Washington was updated and expanded, including info on special collections held by societies. Information on museums in Washington was added to the website. We began revitalizing the Speakers’ Directory. In addition, for the second year in a row, WSGS provided Society Management classes at the Northwest Genealogy Conference in Arlington. We are working on a collaborative relationship with the owners of the Civil War Veterans Buried in Washington State website.
The WSGS Board will be holding a two-day retreat this spring to bring forth new ideas, evaluate, plan and move WSGS forward. Board meetings are open to the membership. I welcome any thoughts you have on WSGS. Just drop me an email at geneahunter@gmail.com.
Wishing you all peace, hope and joy in the New Year.
I want to wish all our readers a Happy New Year, and hope you have a Wonderful New Year.
Charles Hansen Blogmaster
This is a copy of a postcard to my grandmother in Sebeka, Minnesota. I could not read the date on the postmark, but my grandparents moved to Columbus Montana in the summer of 1910. The postmark is from Columbus Montana and came from my grandmother’s first cousin Minerva Eddy. Minerva’s mom Abigail (Hellenbolt) Eddy also lived in Columbus Montana. My grandmother Anna (Dillingham) Hansen’s mother Eliza Minerva (Hellenbolt) Dillingham was a sister of Abigail. I always wondered why my grandparents left Minnesota and four other Hansen brothers to move to Montana. I was pretty sure it was not because it was warmer like my uncle Ralph Hansen wrote in his memoir. So my grandmother had family in Columbus Montana.
Many of you……. well several of you…….. actually two of you have asked about SCRIBE. So I shall explain. If you’re a working genealogist, and you care to make a difference in the field, then SCRIBE is for you. Go: www.scribe.digitalarchives.wa.gov and set up an account. This is to you/they can send records back and forth. Then pick the group of records you’d like to see/index. Here is a sample:
It’s a school census record from 1929 for Island County and yes, it is faint but the handwriting is darn clear. The image comes and to the right are the boxes/lines where you type in your transcription from the record. One image is a “batch” and when you get to the bottom of the page, you click FINISH and the page sails into the ethernet on its way to the digital archives and you can download a new batch/page. Really, it’s pretty straight forward and quite easy.
One thing I learned the hard way: When you fill in the blanks on the right side of the screen, and click enter, you then need to click APPEND on the top to bring up a new box on the right. You’d think it would say ADD but nope, it says Append.
It just feels good to use an otherwise empty few minutes to do some “scribe-ing.” I 100% recommend it to you!
Since we are in the United States most of the people reading the blog are from the United States. Most of the hits from France was from them checking to see if we were following the new privacy rules the European Union put in this year.
Seattle has always had the top readers of the blog. New York, Ashburn and Boston seem to be locations of Bots since nearly all their sessions are 100% bounce rate (means they only look at one item then leave). The city that amazes me is Wenatchee, which has came close to the top of the list starting in the middle of the year. Notice Paris number five, they are checking on us for the European Union rules.
This is the list of most read blog posts for the year. Number 3 on the list is from 2015! Number 8 on the list is from 2016! I also notice several are found by using the categories to find blog posts. I was amazed that at least some people have found the tags we use for most posts even though we do not have them very easy to find. (They are at the bottom of each post).
It has been a good year and I want to thank all the local genealogical societies that have sent me their information for their seminars and monthly meetings, you can see that they are being read by a lot of people and so hopefully a few will come to your meetings or seminars.
**For Immediate Release** PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR! It’s rare that any genealogy conference is able to pull together speakers from around the world, but our roll call of 47 genealogy experts from five continents will descend upon Sacramento, California, in June 2019 for the International German Genealogy Conference – “STRIKE IT RICH! with CONNECTIONS 2 DISCOVERIES”.
This conference will feature three full days
of German-centric presentations in multiple tracks – Geographic,
Technology, Advancing Your Research, and more. Our all-star cast
of presenters will share its expertise in German genealogical research
techniques, tools, and more. Many of our scheduled speakers, including
Ute Brandenburg, pictured here, have prepared short video previews of
their presentations, which are available now on our website’s Conference
page – https://iggpartner.org.
With an expected attendance of 750-1000, this conference is a
must-attend event for anyone interested in, or deeply involved with,
researching the lives of German ancestors. Conference registration
opened November 1. Discounted early registration fees are available
through January 15, 2019. Join others from around the world who will be
rushing to Sacramento,
2019 Conference Presenter: Ute Brandenburg
California, for a stake in some German genealogy gold.
This conference is hosted by the Sacramento German Genealogy Society
(SGGS) and supported by a consortium of German genealogy societies
across the Golden State. The International German Genealogy Partnership
(IGGP) comprises more than 100 organizations around the world. IGGP’s
mission is ” … to facilitate German genealogy research globally as the
internationally-recognized federation of German genealogy
organizations.”
Contact: Bill Cole, 2019 IGGS Co-Chair Phone: 916-853-8562 Email: conference@iggpartner.org SGGS is a registered California 501 (c) (3) Non-profit Corporation. Donations eligible for tax deductions as allowable by law. Checks payable to SGGS @ 2019 IGGC, 11230 Gold Express Dr. #310-415, Gold River, CA 95670-4484 Your hosts, the Sacramento German Genealogy Society and the International German Genealogy Partnership, encourage you to learn more about the products and services offered by conference sponsors. We thank them for their support.
The Finish Line is in Sight! We are so grateful for your support. Donations fuel our very operations. Member dues don’t come close to covering our budget. This once-a-year appeal for contributions makes all the difference in our being able to keep the library open every day. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our Annual Appeal! We need to raise $25,000 and we are 85% of the way there! We’re confident you can help us make it to the finish line. Please make your tax deductible donation to the GFO today!
Recently,
the Oregon State Regent for Daughters of the American Revolution,
Rebecca Taylor, came into the GFO to pick up some books that we were
clearing from our shelves. She is not a genealogist.
Rebecca told us of a book about her family, LaFollette, and that she had not been able to locate a copy anywhere. Just for fun, our Research Assistant on duty checked the GFO Catalog and found L’histoire de la familie LaFollette en Amerique. This
was the exact book she was looking for! Rebecca was ecstatic, thrilled
to find the book and will be back one day soon to sit and browse through
it. Check our catalog. You may find your family on our shelves, too.
We Smile When You smile.amazon.com
We’re smiling! Big thanks to all of you who do your online shopping through smile.amazon.com. Each time you shop, we get a small donation – and it does not increase the prices you pay. All you have to do is choose the Genealogical Forum of Oregon as your non-profit of choice to receive your benefits.
SUNDAY, December 23rd Library Work Party 9:00 a.m. – 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; others work the full time. You are welcome to do either. Any time you can share is valuable. Hope to see you there. MONDAY, December 24th Library Closed TUESDAY, December 25th Library Closed WEDNESDAY, December 26th Library Open late to 8 p.m.
Registration & watching the webinar live is free. Typically the webinars are free for 7 days.
Other options for watching are a yearly subscription for $50, a monthly subscription for $10 or purchase a digital download for $10.
Enjoy.
Janis Littlefield
Publications Chair Tri-City Genealogical Society
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.
