GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Thursday Evening E-News

by Charles Hansen

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s

Thursday Evening

E-News, Edition

24 May 2018
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 click here.

Also, if you missed your free copy of our monthly Insider for May 2018, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy HERE. Simply scroll down at THIS page and click on the Insider 2018 May issue.

Curious about the status of your GFO Membership? We’d love to have you as a GFO Member!

The Early Bird Gets the Discounts! June 17th Deadline

GFO’s Summer Half-Day German Seminar

You can still REGISTER after June 17th, at the regular price of course, if this message passes you by!

WHEN? July 7th, 9:30am – noon
WHO? Presenter Fritz Juengling, PhD, AG®
WHAT? Learn the wonders of the Meyers Gazetteer, and learn how to read German Church and Civil Records
WHERE? GFO’s Library (map)

Registration starts HERE! (Sign up online or print the paper registration form and mail it on in today.)

The British are Coming!

Join GFO’s British Interest Group this Saturday, May 26th

WHEN: 1 – 3pm

WHERE: GFO’s Library

TOPICS:

▪ Online news sources.
▪ Calendars, types and history.
▪ Learn how it was possible to cross the English Channel and arrive ten days before you left.
▪ Recent successes.
▪ Brick walls: Yours, if you’ve got one!
▪ And, the snacks of our Ancestors!

All of our SIGs are free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

New Online Indexes at GFO!

Explore from the comfort of your home. The adventure starts HERE.

Three new indexes have been added to our website. All have additional information that may be requested for $5 email copy or $7 paper copy.

Newest Index Items:

▪ West Point obituaries from the West Point Military Academy magazine Assembly. We received six issues as a donation (184 obits).
▪ Portland Birth Ledger 1864-1905, including registered births within the city of Portland entered into a ledger held at Oregon State Vital Records office (over 16,000 births).
▪ Oregon Obituaries II (Clarke’s multi and single obits), including newspaper obits collected by Stanley Clarke and others from Oregon newspapers (over 7,000 obits).

Family Tree Maker Group Schedule Update

GFO’s newest Special Interest Group, Family Tree Maker Group, has moved their initial meeting from June 17th to June 24th, at 1pm at GFO’s library.

What’s the group all about?
Join other users who want to work through the 2017 Companion Guide to Family TreeMaker.

Bring your laptop with 2017 version of FTM installed and an emptyusb thumb drive.

We’ll organize future sessions and work through Chapter 3 inthe guide. A practice tree will be used so as not to damage your personal tree.

Facilitated by Joyce Grant-Worley.

Send a note to FTM@gfo.org for questions or comments.

Thank you to one of our most beloved Research Assistants

Thank you, Shelley Hoffman, one of our longtime Research Assistants, for your many years of volunteering!

Shelley could be found working at GFO’s receptionist desk on the 3rd Sunday of each month. She and her husband are retiring to Montana to be close to their families.

We will miss you terribly, Shelley, but we wish you all the best in your new venture.

“When It Takes A Village: Applying Cluster Research Techniques”

Presented by Emily H. Garber, genealogical lecturer, blogger, and author

WHEN: Monday, June 11th, doors at 6:30pm

WHERE: LDS Factoria Building, 4200 124th Ave SE, Bellevue, WA 98006

WHAT: Sometimes tracking one’s immigrant ancestors tests all one’s research acumen. Identifying a subject ancestor, his/her origins, and parentage; tracking that subject through time; and constructing biographies to place that person in his/her social context is best approached by broadening one’s research to include other family members, associates and neighbors. This presentation by Emily Garber will outline a program for solving genealogical research problems via cluster and collateral research techniques. Topics will include: appropriate application, research planning, commonly used resources and documents, and case studies successfully tracking individuals from Europe to the United States, overcoming name and residential changes and using DNA evidence.

The main case study to be used in this evening’s program tracks a previously unknown woman who arrived at Ellis Island with Emily’s great grandfather. Emily uses her research skills to identify this unknown woman’s kinship relationship to their family and to find out if there ever was a relationship.

See all of the JGSWS’s monthly programs at their website HERE.

This week at GFO…

SATURDAY, May 26th

DNA Beginners 9am – noon

Ancestry and MyHeritage – The class will tackle some major aspects of both AncestryDNA and MyHeritage to help you enhance your testing experience. As MyHeritage accepts autosomal tests from all the major companies, if you have tested, upload your raw data to the company before coming to class. It is always wise to be in more than one company’s database.

Finding common ancestors with your AncestryDNA test results can be difficult with few responses from matches, missing or locked pedigree charts, and no chromosome browser. We will explore a few methods to help you navigate AncestryDNA’s website to work around some of these obstacles.

MyHeritage might be the “new kid on the block”, but they are moving quickly to become a front runner in the autosomal DNA testing field. We will explore the new features that make it a company worth using.

All classes are free and anyone is welcomed. You do not have to be a member of GFO. Bring a friend or family member and your questions regarding autosomal DNA. Please download the handouts and the evaluation feedback for class here.

Genetic Genealogy is the most accurate tool a genealogist has. If you are prepared to discover whether your genealogical paper trail is accurate, and if you are willing to take some time outside of our meetings to reinforce what you learn at each session, the GFO Beginners DNA Interest Group is for you. You are welcome to send me your questions before the meeting. Email: dna_ea@gfo.org.

British Group 1 – 3pm

Researching in the British Isles, including England, Wales, Scotland, and Scots-Irish. We try to have speakers who provide interesting experiences or online databases for research in these countries. One hour of the two hour meeting is devoted to Brick Wall questions. See above for details about this Saturday’s class!

SUNDAY, May 27th

Library Work Party 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, while others work the full time. You are welcome to do either. Any time you can share is valuable. Hope to see you there.

MONDAY, May 28th

Memorial Day Closure The GFO library will be closed in honor of Memorial Day. Hope to see you again bright and early on Tuesday, May 29th, from 9:30am!

Meet Us in Vancouver

by Roxanne Lowe

David Allen Lambert

We’re hoping to see you on Saturday (May 26, 2018) at the Clark County Genealogical Society’s Spring Seminar — and WSGS Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony! There’s still time to register for the seminar at the CCGS library (until Friday) or register at the seminar on Saturday morning at the Historic Red Cross Building, 605 Barnes Rd., Vancouver. Click here for more details about the seminar and other activities.

David Allen Lambert, the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s chief genealogist, will be the featured speaker at Saturday’s seminar.  David’s topics include 1) World War 1 Military; 2) Great Migration Era settler research; and 3) Probate & Deed Records research.

During the lunch hour, WSGS will present its Outstanding Volunteer and Team awards, Outstanding Communication, Outstanding Project, President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Innovative Grants.

 

 

 

Tuesday Trivia

by Charles Hansen

Trivia #1:  Did you know that Queen Anne’s bowlegs (1665-1714) inspired a furniture style???? Or so stated a TIDBIT in that freebie thing of the same name.

Trivia #2:  Did you know soap was considered a frivolous luxury of the British aristocracy from the early 1700s until 1862….. and there was a tax on those who used it in England?? Really? Again, thank you, TIDBITS.

Guess if you had 16th or 17th century English ancestors, they were some stinky folks. Unless they were of the aristocracy. Sorry.

General Data Protection Regulation

by Charles Hansen

You may have heard about the new General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), that comes into effect May 25, 2018. To help comply with GDPR consent requirements, we need to confirm that you would like to receive content from us.

We hope that our content is useful to you. If you’d like to continue hearing from us, do nothing, if not either unsubscribe or leave a note in the comments and I will unsubscribe you.

Success Story!

by Charles Hansen

Hi, Donna!

After your great presentation at our TCGS meeting on the 9th about the WPA and CCC, I found a distant relative (wife of a great aunt’s son) who worked for the WPA for 2 years starting at her age 19 in 1936 helping to build the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. Her name at that time before she got married was Marjorie Elizabeth Holtham. My Dad grew up with her husband’s older half-brother, even though we never met Marjorie. Here is a link to her FindAGrave memorial where I found the information about her WPA work in the newspaper death notice:

https://old.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=77285134

Kind regards, L.S., Richland, WA, member Tri-City Genealogical Society

 

**** I do not share this story to give myself a pat on the back. I share this story to demonstrate once again the WSGS slogan: YOU WON’T KNOW IF YOU DON’T GO!!!!

Tuesday Trivia

by Charles Hansen

 

I’ve shared with you Parts 1 & 2 of Carol Buswell’s presentation to EWGS (Eastern Washington Genealogical Society) back on 7 April 2018. Here is the final part:

“One good use of archival records is for furnishing background to enrich the timeline of life for an ancestor. “So they were born in 1851 and died in 1910, what was going on around them in their lifetime?” Carol asked. “A wonderful feature of the National Archives is the website www.docsteach.org.  At this website you’ll have access to thousands of primary sources…. Letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, videos and other document types…spanning the course of American history and we’re always adding more,” as was shown in Carol’s slide from the home page of this website.

The best method for using DocsTeach is this:

  • Click to DocsTeach.org
  • Create a free account
  • Click to search first by time period and/or location
  • Results may or may not be name-relevant but will be geographically relevant
  • “It’s like asking what was going on in America and the world in 1906?”

Carol Buswell was an informative and interesting speaker and kept us all awake even after a delicious potluck lunch. She is the perfect ambassador for the National Archives at Seattle.  She welcomes questions and comments from us anytime at carol.buswell@nara.gov. She lives in Omak and works from home most of the time.

She ended her time with us with this:  “ALWAYS never happens; there is ALWAYS an exception; that’s the way ALWAYS works.”  Advice worth pondering. Thanks, Carol.

NOTE:  DO NOT pester Carol about Parts 1 & 2…. this is MY summary and notes from her talk to us. Scroll through earlier Tuesday Trivia posts for these first two installments. 

 

 

 

Columbia Gorge Genealogical Society June Meeting

by Charles Hansen

June general meeting and program

The June meeting and program for the Columbia Gorge Genealogical Society will be June 9, 2018 at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center starting at 10:30 am.
June’s program will be “Tips from Rootstech” presented by Linda Colton.
Linda is a long standing member of CGGS and attended RootsTech in February in Salt Lake City, Utah.
She will be giving a overview of what was presented and highlights of her trip.
Columbia Gorge Genealogical Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering, preserving and sharing our heritage.
CGGS  meets the second Saturday of each month at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center at 5000 Discovery Drive in The Dalles, Oregon.
CGGS membership comprises residents of  Wasco, Sherman, Hood River, Klickitat and Skamania Counties.
Public is always welcome – Bring a friend!

A suggested $1.00 donation to cover room rental costs.

CGGS does not meet in July or August – Summer Break!

Monday Mystery

by Charles Hansen

Since Walla Walla was on my mind (see last week’s post), I got to wondering how this lovely town got it’s double-double name…. a name that many Easterners would laugh at.

“Walla Walla” was a Nez Perce name given to one of the indigenous groups who lived in the Walla Walla Valley, according to Myron Eells (1843-1907), a missionary who worked among and studied native peoples of the Pacific Northwest. “Walla Walla” means running waters, or more specifically, the place where a small stream runs into a larger one. In the Blue Mountains, the eastern border of the county, the Touchet and Walla Walla rivers originate and flow downhill westward, converging with Mill and Dry creeks in the heart of the valley and ultimately joining the Columbia River.”

Now you know!  Or did you already know that??  (I did not.)

 

**Quote from www.HistoryLink.org, website for Washington History and a 2008 post by Michael J. Paulus, Jr.