Norma Yost Awarded 2017 Outstanding Volunteer Honor

by Roxanne Lowe

Since 2003, the Washington State Genealogical Society has recognized over 500 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 weeks, you will be introduced to each of the 2017 award recipients and learn why they received the 2017 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer and Team Award.

Norma Yost

Today we’re introducing Norma Yost of Colville, Washington, who was nominated by the Northeast Washington Genealogical Society (NeWGS). She was recognized for her dedication to the preservation of a local pioneer cemetery.

Since joining in 2014, Ms. Yost has been involved in the clean-up and maintenance of Evergreen Cemetery in Colville, a local pioneer cemetery established in 1868. She is a favorite speaker at NeWGS meetings, and has been a member of the board of directors serving as member-at-large and currently as librarian. As librarian, Ms. Yost has used her talents to design outstanding displays for National Family History Month. She is also a gifted seamstress and has personalized NeWGS vests by embroidering their names on them.

Ms. Yost is a respected and diligent member of the NeWGS. Her accomplishments and dedication illustrate that she richly deserved being a recipient of a 2017 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award.

For more information on the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award program, visit the Recognition page of the WSGS website or contact Roxanne Lowe, Interim Recognition Chair, at Roxanne@thekeeffes.com.

German Interest Group of The Eastside Genealogical Society (EGS) May Meeting

by Charles Hansen

The German Interest Group of The Eastside Genealogical Society (EGS) will meet on Friday, June 1, 2018, from 1 to 3 pm in the Relief Society Room of the LDS Church at 10675 NE 20thSt, Bellevue, WA 98004 with doors opening at 12:45 pm for networking. Visitors are always welcome at our meetings.       

Topic: “How to Find German Records on Family Search Efficiently and Effectively” – Many genealogists use FamilySearch and yet may not realize that they are accessing only a small portion of the records available. Learn several strategies for using FamilySearch to access the 70% of the records not currently indexed.  This means more than 1.33 billion records and 247,000 books not indexed on FamilySearch. The presentation will include step-by-step actions and examples to specifically access German records in the U.S. and Europe. (Feel free to bring your laptops.)

Speaker: Janet O’Conor Camarata, a member of Eastside Genealogical Society and South King County Genealogical Society, has over 25 years of experience in genealogy. She is an instructor in genealogy at Pierce College, a seminar presenter and trainer in genealogy societies across Washington, who takes advantage of the latest technology and staying mobile with the latest computing tools.

For more information, kindly visit our website

Wednesday Nostalgia

by Charles Hansen

Cannot speak for you, but my heart kinda breaks when I see a nearly forgotten gravemarker   …………….like this:

It was a small wooden curved marker, well rotted off at the bottom, and looking to me like somebody stuck it into this bush. No writing was visible.

Who did this marker memorialize? Did they want a marker that would eventually turn to dust? Was it a quick-simple marker by a family of limited means?

I took this photo in the un-endowed portion of Greenwood Memorial Terrace cemetery here in Spokane.

Would this be a fun challenge: Who would like to write the story of this little wooden marker, how it came to be and who it was for? If you would, send it to me, Donna243@gmail.com

Whatcom Genealogical Society May Meeting

by Charles Hansen

Whatcom Genealogical Society will meet Monday, May 14th at 2 p.m. at the Bellingham Elks Lodge, 710 Samish Way.  May’s program is Blaine Bettinger’s Legacy Family Tree webinar on GedMatch.com. “The DNA website GEDmatch can be intimidating, so this lecture will start at the beginning and look at some of its basic but very important tools that genealogists can utilize in their research. We will look at the ethnicity tools, the One-to-Many tool, the One-to-One tool, and the X One-to-One tool.”  Visitors welcome.  Contact:  360-733-8300

The “Lowe Down” on the Tacoma-Pierce County Seminar

by Roxanne Lowe

Additional tables had to be brought in to accommodate the crowd.

“Slow down. Mull and ponder.” That was a frequent reminder from J. Mark Lowe, the featured speaker at Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society‘s Spring Seminar on April 27 and 28, 2018. Good advice to someone (like me!) who often jumps from rabbit hole to rabbit hole while researching my family history — and other activities.

Quite the storyteller, Mark captured and held the attention of a roomful of enthusiasts with tales of his Southern family. His presentations included using online newspapers; finding and using sources at home or your library; migration through Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee; and a using a brick wall as a foundation for your research.

Mark Lowe and Mistress of Ceremonies Cyndi Ingle. What great chemistry between those two!

We learned to consider that brick walls were of our own making and could be used as a stepping stone to further research. He encouraged us to start with a research plan and complete that question. Even if we didn’t get an answer to the research question, we should document that, then move on to a new question. He also encouraged us to think about the big picture, open our minds to every possibility and not get too myopic — remember that research plan — and mull and ponder the possibilities!

Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society always hosts a first-rate seminar. Good location, good organization, very welcoming. They are so well-organized, they’ve already lined up their speaker for 2019: Michael Lacopo, DVM. Dr. Lacopo has a varied and interesting ancestry and is a self-described “all-American mutt.” Mark your calendar for April 26 – 27, 2019.

 

Tuesday’s Trivia

by Charles Hansen

Today’s Trivia is Part 2 of my notes compiled from Carol Buswell’s talk to EWGS on April 7th:

 

“We genealogists must remember that governmental archives must, by mandate, keep and preserve the records of the governmental doings of that agency and that’s mostly pretty boring stuff,” Carol smiled and said.

How do you figure out which libraries, historical societies and museums might have the information you seek? “Take the papers of the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, for instance,” Carol said. “Some of his papers are in the National Archives, some in the Library of Congress, some in the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum, some in the Getty Research Institute….well, you get the idea,” she quipped. “No one repository or source will furnish all there is to know or that you want to know on a given topic; you MUST keep looking for new sources.”

On the other hand, government archives keep EVERYTHING created in government offices that is deemed “permanent.”  The rest is destroyed.  So it is easier to figure out exactly where government-created materials will be than it is in a library, historical society, or museum.  It will be in the archives of that government!

Critical to finding anything in an archives is using the card catalog. In the case of our U.S. National Archives, that address is www.catalog.archives.gov .  “Just go there and poke around,” Carol advised, “and use a different mindset than you’ve used before.” With 27 billion documents of primary sources, using the catalog is a must, so we must learn to use the catalog and use it creatively.  “Looking at something without understanding what you’re looking at is like looking at a black hole,” Carol laughed.

Carol shared some statistics with us. “Less than 1% of material held by the National Archives has been digitized; most stuff is still in boxes and some of those boxes are opened, on average, once every 87 years! NARA has the records of every federal agency that ever existed….. If those records survived and were turned in.”

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.

(to be continued/completed next week)

Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society May Meeting

by Charles Hansen

The Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society (BIGS) will meet Friday, May 18, 2018, at the Bainbridge Island Public Library on Bainbridge Island, 1270 Madison Ave, from 10:00a.m. – 12 noon. The topic for the Monthly BIGS Meeting will be “Making Sense Of The U.S. Census” presented by Janet Lovelace, A.G. Join us for this opportunity to improve on our genealogical research skills. Free to members, a $5.00 donation is suggested for nonmembers. For more information go to http://www.bigenealogy.org or call 206-780-8009. BIGS is a 501c(3) non-profit organization.
Sue Elfving
Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society
Director of Publicity and Public Relations