Have you ever come across a place name in your research you aren’t sure still exists? What about a post office name given in a census that isn’t the main town? A town in a country you know little about? Looking for cemeteries near your ancestral home? The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) and NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS) can help with each of these.
( https://tcgs1961.blogspot.com/2017/10/finding-place-names-using-gnis-and-gns.html )
THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s
Wednesday Evening
E-News
11 October 2017
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 October 2017, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy HERE. NOTE: The Insider issues are now located under the “Learn” > “Our Publications” menu at our new website (still gfo.org).
Curious about the status of your GFO Membership?? We’d love to have you as a GFO Member!
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Call for a Book Sales Table-Manager Volunteer for the Fall Seminar, Saturday, October 14th
One last task we need help with at the Fall Seminar this weekend!
Love books? Love attending super awesome seminars for free??
Well then, what are you waiting for!?
We need someone to manage the book sales table at the Seminar on Saturday, Oct 14th.
This special volunteer will get to listen and sit in for FREE at the Seminar. This person will need to sit at the book table during the sessions, but they’ll have a wonderful view of the seminar and will be able to listen in on all the information. Think of it! That’s a $50-55 value for so little effort.
Interested? Email seminar@gfo.org now! No, right now!! Why are you still waiting?
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Fall Seminar is this weekend and we’re so excited!
Don’t miss out! We’ve moved the Fall Workshop to the Milwaukie Center!
Oct 14th, 10am to 4:30pm, AND Oct 15th 9:30am – noon at the Milwaukie Center
Those already on the Workshop’s Wait-List will be contacted directly. If you’re not on the wait-list for the Workshop, you better act fast!! Click the Register link below before it’s too late, again!
Did you know genealogy is the second most popular hobby in the United States? Have you also noticed how much hubbub there has been lately about DNA and how DNA can help find missing links, missing parentage, and more?
The GFO’s Fall Seminar has all of these hot topics and more! Registration for Saturday’s Seminar AND for Sunday’s Workshop is open open open. Click HERE to register now.
Download a flyer to share with family, friends, and coworkers.
REGISTER
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I’m just back from a wonderful trip along the coast of Maine and New Brunswick. At the border (Calais, ME and St. Stephens, NB), and on the Maine side, there is Fort Knox. This fort was constructed for a war that never really came….between 1812 and the Civil War. Now here’s the point: “Our” Isaac Stevens was the first engineer on this project in 1846…. long before he came west. I found that most interesting. Also, in October virtually all of Maine decorates for Halloween and there are pumpkins everywhere and on every stoop. Thought you’d like to know this too.
Is your favorite morning juice apple from the Tree Top company?
Back in 1944, a co-op of over 1000 apple growers was formed with headquarters in Selah under the leadership of William H. “Bill” Charbonneau. Realizing that the public was dissatisfied with “fruity drinks that contained only 15% real juice” which he called “belly wash masquerading as the real thing,” he determined to do better with Washington apples. He founded the Tree Top company with the high standards of “all natural, no sugar added,” which still is followed today.
Today, Tree Top’s seven plants produce a long line of apple products with apple juice and cider being the backbone of the retail market. Bill’s genius was to take the “culls,” those fruits deemed undesirable as eating apples, and turn them into a useful product. Up to this time, the culls had been dumped by truck loads into the landfill.
The name, Tree Top, arrived in 1947, with the contest winner to name the company. Today, America’s #1 selling apple juice is Tree Top, made right here in Washington!
(From Tree Top: Creating a Fruit, great book by David H. Stratton, published in 2010 by the WSU Press.)
IS there a book with my family in it? I’ve been asked that question many times and not just in beginning classes. The answer is this: You won’t know if you don’t go looking.
So please don’t dump genealogy for knitting or sky diving until you’ve looked for your Bazeleel Jinglemeyer in every place you can think of.
Diane Huckabee told the story of finding the name LaStone for a child….. and after much pondering, she realized it must stand for “Last One!” (Just had to toss that in here for you; thanks, Diane, for sharing.)
What – exactly – is a social media manager and does your society need one? Learn some tricks of this growing professional area and how to convert that to assist your non-profit genealogy society.
Do you know who’s running the show at the Washington State Genealogical Society? Did you know we have a five-member Executive Committee and four standing committee chairs? Who are all these people? In the coming months, we’ll introduce them to you, so you can say “hi” the next time you see them.
Kathy and her 2nd cousins, once removed in England.
In today’s “Meet the Board” series, we’re introducing you to Kathy Sizer. Kathy lives in Granger (Yakima County) and is WSGS’s President. She has been a member of the WSGS since 2011. She is also a member of the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society where she has been president, vice president, recording secretary, hospitality chair and current treasurer.
Kathleen Louise was born in Oakland, California in 1951 to August Edward and Vivian Jane (Washburn) Weddle. Her mother liked the name Kathleen (as did approximately one million other mothers at the time), but when she told her husband, he said he did too as his former fiance’s name was Kathleen. Horrified, Kathy’s mother said they needed to pick another name, to which her husband replied, “I didn’t marry her. I married YOU, didn’t I?”
Kathy’s interest in genealogy began when her grandmother Edith Clarke Washburn and her sister Avice Ramos Clarke were discussing family history when Kathy was in the 4th grade. That discussion sparked Kathy’s interest. Later, after college, Kathy found a handwritten family history her grandmother had done and that really secured her lifelong passion.
Kathy with her cousin Diana Walcom at their great grandfather John Clarkes’ home in Gargrave England.
Kathy and cousin Diana Walcom in England during Diana’s first trip to see the family home.
Even though her DNA ancestry says she’s only 36 percent English, Kathy’s ancestors come from England, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Arabic and Ireland. She has been lucky enough to travel to England and Scotland to see where her grandmother’s family was from. A genealogist’s work is never done!
Kathy has quite a few interesting characters in her ancestry. Her distant grandmother, Sarah Lord Wilson of Andover, Massachusetts, and daughter Sarah Wilson Preston (also Kathy’s grandmother) were imprisoned for witchcraft, but released when the community began to realize the awful practice of imprisoning (or worse) was wrong. Kathy also has a great grandmother, Marie R. Cornioley, who was governess to Louis Comfort Tiffany, the famous glass maker. And what about John Billington, her distant grandfather, who came over on the Mayflower and was the first man in the Plymouth Colony to hang for killing a man? True story.
When not searching for her ancestors, Kathy enjoys gardening, travel and reading. She has four grown children and seven grandchildren. “Her two sons are adopted from India and have done their DNA and have English and Irish blood (Queen Victoria and her British Empire most likely came into play).”
A few more interesting tidbits about Kathy:
Now you know a little more about another of the WSGS Board members. The next time you see Kathy say hello and thank her for her service to WSGS.
Ever see one of these critters before?? This is a Harp Guitar and it’s being held by Gary Zimmerman in the Pioneer Descendants Hall museum which comprises the floors above the Fiske Library.
“The harp guitar (or “harp–guitar“) is a guitar-based stringed instrument with a history of well over two centuries. … The word “harp” is used in reference to its harp-like unstopped open strings. A harp guitar must have at least one unfretted string lying off the main fretboard, typically played as an open string.” (Wikipedia)
These are still being created; a new one can cost up to $8000. Yikes.