Northeast Washington Gen Society News

by Charles Hansen

Welcome to 2017! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. It was certainly a white one here!

This Wednesday (the 11th) is our first meeting of the year. The computer group will meet at 10:30 a.m. in the meeting room down the hall from the Family History Center at the LDS church on Juniper. Karen Struve will be sharing information about how to use Pinterest to assist you in your genealogy research. Be sure to download her handout that you will find in the Members section of our website, under Secure Download, Computer Meeting Handouts.

After a break for lunch, we will return to the LDS church for our afternoon meeting at 1:30 p.m. After a short business meeting, the afternoon meeting will be a sharing session that we invite all of you to take part in. Come and share your latest finds. Perhaps it will be a new ancestor or one that has eluded you for a long time, or maybe it is a new resource that you found particularly helpful. Whatever success you have had, we want to hear about it!

Well I am off to deal with last night’s snow and hope I can dig out by Wednesday! See you then … Susan

Serendipity Day

by Charles Hansen

*** Museums in Washington State

*** Needing a High School or College Yearbook?

*** The Rewards of Apathy 

 

As an education project for the WSGS, I would like to assemble a list of museums in Washington state. I realize this could be a 500-page compilation but I think it would be quite interesting and possibly useful to vacationers and travelers. Would you help me, please?  I can ask Grandma Google and get the big museums and/or historical societies but you know of those smaller ones in your area. Care to make a list and send it to me?  Donna243@gmail.com     I would appreciate your help.  (This pix is of our MAC museum here in Spokane.)

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I was working on a project last year to help better document the sailors who went down with the U.S.S. Arizona on December 7, 1941, in Pearl Harbor. Pictures of these young men were what was wanted. With Grandma Google’s help, I discovered E-Yearbook.com.  For $20, I had one year’s full access to any yearbook I needed! You search by state and then name of school….. the list of school (divided into high school and college) would print out several pages long for there ARE that many available. When you click on the school of choice, you’ll see the years that yearbooks are available and, of course, some years are missing. Go look for yourself, your partner, your parents, even your teachers! It’s fun. 

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THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Wednesday Evening E-News

by Charles Hansen

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Wednesday Evening E-News 04 January 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!

Also, if you missed your free copy of our monthly Insider for January 2017, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy at HERE. NOTE: The Insider issues are now located under the “Learn” –> “Our Publications” menu at our new website (still gfo.org).

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Start the year off with a bang! January’s GenTalk is around the corner!!

WHEN Jan 21, 2017 at 2 pm
WHERE: the GFO Library
WHAT Lone Fir Cemetery

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Cynthia Savage Harris Awarded 2016 Outstanding Volunteer Honor

by Roxanne Lowe

Since 2003, the Washington State Genealogical Society has recognized almost 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 months, you will be introduced to each of the 2016 award recipients and learn why they received the 2016 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer and Team Award.

Cynthia Savage Harris

Today we’re introducing Cynthia Savage Harris, of Bellingham, Washington, who was nominated by the Whatcom Genealogical Society (WGS). She was recognized for sharing her tireless and innovative energies to educate the local society’s members and those interested in genealogy.

Using her innovative resourcefulness as education chair, Ms. Harris has produced educational and entertaining programs for the local society’s meetings for the past four years. She has also been in the forefront of organizing their annual genealogical conference. The programs have helped the WCGS grow by attracting many new members.

Ms. Harris’s pleasant attitude and dedication to the WGS’s projects are appreciated by all its members, and prove she richly deserved being a recipient of a 2016 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, Recognition Chair, at Roxanne@thekeeffes.com.

Tuesday Trivia….. Story from Virginia Majewski

by Charles Hansen

A Washingtonian in Tennessee Looking for Kin by Virginia Majewski.

On a recent trip to visit my daughter and grandchildren living in Knoxville, Tennessee, I made time to do some research.  I found the East Tennessee History Center.  This archive is located in the heart of old downtown Knoxville at 601 Gay Street.    The History Center is a lovely old building with marble floors, high ceilings and old art hanging on the walls.  The first floor houses a gift shop and a museum, which is well worth the price of admission.  The second floor holds the archives of Knox County.  The third floor houses the McClung Historical Collection and is a genealogists’ paradise.  While the McClung Historical Collection specializes in records of Eastern Tennessee, it contains records from all over Tennessee and the South East and so much more.  All total this archive has over 75,000 books, 3,000+ printed genealogies, over 19,000 rolls of microfilm, city and phone directories, Native American and African American records, the “First Families of Tennessee” collection, old maps, photographs and much, much more.  One room alone is dedicated to information from all the counties in Tennessee and the room is huge!

Before visiting, check their website for information and the catalog of their collections, www.easttnhistory.org .  Ask for help when you arrive.  Be aware, no pictures may be taken or use of scanners of any kind are allowed.  You must check all your belongings into a locker when you enter.  Your papers must be submitted for examination before you leave.   Located ½ block from Market Square, many eateries are nearby when you are ready for a break.  Street parking is very limited, however there are two pay to park lots within a block.   If you have any Tennessee kin, you need to visit this archive.  Tell them Ginny from Sequim sent you.                                                      

 

Tri-City Gen Society News

by Charles Hansen

If you like history, you don’t want to miss this TCGS meeting on 11 Jan 2017 Come to the Tri-City Genealogical Society at the Benton County PUD 7:00 PM — 2721 W 10th Ave — Kennewick WA Robert Franklin presents an overview of the history of Hanford

The Hanford Site (also called Hanford Project, Hanford Works, Hanford Engineer Works and Hanford Nuclear Reservation) is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the U.S. federal government on the Columbia River. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project in the town of Hanford in south-central Washington State, the site was home to the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world.

Speaker:  Robert Franklin is Assistant Director; Archivist and Director of the Hanford Oral History Project.

Jefferson County Gen Society News

by Charles Hansen

GRANDPA’S SOCK DRAWER  —  January 2017 Meeting!

The monthly meeting of the Jefferson County Genealogical Society (JCGS) hosts seasoned genealogist Rod Fleck as January’s guest speaker. His topic is “Military Research: That medal/picture/pin in Grandpa’s sock drawer”. Fleck says, “There’s more than one way to learn about the military experience of your recent ancestor. If you don’t have letters or diaries, online sites can help you piece together the story. I’ll be explaining how to be successful in finding what you need.” The presentation will focus on utilizing Google, Fold3.com, Ancestry.com, the National Archive’s Online Databases, and other websites.  Please feel free to bring that medal, photo, pin, or “veteran bring back” that is in your family that you are unsure about.

The public is welcome to attend JCGS ‘no fee’ meeting, though donations are gratefully accepted. Join JCGS members at the Tri-Area Community Center, 10 West Valley Rd in Chimacum on Saturday, January 21, 9:30 – 10:00 a.m. “meet and greet”; 10:00 – 11:30 brief announcements and speaker presentation. Visit JCGS website www.wajcgs.org for more information.

Rod Fleck has been the City Attorney and Planner for the City of Forks for nearly 20 years.  In that role, he handles issues ranging from annexations to criminal prosecutions to forest policy issues to zoning applications.  In 1991, he obtained a B.A. in History from the University of Washington and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa that same year.  He has a J.D. from Seattle University School of Law.

He lead the Seattle Genealogical Society’s German Interest Group for a decade and has given numerous presentations on German genealogy.  He was the Camp Organizer for the Governor Isaac Stevens Camp No. 1 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.  In 2015, he was elected as the first Department of the Columbia of the SUVCW.  He is also the President of the Augustan Society that specializes in history, heraldry, genealogy and nobility.  In 2012 and 2013, he was the lead author of an article published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Society’s Register covering the life of Sampson Dunbar and His Family, the focus of our presentation today.

 

Kittitas County Gen Society News

by Charles Hansen

 

For our Monday January 9th meeting program, I am asking all attendees to bring a small sheet of paper or 3×5 card with your name and ONE genealogical item you will resolve to search for in 2017. Even those not able to attend might want to do this.

 

Maybe you will choose something like “find great-grandma Smith’s father’s name”, or “when was Great-grandpa Brown born”, perhaps “find the will of Great-uncle William”. Just ONE goal for the year. Hopefully, that will get us each moving forward on our research for 2017. We will share what we want to search for and why we want to find this (requests for ideas of where to look may be made), then I will collect the sheets/cards which we will use again late in the year to check our progress!

 

See you at the January meeting!

Lynn Blazek