Serendipity Day

** Did you help with the FamilySearch Indexing Marathon?

** Black Dutch; Somehow A Slur

** Finding Family Bibles

** Heaven Is (for Genealogists)

 

In mid-July, all of us genealogists had a great opportunity to help “Pay It Forward.” FamilySearch organized an Indexing Marathon and know what? The outcome was 10,447,887 records were indexed during those three days with 116,475 new people/names added to the searchable database. I did one batch; how about YOU?? Stay tuned for there will be a next time and we both might-could-should-will do better.

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In GenealogyMagazine.com, 1997, Vol. 12, No 1, Page 17, was an explanatory article titled “Black Dutch As 19th Century Slur.” This term has been around since the late 19th century and it has always meant something negative. “The guileless and unphilological,”  often classed with the “ignorant Irish,” and “they are like a drove of bullocks..where one leads the rest follow.”

“The term originally meant all speakers of German in the broadest sense. Specifically, the Schwarze Deutsche, or Black Germans, were found along the Danube River in Austria and Germany, in the Black Forest….have dark hair and eyes, unlike the fairer people north and south of them.”

This last comes from the website, www.blackdutch1.webs.com (for real, no @).  Managed by Mike Nassau, this site is a good read but has not been updated for ten years.

Continue reading

Registration for Ancestry Day Open Now

Ancestry Day Conference — Sept. 23 & 24, 2016, Tacoma

Join experts from Ancestry, Washington State Archives, Washington State Library, Legacy Washington, and the Washington State Historical Society for this great event. Registration for Ancestry Day presentations on Saturday is $35. Registration for Friday’s presentations is $15.

Saturday, Sept. 24, will feature a full day of classes, including:

• Ancestry101: New & Review
• Getting the Most from Ancestry.com
• Using AncestryDNA to Further Your Family History Research
• Ancestry FAQs
• Sharing Your Family Story

Friday, Sept. 23, will feature several presentations from area experts, including:

• Tracy Rebstock, Washington State Archives
• Mary Kathryn Kozy, Professional Genealogist
• Lynette Miller, Head of Collections at the Research Center of the Washington State Historical Society
• Karen Wallace Steely, Professional Genealogist
• Kathryn Devine, Washington State Library

For more information, schedule and registration, click HERE.

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Wednesday Evening E-News

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THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Wednesday Evening E-News 27 July 2016

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 go to www.gfo.org/calendar.htm.

Also, if you missed your free copy of our monthly Insider for August 2016, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy at http://www.gfo.org/insider/16-Aug.pdf.

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Remember the Cuffs of Ms. Violette Pearl?  

Pearl

You may remember her as the lady with the velvet cuffs…
The cover story of the GFO’s quarterly publication, The Bulletin, from December 2015 told of a Violette Pearl Willcox and her famous velvet cuffs that had disappeared into all but family legend.

This week those cuffs were found and we wanted to make sure to share their loveliness with you all!

You didn’t get to read that Bulletin article, you say!? You are receiving our quarterly publications?? Sign up for GFO membership today to fix this problem by clicking HERE.

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You’ve Done It!! You’ve “got Germans” for the GFO!!!

GermanMap

A very special ‘danke’ goes out to each and every one of our very generous donors! With all of the donations received we are very pleased to report that we have successfully met our goal for the “got Germans” campaign!

The GFO will now be able to advance on their purchase of the entire set of Map Guides to German Parish Registers.

These books are widely considered a definitive reference guide and time-saver for German genealogical research, and who doesn’t love to save time and get results? Now, the GFO can get all 55 volumes for the library’s collection, filling a hole in our German genealogical research section. And, through special arrangement, the publisher has agreed to give GFO a 15% discount on this large purchase when we order them. Look for these guides soon on our Library shelves.

Our sincere thanks again to each and everyone who has donated to make this purchase possible and help improve GFO’s German collection!

Sincerely,
Liz Stepp and Laurel Smith
Have others ideas for resources you’d like to see at the GFO?
Let us know by sending your ideas to info@gfo.org.

***

Sign Up Soon for the GFO’s Annual Membership Picnic!!

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It’s never too early to save the date.
September 18, 2016, ’til the swans kick us out

The picnic will be a potluck at Mt. Scott Park. Bring hot dishes, salads, desserts or other food. Sadly, we will not be able to cook hamburgers or hot dogs at the site this year, so please bring lots of dishes to share if you could! The GFO will provide lemonade and iced tea, and we plan to eat around 1 pm.

Things to know: No smoking or use of tobacco in any form, or alcoholic beverages are allowed in the park.

More information will be provided closer to the event. Dancers in tutus are still being negotiated.

Address: SE 72nd Ave & Harold St. in Portland.
RVSP by emailing picnic@gfo.org

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What’s Happening this Week at the GFO?

SATURDAY, JULY 30th
GCO Genealogy Fest 9am – 4pm

THIS ONE’S NOT AT THE GFO!! But we still don’t want you to miss out on the 16 courses being offered at this event to be held Saturday at Lane Community College, Center for Meeting and Learning, 4000 East 30th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon 97405.
SUNDAY, JULY 24th
Library Opens at 2pm We’ll be closed in the morning and the first two hours of the afternoon for our summer workshop, as noted below.

Half-Day Workshop with Geoff Rasmussen 9:30am – 2pm

From 9:30am until noon, learn best practices for managing, sharing, searching, enhancing, and preserving your digital photos, as well as how to access your collections via your computer, smart phone, or tablet. Then it’s all about Organizing, Researching, and Sharing with Legacy Family Tree Software from 1pm to 2pm. Please note, registration is closed on this event, and this is a public service reminder only.
MONDAY, AUGUST 1st
Free Monday!! 9:30am – 5pm

Come one, come all!! Every first Monday of the month, non-members have free and full access to all the GFO Library resources.

NEW Washington Digital Newspapers Website

NEW WASHINGTON DIGITAL NEWSPAPERS WEBSITE

“Extra, extra – read all about it!” Washington Digital Newspapers at the Washington State Library has a new website! And it’s mobile friendly!

New features include:

  • “One hundred years ago…” front pages from Washington newspapers
  • Links to WSL’s microfilm collections for a full list of titles, publication histories, and essays about the newspapers’ influence on their communities
  • Browse newspapers by title, calendar date, or full text searching
  • Search on the go using your smartphone or tablet

We are beginning to merge Washington State Library’s Historic Washington Newspapers Online collection with the titles digitized for the National Digital Newspaper Program for full text searching of all digitized titles. The newest titles digitized for Washington Digital Newspapers will be found exclusively at this new website.

Watch for over 50,000 digitized pages to be added to this new website by the end of 2016.

Check out the Tacoma Evening Telegraph now and soon we’ll have:

  • The Eatonville Dispatch
  • Dankse Kronike (Danish/English)
  • Dat Moi (Vietnamese/English)
  • Centralia Daily Hub
  •  Anacortes American

All newspapers dated pre-1923 are considered public domain and are an excellent primary resource for teachers, students, genealogists, and researchers. Questions about the new website? Please email Shawn Schollmeyer at shawn.schollmeyer@sos.wa.gov.

Whatcom Genealogical Society Fall Seminar

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WHATCOM GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY

2016 FALL SEMINAR

Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016

9 am to 4 pm

Saint James Presbyterian Church

910 – 14th Street (lower level), Bellingham, WA

 

Jill Morelli, Professional Genealogist, will speak on

“Unraveling of Family Myths Using Principles of Logic”,

“Top Ten Tech Tools I Really Use”, and “Women’s Birth Names: 25 Places to Look”

 

Jim Johnson of Heritage Quest will speak on “Beginning Genealogy”.

Jim will also bring his traveling book store for fun browsing.

 

Outstanding Raffle Prizes, snacks; lunch available if desired.

For a registration form, go to

 

2016 Seminar Registration

 

Tuesday Tip

Dick Eastman had an article about a website that allows you to colorize your old black and white photos for FREE. It is available here for FREE.

I tried several photos that my Grand Aunt Latisha Vanderpool took years ago, so here is a couple of examples:

 

1948

 

19481 Bath

 

Bath1

Do these look better? Should we be fooling with old photos by colorizing them?

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Wednesday Evening E-News

GFO1

THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Wednesday Evening E-News 20 July 2016

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 go to www.gfo.org/calendar.htm.

Also, if you missed your free copy of our monthly Insider for July 2016, you’re in luck because we saved you a copy at http://www.gfo.org/insider/16-Jul.pdf. Continue reading

Northeast Washington Gen Society Newsflash

 

NeWGS LOGO cropped

The next Northeast Washington Genealogical Society meeting will be on Wednesday, August 10, 2016. The morning Computer Interest Group (CIG) will meet in the basement meeting room of the LDS Church on Juniper Street in Colville at 10:30 AM. Entry is located at the back of the building. The building is located one block east of the South Main Restaurant on Hwy 395.

For August and September we will focus on organizing your genealogy research. This month’s meeting will focus on Family Tree Maker. Karen Struve will demonstrate how to get started in Family Tree Maker software. And by the way, Family Tree Maker will continue to provide the ability to synchronize with trees on Ancestry.com.

In September Susan Dechant will demonstrate another great genealogy program, RootsMagic.

We will take a lunch break at noon and then meet again in the LDS Lower Meeting Room  at 1:30 p.m.

Sue Richart, a long-time NeWGS member and one of our favorite presenters will be sharing information she has gleaned while researching the Colville National Forest Records. She will share how this information can be valuable as you research your ancestors in this area as well as other areas nationally who have these types of records. It gives us a better understanding of how our ancestor’s lives were impacted by the area they lived in.

All visitors are welcome. You do not need to be a member to attend the Northeast Washington Genealogical Society’s meetings.

Victoria Genealogical Society October Seminar

The Victoria Genealogical Society is proud to report that our 2016 Annual Seminar Program is now finalized for October 29th at Victoria, BC, CAN., and open for registration.

We have an impressive lineup of speakers, a new venue and over $2000 in door prizes.  This year’s theme is “Making Sense of the Science – Deciphering Your DNA Results”.  More info at http://www.victoriags.org/seminar.php

I wanted to let you know with the hope that you would pass this information to your members and followers.

 

2016 – VGS GENEALOGY SEMINAR

MAKING SENSE OF THE SCIENCE: DECIPHERING YOUR DNA RESULTS

Saturday, October 29, 2016   ~   9:00 am to 5:00 pm
(NOTE: time is different from last year)

St Leopold Mandic Church
4081 Gordon Head Road, Victoria BC

(NOTE: location is different from last year – see map)

SPEAKERS: Barbara Johnson, Merna Forster, Tim Duncan
SPECIAL OPENING SPEAKER: Wedlidi Speck

Lunch will be provided.  Free parking.

Email: seminar@victoriags.org
Download VGS 2016 Seminar poster (pdf format)

Seattle Genealogical Society Upcoming Event

Seattle

ONE MORE UPCOMING EVENT

An upcoming event at Seattle Public Library was inadvertently left off today’s eNews.  Because it may be of interest to some of our members or non-member subscribers, we felt it appropriate to send a follow-up announcement, just for this event.

Writing Your Memoir or Family History: a Workshop

Monday, July 18, 2016, 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
The Seattle Public Library, Central Library, Level 4 – Room 1 – Washington Mutual Foundation Meeting Room

Join us for a FREE inspiring and entertaining two hour discussion, demonstration, writing, and sharing of memoir and family history, presented by Charley Kempthorne. Registration is required.  Kempthorne is editor of LifeStory Magazine, and author of For All Time: A Complete Guide to Writing your Family History, and Narrative Journaling: 28 Days to Writing for the Rest of Your Life. Some of the topics to be covered are: basic techniques of narrative (history) writing; using a journal to keep life history as you live it; writing extended captions for family photographs; and publishing your history for family and friends. He will be assisted by his wife, June Kempthorne.

Library events and programs are free and everyone is welcome. Registration is required. To register, send an email using Ask A Librarian, or call 206-386-4636 and ask for the genealogy desk.

See the website below for more details:
http://www.spl.org/calendar-of-events?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D119731549