The Seasons of Genealogy for the COG # 107

Well as a practicing accountant I have two seasons: Tax Season and the rest of the year. So which season do I do most of my research? Actually I do a little research almost every week even during tax season. I have to get away from the office and a quiet library is a good place to unwind. So what do I research each week? I actually volunteer for Eastern Washington Genealogical Society doing research for them since the previous researcher retired in 1998, and about 2004 the county auditor contacted EWGS looking for a genealogist to help them with research and I did that a lot till a couple of years ago. I still go there a few of times a year, but early on I was in the courthouse almost every week. Why so much less now? The Washington State Digital Archives has most of the records I looked for at the courthouse online now, notice I said most, they missed a few and are still working on probates, divorces, and other civil cases. These were filmed in order of filing and so the films contain a few sealed cases that need to be purged before the rest can go online. So that is the research I do for EWGS, how about my own research?
Actually I have not done a lot of research on my own ancestors in several years, but I do keep my eyes open for new sources to check all the time. My own research is always done in the non tax season, because after a lot of 14-16 hour days at work I do not have time or energy left to do more research. I have checked out Steve Morse's site to look for the Enumeration Districts for 1940. I inherited the house my mom and her parents were living in in 1940 so I know that address, and my dad was living close by in a boarding house. His parents were still on the farm in north Idaho, so they will be easy to find also. Pop had a sister on a farm in Montana, a brother on a farm in Washington and a sister in Coronado, California (her husband was a naval officer stationed at San Diego).

Saturday Night Fun Number One Song

Tonight, we're going to go down memory lane a bit.

1) What was the #1 song on the day you were born? Or on your birthday when you were 15? Or when you married? Or some other important date in your life.

2) Go to http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/birthdayno1 and enter the date and select from UK, US or Australia record lists. Note: the first date available is 1 January 1946.

Alternatively, go to http://www.joshhosler.biz/ and enter the month and date and see a list of songs for each year since 1940.


June 14, 1948 (Flag Day) Number One Song was Nature Boy by Nat King Cole

June 14, 1963 (Flag Day) Number One Song was Sukiyaki by Kyu Sacamoto

June 1, 1971 Graduation Day from College, Number One Song Brown Sugar By The Rolling Stones

I never heard Nature Boy, that I remember, Sukiyaki sounds familiar, but I don't remember it either, and since I was not a fan of the Stones, don't remember Brown Sugar either.

Saturday Night Fun Unknown Ancestor

Hey geneaphiles, it's Saturday Night again - time for more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Determine who your most recent unknown ancestor is - the one that you don't even know his or her name.

2) Summarize what you know about his or her family, including resources that you have searched and the resources you should search but haven't searched yet.

Well lets go for John "Jackson" Vanderpool and his wife Nancy Campbell, I know John was born in North Carolina about 1805 and Nancy Campbell was born about 1796, maybe North Carolina also. There is a lot of speculation about their parents, but no real proof for any of the parents.

I indexed 30 volumes of Vanderpool newsletters hoping to find some records on John and Nancy, these records include land records, census records, church records, court records and even some military records, and still nothing that says who the parents of Nancy or John. I keep hoping some descendant will have something to prove who the parents are.

John & Nancy had 5 children:
James b. 1825
Catherine b 1829
Joseph "Joe" b. 1831
Samuel Counts b. 1835
and William b. 1841

Saturday Night Fun Two Truths and a Lie Cont.

Last night for Saturday night Fun I posted these three items:

My grandfather Anton Hansen was born in Humble Parish in Denmark

Humble Parish is located in the southern part of Laangeland Island in Svendborg county, and the Family History Library in Salt Lake has film of the Humble parish records back to 1692 and I have checked them back that far.

My great, great grandmother Margaret Josephine Forsyth was the fifth child and second daughter and she inherited the farm near Ursa in Illinois.

I have the will from her father leaving her the farm he bought from a War of 1812 bounty land not used by the soldier that received it.

Margaret Forsyth married Thomas Kelly born 1825 in Kentucky, a Civil War Veteran

This is the lie, Thomas and his wife Margaret and the five kids packed up in 1862 on a wagon train to California, settled there till in 1865 when they went down to Sacramento caught a ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus, caught another ship to New York and then back to the farm near Ursa in Illinois, so Thomas never served in the Civil War. I have the bible that tells of this trip and was there for the whole trip.

Saturday Night Fun Two Truths & a Lie

It's Saturday Night -- time for more Genealogy Fun!!

1) Play "two truths and a lie." Tell us three facts about your family history -- two have to be true and one has to be a lie.

2) Put them on your own blog post. Ask readers to guess which one is a lie.

3) After one day, be sure to put the right answer as a comment to your blog

My grandfather Anton Hansen was born in Humble Parish in Denmark

My great, great grandmother Margaret Josephine Forsyth was the fifth child and second daughter and she inherited the farm near Ursa in Illinois.

Margaret Forsyth married Thomas Kelly born 1825 in Kentucky, a Civil War Veteran


Guess which one is a lie, answer tomorrow

Face of Genealogy

This is a post to go along with the call to action from Geneabloggers.




This is a picture of both of my grandparents Anton and Anna Hansen, Charles and Cleo Kelly, my uncle Leigh Hansen, and my parents Claude & Margaret Hansen. This was taken about a year before I was born. I was rather surprised that my grandparents were together, I don't ever remember seeing my grandmother Anna Hansen leave her home near Blanchard, Idaho, and Anton seldom left the home either, so to see them together in front of the home my parents owned when I was born was a real surprise.

Saturday Night Fun If I Knew Then.....

Greetings, genea-philes. it's SATURDAY NIGHT - time for more GENEALOGY FUN!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) On GeneaBloggers Radio last night (www.blogtalkradio.com/geneabloggers/) the discussion turned to regrets that we all have about our genealogy and family history experiences. Someone said "If I knew then, what I know now, I would have..." I thought that it would make a good SNGF topic, and it may be a general topic on a future GeneaBloggers Radio show.

2) Tell us about your "If I knew then what I know now, I would have..." regret in a blog post

Well I have two, and they are sort of related, so here it goes: I started genealogy from a family reunion and one of my first cousins once removed sent a group sheet for our grandfathers and great grand parents and as part of the reunion we wanted to collect some information and put it in a book for those attending. We sent out in the reunion packets a blank group sheet and asked everyone to fill it in for their family, and parents and if possible grandparents, I got back 350 group sheets and I had a genealogy program called the Enhanced Family Tree, and it did a lot of interesting charts and forms so I picked a few and printed books from this program. That was the easy part, but later on we took a beginning genealogy course from our local genealogical society and learned about sources, I still have those group sheets but did not write on them who sent them, so I have many duplicated group sheets and quite a few with conflicting information, so most of my first 500 names in my genealogy database have no sources, some do from later information. So If I had known to record sources that would have been great. That is number one, number two was the Enhanced Family Tree program, it did not have GEDCOM, so later when I changed to Family Tree Journal for our next reunion, I got to go back and retype all the information in the Enhanced Family Tree program to input it into Family Tree Journal.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Secrets

Week 22. Secrets. Describe something about yourself that won’t be found on any record 100 years from now.

Well I have been thinking about this for a while, and last night the light bulb went on.
I have been called on jury duty five times, and this is on record, four times I actually served on a jury, but three times I was in Superior court and that has a record that will be around for at least 100 years. The fourth time I was in district court, and in Washington district court records are destroyed after five years, so lets describe that jury duty. It was actually the second time I was on jury duty, the first time was a 3rd degree rape trial and I was juror number 48 in a pool of 50 and ended up on the jury, so the second time I was pretty surprised when they lined up 15 of us and we went over to the district court. Now don't juries have 12 jurors and they only started with 15, wow looks like most of us will be on the jury. In the courtroom they introduced the judge, the lawyers and the defendant and a short summary of the case. It was for trespassing, a misdemeanor in Washington, so tried in district court, and they started jury selection, and then they picked SIX of us for the jury. District court uses six jurors. By 9:30 we were listening to testimony, first the prosecution. Seems the police was called to this house on the south hill of Spokane because of a fight in the front yard, when they arrived there was a crowd watching a man and woman fighting and they were drunk, so the police broke up the fight and ordered everyone to go home. Seems like that would be the end, but then the police went back to their car to write up the report, it was around the corner since all the parking along the street was full. The police heard what sounded like another fight, so back they went and here was the defendant on the porch banging on the door trying to get in, since they had ordered him to leave earlier they arrested him for trespassing. So the prosecutor rested and it was close to lunch time so we were on our own for an hour. I volunteered at the library about 6 blocks away and was used to the restaurants close to the library so I went down there and had lunch. After lunch the defense started and in true Perry Mason theatrics they brought in the defendants twin brother in the same clothes and asked the police if they could identify the defendant? Turned out the police could not tell the difference and neither could I, but that had nothing to do with the case. The two brothers had been classmates at Ferris High School with the owner of the house (actually he was renting the house, but considered the owner) and all of them were 20 years old now and out of high school, but still friends. The two brothers had arranged to stay with the owner for the weekend and had brought sleeping bags and clothing to stay the night. When the fight was going on there was about 30-35 kids that had been classmates at Ferris High School in the house. So now the defense concedes that the house was in Spokane county, and that would be important when the judge gave us the rules for trespassing. The defence called the owner of the house and he testified about how he had been a friend of the defendant through school and he was always welcome at his home, so the defense rested. That was about 2 pm, we then had the summation by both lawyers and the judge explained the law to us. The prosecution had to prove three things, 1. that the alleged crime happened in Spokane county; it did the defense had told us that; 2. That the defendant was not wanted on the property by the owner, and the defense had pretty well proved the defendant was his friend and always welcome, and 3. this was the person the police had arrested, still not sure they had the correct brother. So by 3 pm we were deliberating, and it was pretty clear the prosecution had not proved two the things the judge said were needed to convict the defendant. So what was really happening at the house?? Why would 30-35 20 year old kids be afraid of the police? Why did none of them want to testify for the defendant? I had no idea, but the other jurors had the answer. They figured the group in the house was having a beer party and all of the kids there were underage for alcohol, so when the police showed up they locked the door and tried to keep everyone out including the defendant who was banging on the door to get in. So the police were correct to arrest the defendant they had ordered to leave, but not for trespassing which was the what we had to decide on, so we voted not guilty. Kind of a waste of time, but we left the courtroom by 5:15 pm, a one day trial.
The reason I did not have an idea about the beer party is that for medical reasons I do not drink any alcohol, it messes up my blood sugar a lot, so I did not know about beer parties.