Happy New Year

This is a list of the top ten post for 2011 (I hope they are correct, I had a little problem with analytics this year).

1. Seattle Worlds Fair Day 2 April 55 page views
2. Seattle Worlds Fair Day 7 April 43 page views
3. Seattle Worlds Fair Day 4 April 40 page views
4. Carnival of Genealogy 2011 Swimsuit Issue May 38 page views
5. Old Fashioned Thanksgiving for COG November 37 page views
6. My Mayflower Lines November 24 page views
7. 2011 Advent Calendar Holiday Parties December 18 page views
8. Saturday Night Fun Historical Maps November 16 page views
9. 2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Tree December 16 page views
10. 2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Cookies December 11 page views

The top post was from 2010 a tribute to King Forrest Cole the founder of EXPO 74 in Spokane on his death December 2010

Funeral Card Friday Clarence R, Ruud

Clarence R. Ruud was our neighbor from as early as I remember until about 1960 when he had a heart attack and retired from his head custodian job at Rogers High School. Soon after that he moved to the coast to be close to his son Lane. Clarence helped my dad get a job as a custodian with the school district, so pop ended up with a pension when he retired. If you check the dates it looks like Clarence was 60 years old when he died but he died before his birthday. Why was this important? At that time if the husband died before he was 60 years old his wife could not collect Social Security on his account, even if she had never worked. His wife Minnie Ruud had worked some, so she got a minimal amount of Social Security, but no where near the amount that should have been available from Clarence's account.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Eve

How did you, your family or your ancestors spend Christmas Eve?

My moms family always opened their presents on Christmas Eve, so since we lived close we went there to open the presents we received and gave to our grandmother and grandfather Kelly. Later on we were also able to bring one present from home also. Pops family always opened presents on Christmas morning, and since we did not live close to pops family we usually exchanged gifts early in December and then on Christmas morning we opened all the rest of the presents.

Copied from the 2009 Advent calendar

Merry Christmas

This is another of my dad's postcards, this one is undated, but on the back it says: Claude Hansen from grandma (Eliza Minerva (Hellenbolt) Dillingham)

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas & Deceased Relatives

Copied from the 2010 Advent Calendar:

Did your family visit the cemetery at Christmas? How did your family honor deceased family members at Christmas?

My mom Margaret Hansen died rather suddenly November 30, 1994. Her diabetes had started to take is toll, and they were talking about amputating her feet because of poor circulation due to the diabetes. She was in the hospital and heading for an X-Ray when she died. That Christmas was a fog for me, and since then weather permitting we usually visit her grave between Thanksgiving and Christmas to put flowers in the little vase on the front of their niche.

December 10, 2007 my uncle Leigh died at age 94, while he had not been in very good shape for a while his death was kind of quick. He was buried next to his wife in the cemetery at Priest River, Idaho. We have went to his grave several times an put flowers and flags on his grave.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Music

This is partly from the 2010 and 2009 Advent Calendars




What songs did your family listen to during Christmas?
Well I like most all the Christmas songs, we have albums ranging from Alvin and The Chipmunks Christmas Songs, to Perry Como Christmas, Andy Williams, Mitch Miller, Lawrence Welk, Spike Jones and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Did you ever go caroling?

No, never, tooo cold around here at Christmas time, we did sing carols at church and at school, and I even got to lead the band in high school on the last day before Christmas vacation in a Christmas carol.

Did you have a favorite song?
No, like most all the Christmas songs.

2011 Advent Calendar Religious Services

From the 2009 Advent Calendar:

Did your family attend religious services during the Christmas season?

While my grandmother Kelly was alive we went to Sunday School at the Hillyard Christian Church on Queen and Altamont. I remember being in a few of the Christmas pageants, and the minister or his son would dress up as Santa and pass out candy and cookies to all the children that the church ladies had made. If my sister or I was in the pageant my parents would come, but otherwise my parents seldom went to church. I learned after the Hillyard Christian Church closed that my grandfather Kelly had been one of the founders of that church. I was real young when he died so I don't ever remember grandpa Kelly going to church.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Shopping

This is mostly from the 2009 Advent Calendar:

How did your family handle Christmas shopping? Did anyone finish early or did anyone start on Christmas Eve?

My mom started in February for the next Christmas, and was usually done before Thanksgiving. She hid presents all over the house and even forgot some she had bought. My dad started in November and was usually done a couple of days before Christmas. I usually shopped like my dad, but as I get older I am switching more to be like mom and starting early.
Mom always shopped the after Christmas sales for wrapping paper, bows, name tags, etc., but I have a bunch of paper, bows, and tags.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Stockings

Did you have one? Where did you hang it? What did you get in it?

We did put up stockings a few times when I was young, but most years not. We did not have a fireplace so no mantle to hang the stockings from. When I was pretty young mom bought a cardboard fireplace, and when unfolded it was supposed to look like a fireplace. It had a light inside with a little fan above the light. When the light was on the heat from the light made the fan turn so it was suppose to be like a flickering fire. Since there was no chimney connected I asked how could Santa get in? And would the light burn him? I think we got some nuts and cookies in the stockings.
Do you have any Christmas stocking used by your ancestors? No, but I have a few mom got for our dogs.

This was from the 2009 Advent Calendar

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Memories

This is from the 2009 Advent Calendar:
Last night on TV I got to see White Christmas with Bing Crosby and co stars Fred Astaire and Danny Kaye. I have always loved Bing Crosby and his singing of White Christmas.
Bing grew up here in Spokane and went to Gonzaga High School and started studying law at Gonzaga University, but dropped out to go to Hollywood and the rest of that is history.
Legend has it that the nickname Bing came from reading the Bingville Bugle an extra section to our Spokesman Review newspaper.
Spokane usually has a white Christmas, and as a boy we got to sled down the hill at the end of our block. If we took a good run we could go a block and a half before stopping. Back then that street was not paved and had very little traffic, today it is paved and even though a residential street the cars fly down that hill today.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas at School

This is copied from the 2010 Advent Calendar

What did your ancestors do to celebrate Christmas at school? Well my mom was in the school orchestra so I assume they had a Christmas concert. I was in the band in Junior High and High School and we had a Christmas concert each year.
Were you ever in a Christmas Pageant? About fourth or fifth grade I was in the Christmas Pageant at school. I was in a group of 5 boys and we sang a couple of Christmas songs. I had a good soprano voice till my voice changed and we sang kind of like the Vienna Boys Choir. After my voice changed I was glad I was in the band as I did not sing very good anymore.
The last band class before Christmas break we played Christmas songs, but the band director did not direct. Each Senior band member got to pick the song and then direct the band as it played. I was not a real good clarinet player, and I found out I was even a worse band director.

2011 Advent Calendar Holiday Happenings

This is a copy of the Advent Calendar post from 2009

Well all my close relatives were born well away from Christmas, the closest being my sister, and she was born March 31, so a long way from the Christmas holidays.


This is a picture of my parents wedding in my grandmothers house January 14, 1942. My dad Claude Hansen was 35 then and obviously single, but since it was so soon after Pearl Harbor was bombed they were drafting single men to age 36. Pop had been to a CMTC (Civilian Military Training Camp)camp in the 1920s, and he said about all they did was march, and he had bad feet and did not fit well in the Army issued boots, so he went out to Geiger Air Force Base and enlisted hoping that in the Army Air Corps they might fly somewhere instead of marching everywhere. He received his orders to report to Geiger and wanted to get married before he shipped off to war. My mom Margaret Kelly and pop went down to the auditors office to get a license, and they waved the three day waiting period so they could get married before he left. They got married and after the marriage they had the marriage certificate recorded at the auditors office because that was the law. Pop went off to serve in the 354th Service Squadron, first to Ephrata, Washington, then England, Africa and eventually Italy. Because he was older than most of the men in the service by then he got rotated home, so he was at Ft. Dix, on VE day and back here in Spokane by VJ day. Most of the members of our local genealogical society (EWGS) know I do research for others that send queries to EWGS for local look ups. A few years ago I was in the courthouse looking up a marriage for a query and the index listed two marriage certificate numbers. I had done a lot of marriage certificate look ups by then so I was really surprised by two numbers. A little note here, the auditors office files all the marriage certificates by number, so did they get married twice? When I got to the actual record I found out the problem. Each file during this time had two documents, one was the application they filled out when they applied for the license and the second document was the marriage certificate signed by the bride, groom, witnesses and the minister and was recorded after the marriage and both usually had the same recording number. Well for the couple I was looking for they had a different number on the application and the certificate because another couple also had different numbers on their certificate and application. Both had just switched recording numbers. Turns out the second couple that had their numbers mixed up was my parents. I did not check the index for them to see if they were listed with two certificate numbers but I bet the index also shows two numbers for my parents also. Today all the certificates are online for Spokane county, but none of the applications have made it online yet.
Since their anniversary was after Christmas we always had a nice celebration for them and never mixed in with Christmas or Christmas gifts.

2011 Advent Calendar Fruit Cakes

Copied from the 2010 Advent Calendar

Did you like fruitcake?? Sure
Did your family receive fruitcakes? Seldom. We did receive one once where all the fruit had been soaked in brandy. Did not like that one burned all the way down. They also sent chocolate cherries where the cherries had been soaked in brandy. One of our standard gifts has been a box of chocolate cherries, but never cherries soaked in brandy.
Have you ever re-gifted fruitcake? Never lasted that long around here.
Have you ever devised creative uses for fruitcake? No.

2011 Advent Calendar Holiday Travel

This is copied from the 2010 Advent Calendar with a little editing.

Did you or your ancestors travel anywhere for Christmas? How did you travel? I did not travel far as both of my grandparents lived close to home. My moms parents five blocks away and pops parents about 35 miles away. Mom's dad worked for the Great Northern and every year he got a free pass to travel on the passenger railroad. Grandma would go almost every other year to Denver to visit her sister, but she was usually back before Christmas.



I received this picture in 2010 from a cousin in Minnesota, it is my grandfather sweeping off his boots. I had a lot of problems identifying where this picture was taken and I kept thinking about it and finally went to my photo editing program Irfanview and turned the picture around.

This is the result, and this looks like the farmhouse near Blanchard Idaho about 35 miles from us in Spokane. The other thing that seem odd is how small all the trees were when this picture was taken, I remember them being a lot bigger when I was at the farm. We normally went there to deliver presents and visit a week or two before Christmas. Part of the way was a dirt road and plowing was rather slow so we picked a clear weekend to go there.

2011 Advent Calendar Volunteer Work

This is copied from the 2010 Advent Calendar

Was your family involved with church groups that assisted others during the holidays??

My grandma was the person that did most for others near Christmas. She was part of the church quilting circle they called it. My grandfather had made a quilt frame that they set on 4 chair backs and the ladies would hand stitch the squares together, put on a back and usually a wool blanket in the middle and then tie the two sides together with yarn about every foot. When done they donated the quilts to the church to sell to support the church. She actually bought several of the quilts back, so I have a whole chest of quilts she made.
Grandma was also part of the "Sunshine Circle" at the church. The minister would gather up a group of ladies from the "Sunshine Circle", and they visited the church members that for what ever reason could not get out, maybe in the hospital, a nursing home or just sick at home. They would take flowers and cards and just sit an visit.
I have been a volunteer at the library since 1993, and in 2009 year I became a member of the CAC for STA, but none of these volunteer jobs are near the holidays, but year around.

2011 Advent Calendar Other Traditions

This is copied from my 2009 Advent Calendar:

Did your family or friends celebrate other traditions during the holidays like Hanukkah or Kwanzaa?
No. The neighborhood I grew up in here in Spokane was predominately white, and about 50% Catholic and 50% other like Baptist or Christian, or Congregational, or Lutheran or Mormon. Don't remember any Jewish kids in the neighborhood. I had never heard of Kwanzaa until a couple of years ago, so I know we never celebrated it.

Did your immigrant ancestors have holiday traditions from their native country which they retained or perhaps abandoned?
Most of my ancestors came very early to this country so long ago adopted American traditions. Only my grandfather Anton Hansen who came in 1887 was a fairly recent immigrant, and when he got here he did not want to speak Danish nor remember any Danish customs, he was an American now and wanted to celebrate like an American.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Gifts

This is copied from the 2009 Advent Calendar:

This is a real hard one for me, I don't think I have given any memorable gifts over the years and I don't remember receiving any memorable gifts. My mom was always in to crafts, so we have quilts with pictures we did with tri chem pens, macrame plant holders some made with yarn and some with beads, ceramics of all types to dust, and my moms collection of Jim Beam bottles. I remember making pin cushions out of pine cones, small amounts of cotton and a little squares of cloth. Got poked a lot by the pine cones as we stuffed cotton covered with cloth between the pine cone limbs.

I don't remember how old I was when I got a Lionel train, it was an old one when I got it but it worked well, and each year after that I got more cars, or track or engines or scenery. At one time I had two 4x8 sheets of plywood covered with track and trains. I learned later that pop had worked on weekends on a car for someone and he got the train in trade for his work. He was a mechanic then.

2011 Advent Calendar Grab Bag

This is copied from the 2009 Advent Calendar

When I was young before Christmas we used to like to go window shopping. Many of the downtown stores like the Crescent, The Bon, Pennys, Newberries, Grants, Pay Less, Sears and Wards had big Christmas displays in their windows and it was fun to just go and look at what they had displayed.
The Crescent closed years ago, The Bon was bought out by Macys, Pennys moved to Northtown Mall and their building is now part businesses and part downtown apartments. Newberries and Grants have both closed. Pay Less is now Rite Aid. Wards closed and the City of Spokane bought the building for the City Hall. Sears moved out of downtown to Northtown Mall, and gave the city the old building which became the Spokane Public Library. After a few years the city tore down the old Sears building and built the present library building.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Cookies

This is copied from the 2010 Advent calendar:

Did your ancestors make Christmas cookies?? How did you help? Did you have a favorite cookie?
My maternal grandmother baked a lot of cookies starting in November and going through the new year. I liked the date roll up cookies she made and the raisin cookies were great also. She made sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies (I never liked those), chocolate chip cookies, raisin cookies, date roll ups, and thumbprint cookies with jelly in the middle. I helped by licking the bowl and sampling the cookies to make sure they were good enough to give away.

After she died and I inherited her house I learned why she started baking in November, that kitchen was cold most of the winter, so the oven baking cookies kept the kitchen nice and warm.

Today my sister starts baking mid November and bakes for about a month so she has a lot of cookies for gifts. I like to make fudge, and have tried several kinds, looking for a different kind of fudge almost every year. This year I made Lemon Fudge, mmmmmmmmmm.

2011 Advent Calendar Holiday Parties

This is edited from the 2009 Advent Calendar:
We never had a party at home, but each year in grade school we had a party, the PTA would provide cupcakes and punch and we nearly always had a tree with ornaments made of paper by the students. Since my mom was the PTA treasurer, she made a lot of cupcakes.
At home each year a few weeks before Christmas my mom would make "Tom and Jerrys" they were actually home made eggnog and sherry, and it always amazed me as soon as mom made the eggnog neighbors and friends showed up to have a "Tom and Jerry". While I was too young for the sherry, she always let my sister and I have some eggnog with a little cinnamon on top. After she died I bought a quart of eggnog at the store and was soo disappointed in the taste. Mom used a lot of real eggs in her eggnog, it was so thick it barely poured and I don't think the store eggnog had any eggs in it and it was so thin and runny.

2011 Advent Calendar Santa Claus

Did you ever send a letter to Santa?
I don't ever remember sending a letter to Santa Claus, by the time I could write I had figured out Santa Claus was my parents.

Did you ever visit Santa and "make a list"? I do remember going to the Crescent Department Store and sitting on Santa's lap to tell him what I wanted for Christmas. We got the Sears, Wards and Pennys catalogs and I would circle the toys I wanted, and got a few of them also. :)

Do you still believe in Santa? Of course. The fire department had an old truck they decorated and put a sled, reindeer and Santa on the back and went up and down each street in the city throwing candy at the kids. They still do that.

2011 Advent Calendar Outdoor Decorations

This is what I wrote last year for the advent calendar: My mom said my grandfather used to string blue lights along the front of his house for Christmas. I never found the cords and sockets, but my grandmother had a box of 25 watt blue lights.
We strung lights across the front of our house and around the front porch. I made a star out of laths and strung lights on it and hung it in the peak of the house. We liked blinking lights so I put as many blinking lights as I could find and so the whole front of the house blinked. The neighbors across the street strung lights around their big picture window and along the peak of their house also. Very few other neighbors did much decorating, most just put their tree in a front window and left the curtains open. We used to have a lot of vandals that tore up the displays, stole the bulbs, so a lot of neighbors did not want to keep ahead of the vandals. This year a couple of houses down the block are decorated and even in their front yards.
This year I am seeing more of the blow up decorations, Santa, Snowman, reindeer, etc. Some are even moving. One is a merry go round with three characters going around and around.
These two pictures are of my neighbors displays, the one with the white wall is still being added to, so a work in progress.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Cards

As long as I can remember we always sent Christmas cards and received a bunch of them. Mom usually wrote a letter telling what happened to the family for the year and then we made copies and stuffed the letter in with the cards. When moms diabetes started to take away her eyesight I took over doing the newsletter and was able to add pictures I had scanned. Mom would tape the cards we received to the door frames of the doors in the front room until after New Years Day. We usually saved the cards we received for a year so I don't have any from our ancestors. I am working on this years newsletter so I can make copies and get them all in the mail next week. My dad did save some post cards he got, and this is one of them.






Not sure who Aunt Allie is, closest I could come up with is Alice Hansen, wife of Pops uncle Peter Hansen.

Wordless Wednesday Black Jersey Cow

I guess this picture was taken in the 1940s, my uncle Ralph and his $100 black jersey cow.

2011 Advent Calendar Christmas Tree Ornaments

Did your family have any heirloom ornaments? We had a lot of old ornaments that we cherished. Probably the most interesting are those made from Mount St. Helens ash. We got about a half an inch of ash here in Spokane. I still have some ash in a bucket in the basement.
Did you ever string popcorn or cranberries? No I don't remember stringing any popcorn or cranberries. We did make paper strings of colored paper and glued rings together like a chain.
Did your family make any Christmas ornaments? Mom made a lot when she was doing ceramics, see the pictures here from my 2009 Advent Calendar.
Mom also made some glass ornaments. She bought the clear glass ornaments placed decals on the outside, poured some paint inside and then fired them in the kiln to set the decals and cure the paint.

2011 Advent Calendar Holiday Foods

Don't think I can add much to last years post, just miss the large family gatherings for the holidays, so here is a copy of last years post.

When I was young we always went to my maternal grandmothers for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Both were always turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetable of some kind, rolls fruit salad and cranberry sauce. For desert usually pumpkin pie, but I did not like pumpkin pie so my grandmother would ask me what kind of pie I wanted. Most times I said apple, but sometimes mince meat pie. Grandma made mince meat pie with ground deer meat as one ingredient, but one year she was in a hurry and did not get the deer meat ground so she cooked it a little and forked it up, but it was still long and stringy and very hard to cut and chew, so for years after that we always asked if she used forked up deer meat in the mince meat pies. I am not real sure when we started making TV dinners from the left overs, but we continue that to today. They are soo good a few months later when you are in a hurry. Just pop in the oven and heat one or more up for a quick meal.
After I started genealogy I found out the traditional Christmas dinner for Danish people was a goose, so I asked my mom why no goose, and she said she tried a goose one year and it was a disaster, horribly greasy and not good taste, so we never had goose again.

2011 Advent Calender The Christmas Tree

In 2009 and 2010 I wrote about the trees we had and also those my grandparents had, so this tree is one I won at the raffle at our Eastern Washington Genealogical Society a few years ago. It is about 2 foot high and has a Santa hat on top.



If you look close you can see an eye staring at you, but the real surprise is when someone walks close to the tree it springs to life and and sings Jingle Bell Rock or Up on a Housetop, and then four sayings like Happy New Year

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving for COG 112

Since we only lived five blocks from my maternal grandparents house, we always went there for Thanksgiving. When I was real young grandma baked the turkey, stuffing and rolls and mom made the fruit salad, pies, and mashed potatoes. We also had homemade pickles, cranberry sauce, celery, carrots, and sometimes coleslaw. Later on mom started making the turkey and dressing and grandma made the pies, fruit salad, rolls, and mashed potatoes. Since we lived a few blocks away mom cooked the turkey and dressing at home and we loaded it in the car and took it to grandmas.
A Thanksgiving card from my dad's postcard collection.

When I was older I liked to bake, so mom would let me bake the pumpkin pie, which was kind of odd as I did not like pumpkin pie, so I never tasted it, but everyone would tell me it was a good pie. Since I did not like pumpkin pie every year I was asked what kind of pie I wanted, and I usually said Apple pie, so while others were eating pumpkin pie I got Apple pie.
I don't remember when we started recycling the old aluminum TV trays, but we used the leftovers from Thanksgiving to make TV dinners, they had a vegetable, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce, and they are so good on a cold night when you put them in the oven to heat up and eat. All those aluminum trays are gone now, but we have some nice plastic ones that are similar and still use the leftovers for TV dinners. This year we made 22 TV dinners.

Wordless Wednesday Brown Swiss Jersey

This is my Uncle Ralph Hansen and his Brown Swiss Jersey calf. I liked this picture as it looks like his hat has wings, but if you look close you see it is a crack in the building wall that makes the wings, not the hat.

Saturday Night Fun Historical Maps

Hey Genea-philes, have you recovered from your tryptophan coma on Thursday? Wake up - it's SATURDAY NIGHT! Time for more GENEALOGY FUN!

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

1) Go to the Historical U.S. County Maps page on Randy Majors website ( http://randymajors.com/p/maps.html ) .Read the whole page for tips on how to use the tool by entering a current geographical place in the United States and a year (from the drop down list) at the top of the page.

2) Pick one place of interest and enter the name of the place (a current town/city or county) and choose a year from the dropdown list. Use the Back < and Forward > arrow links to move forward or backward in time.

3) Note the Historical jurisdiction for the place you selected for each year. Write down the list from 1850 to 1930.

Well I picked Columbus, Montana where my dad grew up.

1850 Unorganized Federal territory
1860 Nebraska Territory
1870 Gallatin County
1880 Gallatin County
1890 Yellowstone County
1900 Yellowstone County
1910 Yellowstone County
1920 Stillwater County
1930 Stillwater County

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Fall

Week #47 – Fall

Week 47. Fall. What was fall like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.




I always loved Fall at Twin Lakes, the crowds have left for school, and usually it is very calm and so you get the mirror like lake reflecting the trees on the other side of the lake. The yellow trees are larch (tamarack) and they look like a fir tree in the summer, but loose their needles in the fall like a deciduous tree. Several years ago I planted a couple of pear trees, a couple of cherry trees, four apple trees and a plum tree. The pear tree has been loaded for the last several years, and lots of pie cherries this year also, but the most fruit we got was apples, about three boxes all together, so we have been making apple crisps for the freezer, and apple pies also for the freezer. I have been having a baked apple for lunch every day for a month now. (Core the apple, fill with brown sugar and raisins, and microwave for three minutes, be sure to cover as they spit during cooking.) We had such a late spring this year so all the fruit was late in ripening, but they all seemed to produce well.

Wordless Wednesday Thanksgiving Postcard

Another postcard from my dad's postcard collection, it is embossed, and blank on the back side.

My Mayflower Lines

When I first started researching I found my Dillinghams came to New England in 1632, and they were Quakers and did not get along with the Puritans so I did not think I would find a Mayflower ancestor, but down a few generations they married into several Mayflower families.

My Mayflower Lines

Alden
1.John Alden
2.Elizabeth Alden - Willaim Pabodie
3.Mary Pabodie – Edward Southworth
4.Mercy Southworth – Moses Soule
5.Barnanas Soule – Jane Bradbury
6.Elizabeth Soule – Enos Chandler
7.Betty/Elizabeth Chandler – Melatiah Dillingham
8.Enos Chandler Dillingham – Clarissa Virgin
9.Stanislaus Potoski Dillingham – Eliza Minerva Hellenbolt
10.Anna M. Dillingham – Anton Mikkel Hansen
11.Claude Dillingham Hansen – Margaret I. Kelly
12.Charles

Cooke
1.Francis Cooke – Hester Mayhieu
2.Jacob Cooke – Damaris Hopkins
3.Elizabeth Cooke – John Doty
4.Samuel Doten – Mercy Cobb
5.Marcy Doty – Edward Dillingham
6.Melatiah Dillingham – Elizabeth Chandler
7.See Number 8 above

Doty
1.Edward Doty – Faith Clark
2.John Doty – Elizabeth Cooke
3.See Number 4 above

Hopkins
1.Stephen Hopkins – Elizabeth Fisher
2.Damaris Hopkins – Jacob Cooke
3.Elizabeth Cooke – John Doty
4.See Numbers 2 and 3 above

Soule
1.George Soule – Mary Becket
2.John Soule – Rebecca Simmons
3.Moses Soule – Mercy Southworth
4.See Number 5 above

Saturday Night Fun Thankful

Hey genea-philes ... it's SATURDAY NIGHT again - time for more GENEALOGY FUN!!!

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

1) Think about the answers to these questions:

a. Which ancestor are you most thankful for, and why?

b. Which author (book, periodical, website, etc.) are you most thankful for, and why?

c. Which historical record set (paper or website) are you most thankful for, and why?

a. Well my mom and dad come to mind first, but my grandmother Cleo Kelly was probably the ancestor that I am most thankful for. Grandma Kelly was the second oldest of 17 children of Orville Travis. Her mother Donna Vanderpool had seven kids and died shortly after child number seven was born and so Orville married Bessie Keith and had ten more kids. If you look at the time between the first three children of Orville and Donna they may have had a couple more as there is almost a four year gap before and after my grandmother was born. Grandma Kelly lived to age 93 and I was 36 when she died, so I knew her longer than any other of my grandparents. She was also the family historian, and collected the Kelly Bible and stacks of newspaper clippings (none with dates or name of the newspaper) on the family, so when I got interested in genealogy I had a pretty good start.

b. Well the author I am most thankful for is Winthrop Alexander author of the Dillingham Family of New England. Winthrop collected information on the Dillingham family for about 50 years. My other grandmother was Anna Dillingham and she was in that book and it took my Dillingham's back to New England in 1632 and into England for another couple of generations, so as a new genealogist to have found information back that many generations was really amazing. Did Winthrop list any sources? Not a single one, but except for a few transposed dates he seems to have gotten all the information in that book correct.

c. The historical record set I am most thankful for is the Washington State Digital Archives. Why I use it almost daily in helping people that send queries to Eastern Washington Genealogical Society.

Genealogy Blogs Survey

I copied this first part from Randy Seaver's Blog GeneaMusings
I received The Weekly Genealogist newsletter from the New England Historic Genealogical Society this morning, and was interested in the results of their survey:

Last week’s survey asked how many genealogical blogs you follow. The results are:

60%, I follow no blogs.
24%, I follow 1–2 blogs.
10%, I follow 3–5 blogs.
2%, I follow 6–10 blogs.
3%, I follow over ten blogs.


The survey respondents (who are those who receive the email newsletter) are, I think, fairly well "tuned-in" to the genealogy world, and yet 60% of them do not read any blogs! And only 3% of them follow over ten blogs. The good news is that 36% follow at least one genealogy blog, and 12% follow more than two blogs.

I think Randy pretty well summed it up above, not every blog post is interesting. but so many are every day that people not reading any are missing out on a lot of information that may help them in researching their ancestors.
My Google Reader says I have subscribed to 297 blogs, and I guess slightly over half are genealogy blogs, but of the top 40 I read every day 25 are not genealogy blogs. I like blogs that have information I can use in researching my family, but I also subscribe to several with general information, and a few just for the great pictures they post as they travel around North America.

Wordless Wednesday Blanchard Idaho Stump Farm

This is my Uncle Leigh Hansen and his mom Anna (Dillingham) Hansen at the "stump farm" at Blanchard Idaho in the 1920s, before they built the house on the homestead.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Politics

Week #46 – Politics

Week 46. Politics. What are your childhood memories of politics? Were your parents active in politics? What political events and elections do you remember from your youth?

I think the first election I remember was the 1956 Presidential election between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson and the new NBC newscasters covering the election, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. After that every Presidential election they covered we always watched Huntley-Brinkley. The 1960 election was real interesting as we had Henry Jackson from Washington running for President, so it was kind of a letdown when John Kennedy won the nomination and eventually the election. The first time I voted in a Presidential election was for Richard Nixon in 1972, don't remember who he ran against, but since Nixon had started a draft lottery, which I won and did not have to go into the military, so he got my vote.
Washington had a blanket primary when I started voting, it had been championed by the grange in the 1930s and it allowed voters in the primaries to vote for anyone they wanted, you did not have to register as a Republican or a Democrat, you could vote for a Republican for one office and a Democrat for the next office and the top vote getter from each party went on to the November election. I am not sure when the Republican and Democratic parties got together and sued the voters of the State of Washington, but they won at the Supreme Court arguing that the voters of Washington State were not voting properly and so our blanket primary was thrown out. Once again the grange went to work and found a primary called the top two, I think it was from Louisiana and the Supreme Court had approved it, so we adopted that and guess what happened, another lawsuit by the Republican and Democratic parties against the voters of Washington State, well this time voters won, so now we vote for the top two candidates for any office and can vote for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc., just like when we had the blanket primaries except the top two do not necessarily have to be the top vote getter from each party. Actually most races do end up with a Republican and a Democrat in the November election, but a few races have either two Republicans or two Democrats on the ballot in November. Guess what? The parties are mad, but since the Supreme Court approved it they have not figured out how to have Republicans picking Republican candidates, and Democrats picking Democratic candidates.

Saturday Night Fun Veterans Service

Dear genealogists everywhere, it's Saturday Night! Time for some Genealogy FUN.

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

1) To celebrate Veterans Day, pick one of your ancestors or relatives with a military record and a gravestone.

2) Tell us about your ancestor's military service.

3) Tell us about your ancestor's gravestone - where is it, what is the inscription, when were you last there? Show us a picture of it if you have one available.

Well the veteran I picked is my dad Claude D. Hansen, and he was in WWII. He was single and 35 when the war started, so he enlisted in the Army Air Corps hoping to not have to do much marching. He was in the 354th Service Squadron and they serviced the B-17s and B-24s. They went first to England, then to Africa where they spent most of the war and finally to Italy. Pop ran the motor pool that kept the jeeps, and trucks and the generator running. Because he was older than most of the others he was rotated home early, and was in Ft. Dix on VE day awaiting the paperwork to leave the Army, and home here in Spokane on VJ day. After VE day the squadron was packed on a ship and was in the Panama Canal when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, so they headed for San Francisco and were mustered out there.


Pop is buried next to mom at Fairmount Memorial Park in Spokane, and I was there last August for Walking With Ancestors.
On Memorial Day they have flags all around the cemetery blocks and all the flags are donated from veterans. You can see pops flag below and the plaque at the base, and a picture of the cemetery flags.

Veterans Day 2011

This is a picture of a parade of men in 1917 in Columbus Montana, looks like a few were in some kind of uniforms, but I do not know the occasion. My dad's family moved to Columbus in 1910 soon after the 1910 census (so they appeared in the Minnesota census). My dad was almost 4 when they moved there and he grew up in Columbus.


The last two years I have made a tribute to my Uncle Leigh Hansen and my father Claude Hansen, both WWII veterans, but before that the next war any of my ancestors participated in was the Blackhawk War, and he did not see any action as they were still in training when Blackhawk surrendered.

Wordless Wednesday Model TT Ford

This is my dad's first truck a Model TT Ford truck, they came with a 20 horsepower 4 cylinder motor and a two speed transmission. I know my dad said he added another transmission behind the original one. He hauled logs with this truck for several years.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Junior High School

Week #45 – Junior High School

Week 45. Junior High School. Describe your junior high school. Was it a large or small student body? Is the school still in existence today? How has it changed since you went there?

I went to Shaw Junior High School, while I lived three blocks from Whitman School and four blocks from Rogers High School. Shaw was 1.4 miles from my house. Why do I know so precisely? If you lived 1.5 miles from Shaw you got to ride the bus, but I was one block too close. Shaw was opened when I was in sixth grade so the building was still pretty new when I started seventh grade. I went three years to Shaw and most of the time I rode my bicycle except when there was snow on the ground. Shaw was built like three "H"s with the gym on the end, so HHH-Gym. The central hall ran north and south with the cafeteria and shops in the north wing, the other three wings had classrooms and at the south end of the central hall was the gym. It had a big sliding door in the middle so it could be divided for girls and boys gyms or opened for convocations. There were about 1300 students there then most from our neighborhood, but some bused from as far away as northwest Spokane in the area served by Salk Middle School now days.



This picture shows the south wing of classes on the left and the gym on the right from the lawn by the flagpole. Today they have changed the name to Shaw Middle School, and it only has 7th and 8th graders and I heard they have closed off a complete wing of the school since they have so many fewer students now.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy High School

Week #45 – High School

Week 45. High School. Describe your middle and/or high school. Was it a large or small student body? Is the school still in existence today? How has it changed since you went there?

I went to John Rogers High School and this first picture is how it looked when my mom went there also. She graduated in January 1933 and Rogers had opened in February of 1932, so she went three years to Hillyard High before Rogers was built.

I went to Rogers for 10th, 11, and 12th grades as 7th, 8th and 9th were in Junior High School. Rogers was four blocks from my house and over thirty years old when I was there, they had built a row of portables behind the school and I had my homeroom in one of the portables. The first floor on the front was a offices for the principal, vice principal and councelors. Second floor in middle was the library and all the rest were classrooms. The building was kind of a rectangle with the auditorium in the middle. I did not know till a long time later that there were windows in the auditorium as they were blacked out for WWII and the black was not removed till long after I was there.
Rogers was actually the smallest of the five high schools in Spokane when I was there but we had about 1800 students most in the top three grades, but it did have a few freshmen as not all the grade schools were close to a junior high school.

In 2005 they started a remodel of Rogers, they removed most of the portables, the band room, cafeteria, the east wing, the old gym and the field house, leaving just the old three story building, and to that they added a two story addition on the south side which includes a common area, more classrooms and two of the biggest gyms I have ever seen. During the remodel the students went to the old building. When the new part was finished they moved the students to the new part and started a complete remodel of the old building (except the auditorium which had been remodeled just a few years before). Part of the money came from the historic preservation fund and so the north side which was the original front is exactly the same as in 1932 except that they replaced all the windows with newer energy efficient windows.

This last picture was from the dedication on September 12, 2009, you can see the old building on the right, and the library is the big curved window facing east, just below the library is the offices, and to the right is one of the gyms. Out in the parking lot is a new clock tower, and it has a purple ribbon on it ready for the ribbon cutting. Rogers colors were purple and gold.
Today they have four grades back in high schools and Rogers is still one of the smallest with around 1000 students there now, but room for more.

Wordless Wednesday Camp 19 Deer

Camp 19 was a logging camp in north Idaho north of Priest Lake in the 1920s. This picture is from my dad's photo album and he worked as a cooks helper at first, and later bought a Model T truck to haul logs.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Elementary School

Week #44 – Elementary School

Week 44. Elementary School. Describe your grammar/elementary school (or schools). Were they big or small? Are any of these schools still in existence today? If so, how have they changed since you went there?


Above is a picture of Whitman School (named for Marcus Whitman an early missionary in Washington State) I went to Whitman for 6 grades in the 1950s, when I started at Whitman as a first grader Whitman actually had 8 grades, but when I started the 6th grade Shaw Junior High opened and they removed 7th and 8th grade from Whitman and several other elementary schools in the north east part of Spokane, Washington. Notice I said I started as a first grader, as the school district had eliminated kinder gardens when I was five years old, due to lack of space and teachers. I did go to kinder garden at the Christian Church on Wellesley and Post.
The low addition on the right of the photo was the library; just left of the stairs was the wood shop, and the next class was home economics. If you can see the last classroom on the left on the third floor, in 6h grade I had a reading class there, but right outside of those windows was an air raid siren just at the same level as the third floor classroom. Hard to read when the siren went off every week.
Whitman was the largest elementary school in the Spokane schools when I was there, about 900 kids even after they removed the 7th and 8th grades.

In 1981 the Whitman School I went to was demolished as they had built a new Whitman School. The big hole in the building was actually where my first grade class was located. Next left was the boiler room. The old building had been condemned by the fire department as a fire hazard, but as you see in the photos it was a concrete building with a brick skin on the outside, not really burnable, but the old building had originally built with forced air heat to each room from the boiler room and the fire department was worried if a fire got started in the boiler room those forced air ducts would carry the smoke to every room in the building. Each class room only had two outlets also, and that was getting to be a hazard for all the extension cords.

When I started at Whitman they had portables all around the paved playground, but during the middle of first grade they built what we called the annex, west of the gym and it was one long building with I think 14 classrooms. I was in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades in the annex, but by the 5th grade they needed more space so 5 portables were added north of the annex and all the 5th grades were in the portables. Sixth grade was back in the old building.
The picture above was when they were tearing the annex apart, each classroom was separated and sold, many were made into houses in the neighborhood. The cement building with the red around the top is the gym of the new Whitman school.

Saturday Night Fun #2,482,867,434

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

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

1) Use the Population Counter on the BBC News website to determine your place in the current world population, and your place in all of history (of course, these are estimates...see the website for how they calculated this). Enter your birth date into the fields and click on "Go."


Well I am number 2,482,867,434 and the 75,499,742,715th person born on the planet.

Wordless Wednesday Palisades Float

1946 Apple Blossom Parade, Palisades Float, in Wenatchee, Washington

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Worst School Subject

Week #43 – Worst School Subject

Week 43. Worst School Subject. What was your worst or least favorite subject in school and why?

Well English was always a struggle for me, but I think the Worst School Subject was PE (Physical Education). Starting about 3rd grade I slowed in my growing, so by the 5th grade I was usually the smallest student in any class. When I started high school as a sophomore (junior high had 9th grade then), I was 4 foot tall and 100 pounds. In the fall, PE started out as football, and if you have ever watched football on TV you seldom see a small person playing football. Next came basketball, and while I was a good basketball shooter, most of my shots were blocked by much taller classmates. I did come in second in a free throw contest, the winner was nearly as small as I was. Wrestling was a good class as I got to compete against kids nearly my own size.
Late in my junior year at high school I started catching up size wise, and after a year in college I finally got my full growth, but still do not really like football or basketball much, do root for the local teams though.

2011 Hayden Lake Family History Seminar

Saturday October 22, 2011 was the 2011 Hayden Lake Family History Seminar at the Hayden Lake LDS Church on W. Hanley in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. This was the first time I have made it to this seminar, seems like I was always pretty busy outside in the garden when they scheduled this seminar, but this year it was raining on the scheduled day, so being in a nice warm and dry building was a plus.
I went to the first session on RootsMagic by Margie Stein Beldin an EWGS member and that class was packed, only problem with that class was it ended way too soon. Margie is an excellent speaker.
The next session I went to was Finding your Ancestors in Historical Newspapers by Miriam Robbins another EWGS member.. Miriam has been working on a website of Online Historical Newspapers for quite a while so she is an expert on online newspapers.
Next was lunch and a free one at that, a long row of crockpots filled with soups of every description, fresh baked rolls and salads.
After lunch was a session on the Family Search Wiki by Connie L. Godak (the seminar chairman). That room was pretty full also and she gave a lot of information on what you can find on the Family Search Wiki, and an offer to submit something to the wiki.
The next session was Scotology: Scottish History & Ancestry by Sandy Doutre. Sandy is a real expert on Scotland and Scottish research, so another good session.
The last session was a webinar by Lisa Louise Cooke on the Ultimate Google Search Strategies. Interesting seminar I have never been to a webinar before.
When the seminar was done we left the building into the bright sun, I thought the rain was over, but we had several more thunder and rain storms starting about dark.

Wordless Wednesday Cashmere Float

This picture was taken in 1946 in Wenatchee, Washington during the Apple Blossom Parade.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Favorite School Subject

Week #42 – Favorite School Subject

Week 42. Favorite School Subject. What was your favorite subject in school and why? Was it also your best subject?

Well I liked History and Science, but my favorite school subject was math. I guess I liked it as numbers came easy for me. Was it my best subject, yes I guess it was, but history and science were close behind.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Favorite Teacher

Week #41 – Teachers

Week 41. Teachers. Did you have a favorite teacher when you were growing up? What class(es) did this person teach and why did he/she make an impact on your life?

This challenge runs from Saturday, October 8, 2011 through Friday, October 14, 2011.

While I had many teachers in my twelve grades, I don't remember any of the early ones making an impact on me. Mr. Migaki in junior high was a great teacher even though a little unconventional at times, but Mr. Mabbott who taught US History in high school was the teacher that made the most impact on me. I was a good student that really did not apply myself a lot in school. Mr. Mabbott was the kind of teacher that really got the best out of everyone. His teaching did not require us to memorize dates, he said you will remember all the important dates, and if you need any other dates you will know where to look them up.
Towards the end of the school year there was a test of all the US History students to pick the top four for an interview with a local historical group. I did not remember the name, but now that I think about it, I think was one of the local DAR groups. Turned out there was eight of us picked, we scored so close that they could not pick the top four. Interesting interview and as a shy person I thought I did well, but they only picked one for the prize, Steve Jones. The rest of us just got honorable mention. Although there was at least three US History teachers, five of the eight came from Mr. Mabbott's classes. My love of history started there and it has served me well as a genealogist.

Saturday Night Fun Statistics

Hey genea-philes - it's Saturday Night! Time for more Genealogy Fun!

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

1) If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database (hint: the Help button is your friend!).

I use Ancestral Quest 12 for my genealogy program. Took a while to find the stats, but I did find them.

Individuals 2065
Marriages 791
Scrapbook 305
Notes 4142 (Note I put all my sources and citations in my notes)
Repositories 0
Sources 0 (see note above)
Citations 0 (see note above)
To Do Items 2
GUID Records 2856

Saturday Night Fun Matrilineal Line

Hey genealogy buffs - it's Saturday Night again -- time for more Genealogy Fun!!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!

2) Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.


Charles Hansen
Margaret Kelly 1914-1994 married Claude Hansen 1906-2008
Cleo Travis 1890-1984 married Charles R. Kelly 1890-1954
Dona Vanderpool 1873-1900 married Orville Travis 1864-1948
Margaret Loe 1837-abt 1901 married Joseph Vanderpool abt 1831-1929
Kessiah Brannam b abt 1810 married John Loe abt 1799-1865

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Least Favorite Foods

Week #39 – Least Favorite Foods

Week 39: Least Favorite Foods. What was your least favorite food from your childhood? Did your parents make you eat it anyway? Do you still dislike the same food today? How have your tastes changed since your youth?

Well it has to be Brussels sprouts and broccoli, both are very bitter and I do remember trying to eat some as a child. Today I still do not like them and so I do not buy them.

WSGS 2011 Building Ancestral Bridges Days 3-6

After we left the conference we headed along the Columbia River to the coast and eventually Ocean Shores, Washington, I took this picture as I was driving along the Columbia River. Don't see any barges in Spokane.

We had checked an there were several state parks along the Columbia, but all were full due to another conference at a winery, and so we were getting pretty tired when we stopped at a Rest Stop. I was worried we would be close to the Burlington Northern Railroad tracks and so I checked with a flashlight and could not see any tracks close to us. This was the sunrise the next morning, and if you look closely you can see several fishing boats fishing for steel head and salmon.

As I was looking over the area after sunrise I found we had stopped on top of a tunnel where the railroad went right under the rest stop. Here is a picture looking east and the next one is looking west.



This one is looking west on the Columbia River.

The path at the rest stop swung around and went by this very big dead tree, says I'm about 300 years old.

When we go to Ocean Shores we alway like to go down to the jetty, and I was sitting on a rock about 3 feet high when this big wave came in and splashed me pretty good.

On the other side of the jetty the waves were even larger, this one was just about to hit the jetty and the spray would go up 15 or 20 feet in the air.

As I was watching the waves crash against the jetty a fishing boat was heading into Grays Harbor. The swells were so big it would go clear out of sight and then come up on top of the wave and look like a surfer heading for shore.