52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy Genealogy Society Members

Week #48 – Genealogy Society Member

Week 48: Genealogy Society Member. Genealogy society members are a vital part of the family history community. We’ve made many acquaintances this way and we all benefit from their friendship, support and expertise. Share with us a genealogy society member that has left a memorable impression on you.

Well this one is pretty hard to pick out just one Eastern Washington Genealogical Society member that made a memorable impression on me. So lets start at the beginning, The first EWGS memorable member was Donna Potter Phillips, She was teaching the beginning class at the community college and got both me and my sister to join EWGS. The next person that had a memorable impression was Ray Fisher, he was passing out Prodigy floppy disks and told everyone to join the Prodigy Genealogy Bulletin Board. On Prodigy I was in awe of the people that knew so much about researching their ancestors and I knew so little, but I read and read and learned a lot. Next was Carolyn Weidner, she was the volunteer coordinator for the library volunteers and talked me and my sister into volunteering at the library in the genealogy section. Ray Fisher and Carolyn gave us the grand tour and then we were the volunteers on the second Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. We did that for 5 years, until Ray Fisher decided to retire from his job as EWGS researcher for others and I switched to that job which I continue to do today. There are a couple of more memorable EWGS members, Bette Topp and Doris Woodward. Bette is a cousin and has probably done more for EWGS and held more offices than any other living member of EWGS. Doris was the Bulletin editor when I joined EWGS and a wonderful editor. Doris helped me to write articles for the Bulletin, which was and is hard for me, I was never good at writing and spelling is always a challenge, glad we have spell checkers today, but she encouraged me to write and she corrected  my grammar and made me look like a good writer. Doris and I co-authored a reply to Family Search when they were looking for help with their Washington Resource Guide, and you can still see parts of what we wrote in the current Washington Resource Guide.

Wordless Wednesday Fixing the Christmas Tree

Another postcard from my dad's collection, this one postmarked December 21, 1914 at Bisbee, Arizona.

Really wished I knew who Minnie and Milton Anderson are?

Saturday Night Fun Baby Names

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (where's my Mission Impossible music...drat, lost it), is:

This SNGF is based on the Baby Name Wizard at www.babynamewizard.com.  

1)  Go to the Baby Name Wizard site and see how popular your name was over the 20th century, and how popular a baby name it is today.  Check out your spouse, your children and your grandchildren (if you have some!) also.  

2)  What does your name mean (find out on http://www.babynamewizard.com/baby-name)?

Well Charles is from Germanic Karl (full grown, a man)

Michael (my middle name) from Hebrew (Who is like god)

My parents Claude from the Latin Claudius an old Roman family name.

Margaret from the Greek (A pearl)

Wordless Wednesday Thanksgiving Greetings

Another postcard from my dad's collection, the back is blank.

Saturday Night Fun 100 Word Challenge

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (where's my Mission Impossible music...drat, lost it), is:

This SNGF is based on the 100 Word Challenge (http://100wc.net/) that school children are participating in around the world.  They are given a word or phrase to write a story about in exactly one hundred words.  Last week, it was "Grandparents are important because..."  We all know that gran

1)  Write a story using the phrase "Grandparents are important because" in 100 words.  [Hint:  If you write it in a word processor, you can use Tools > Word Count (or similar) to count words]




Grandparents are important as we would not be here without grandparents. I did not know three of my grandparents much, my moms father died when I was five years old and I hardly remember him, but I did inherit his tools and those of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Both of my fathers parents died when I was 12, but since they did not live very close (30+ miles) we did not get to see them a lot. They lived on a farm and I did like to visit the farm.

My moms mother lived longer than all my other grandparents as I was 34 when she died although for the last four years she hardly knew anybody. She was the family historian, a wonderful baker, a great gardener, good at canning, and sewing. I learned a lot from her, just wished I had listened to her family stories more.

Yellowstone Park Buffalo

Another of my dad's postcards from his collection. The back is blank.

Veterans Day 2012

The last three years I have posted tributes to my dad and my uncle Leigh, both WWII vets and a picture of a bunch of men marching in 1917 some in uniform in Columbus Montana, so you can find them here.

Early today my sister picked me up and we headed for Priest River, Idaho to the cemetery there to make sure my Uncle Leigh Hansen had a flag by his grave for Veterans Day. It had snowed Friday night, but since the ground was still pretty warm it had not stuck on any of the gravestones.

Saturday Night Fun TMRUA

1) Who is your TMRUA - your Third Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the third lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name. 

2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed? 

3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your TMRUA?

Well I have 7 brick wall ancestors in my great-great grandparents so I picked by birth date of the seven. The closest is Sadie Jane Selsor born 1832, second closest is her husband Joseph Hert, and third is Thomas D. Kelly born April 25, 1827 near Louisville, Kentucky.
Thomas  is one of my earliest brick walls, and trying to find his parents is frustrating due to so many Kellys in the area Thomas was born. While I have not checked Family Search in years that is probably where I need to start looking again.

Wordless Wednesday Yellowstone Bears

Another postcard from my dad's collection, back is blank.

Saturday Night Fun Great Grandma Roulett

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 

1) What year was one of your great-grandmothers born?  Divide this number by 90 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel" - your software will create this - use the "Ahnentafel List" option, or similar). Who is that person, and what are his/her vital information?

3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number."

1) Karen Jorgensen  1840
Eliza Mineva Hellenbolt  1845
Vada Belle Hert  1871
Dona Vanderpool  1873

Divide any of these numbers by 90 and they all come out 20 and a fraction more, so #20 is Enos Dillingham

2) Enos was the son of Melatiah and Elizabeth "Betsey" (Chandler) Dillingham. Betsey was a descendant of George Soule of the Mayflower

3) Enos married twice: Clarissa Virgin first and when she died Elizabeth Benjamin

4) Enos was a cabinet maker and lived most of his life in Dixfield, Maine