Genealogy

This Veteran's Day is more special than usual because this is the centenary of the Armistice in Europe. So I was very excited to discover that my aunt Florence Estella Rawles who was born and died in Montana (1925-2007), trained for the World War II Cadet Nursing Corps in both Montana State College in Great Falls, Montana and in Providence Hospital in Seattle! It seems that the war was over before she was sent to serve, and later married my uncle Hollis McBee. When I shared this new information with some of my genealogy buddies, David got excited because he also had an aunt who served in the Nursing Corps, and also trained in or around Seattle. However, it turns out that his aunt served in the Great War, which we now call the First World War. David sent me his research on his great-aunt, which has been written up so well that this will be a guest post. "Zowitza Nicholas left Dawson to study nursing in Seattle. She joined the American nursing corps and served in France, ...

SKCGS is on the move! At the last Board Retreat, we created a twitter account and set up a blog. Follow @skcgs1 and watch the website to see the blog go live soon. Our newsletter will publish a final issue, at which point our blog will be our broadcast to the world about South King County past, records and stories and how you can help our society preserve and educate about these resources. The big story is our Seminar which is coming up Saturday, September 22 at Salish Hall on the Green River College campus in Auburn. Register now! http://skcgs.org/2018-seminar.html If you have not yet registered, please do it now!

If you have been considering buying a DNA test to use for genealogy, here are a few things to consider. First, have you found most of your ancestors through old-fashioned research? If not, DNA might not yield you much information. That said, even if you are adopted and don't know much about your birth lineage, with a lot of work, you can make some matches, and learn more. However, the more you know, the better you will be able to use what you learn from DNA. Next, what sort of test will help you learn the most? If you want to learn more about your "surname line," that of your birth father, his father, and on up -- then you want a yDNA test, and FamilyTreeDNA is the only place to get it. You will need a male of this line to do the test; daughters do not inherit their father's yDNA. Of course, you can test a male in *each* of your surname lines, but again, this only tells you about the male lines. You will want to test as many markers as you can afford; at least ...

Given the way that autosomal DNA tests for genealogy work, there are two things that are important for success in using that DNA data to find matches: finding your ancestors back to ten generations, and finding all possible descendants from them. I came to this conclusion after reading the excellent blog post, How Much of Your Family Tree Do You Know? And Why Does That Matter?   where the author says, whenever we make a conclusion about a particular ancestor or ancestral couple based on segments of DNA shared with a relative, we absolutely must address whether we do, or could, share other ancestors with that relative. The author made a nice little chart summarizing how much he knew, so I did the same thing. Mine is not as pretty, but here it is anyway: Key:   Generation: from me; Relationship: to me; Date of Birth: roughly averaged; Matches: description; # Poss. Anc.: total number of possible ancestors in each generation; # Identified: number of ancestors identified...

Quick shout-out to the fine work that Iowa GenWeb does. My mother was born in Warren County, and her Baysingers, Disneys, Goosics had all been there for generations. Her father's people, the McBees were there for a time as well. (Below is what is found for the Baysingers, not including the Census, which I find at MyHeritage.) Tonight I happened upon a database I've never heard of before, the OLD AGE PENSION TAX LIST – 1935 Otter Township Assessor’s List of Those Subject to Old Age Pension Tax for the Year 1935,  Otter Township, Warren County, Iowa , Filed March 16, 1935 by A. H. Traub, Warren County Auditor To the Treasurer of said County: This book contains a complete list, arranged alphabetically, of residents of Otter Township in the said county, who are over 21 years of age, and subject to a tax of $2.00, payable in 1935 for the benefit of the Old Age Pension Fund, as required by Section 34, Chapter 19, Acts of the Forty-fifth General Assembly in extraordinary sessio...

I've loved the search for genealogy and my family's history since my children were young. I wanted to understand my roots, and why some of the difficulties my family endured happened, and how those events changed all those who were touched by them. I found young orphans, babies born before marriage, rape, and tragic death by fire among the more normal events. I've also found some family lines that are rather well-researched, which took away the challenge. For some years other projects took my time. Then, the yDNA tests became affordable, and I bought an Family Tree DNA kit for my dad for Father's Day. Because those "beginner kits" don't tell you much, and have far too many meaningless matches, I kept paying for upgrades, all the way up to 67 markers. This took his high-quality matches down to under 10, but as we followed up on these matches, we realized that this line of Cowans came from Stirling, in Scotland. The recorded part of the family went to t...

Cleverly titled Sex in Middlesex: Popular Mores in A Massachusetts County, 1649-1699 by Roger Thompson (University of Massachusetts Press; 1986) is a readable socialogical look at the lives of adolescents, married people, families and communities in early Puritan Massachusetts. The stories are drawn from early court records, and are very engagingly written for a socialogy treatise. Some very nice punning. :-) Anyone with Puritan ancestors will find the stories interesting, and the conclusion that our pious ancestors were not so dour and rigid as we might think. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. - Albert Einstein

I read a wonderful comment today on Dick Eastman's site, by Geoff Riggs ... Genealogy is the bones - gathering of the facts about ones ancestors such as names, dates, places. Family History is 'putting the flesh on the bones' - finding the stories, history, geography, and so forth that shaped the lives of our ancestors. Rudyard Kipling wrote: I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who I added a second verse to this some years ago: For pure Genealogists 'Who, When and Where?' suffice But Family Historians> Add 'Why, What, How?' for spice Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. - Eugene S. Wilson

Prosopography: the study of collective biography, for individuals of a certain group (social class, profession, time frame, geographic origin, etc.). By accumulating data on individuals in a group, one learns more about the group. The term may have been coined by anthropologists but it is widely used among medieval historians, particularly social historians. - Nathaniel Taylor, ntaylor@fas.harvard.edu freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~randyj2222/gendictp.html Prosopography is an important methodological tool within historical research, its goal being the collection of all known information about individuals within a given period, often in the form of a register or database (frequently also known as a "Prosopography", e.g. The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopography Thanks to Sharon Sergeant of the APG list for introducing me to this term. She references Mel Wolfgang's presentation Researching 'Birds of a Feather'...

William Briggs DISNEY 1853-1912 had children by 1. Mary WALTERS: Foresman lists Hester as the first child, with no dates, but I see no evidence of her (note at end of post). Roy Lee DISNEY will be covered next. My great-grandmother Minnie DISNEY is covered here: John BAYSINGER, Viola, Minnie and children I. George L. G. (Luther Granville) Disney is 6 in the 1880 census, born in Arkansas. Foresman says he born 1873, and I think he must have been named for his uncle George Luther DISNEY. He married Ava Marie WELSH 1896, and had sons Cecil (1898-1980, born Illinois) and Luther Granville (1906-1965). I can't find him after 1920, so perhaps he died between 1920 & 1930. The Illinois Marriage database has a listing for: DISNEY, GEORGE marrying WELSH, NORA ELLEN on 10/24/1896. Vol. 00E page 43 in WARREN County, IL. 1900 United States Federal Census (index spelling correction submitted to Ancestry) Name: Geo L Disoney Home in 1900: Berwick, Warren, Illinois Age: 26 Estimated birt...

William Briggs DISNEY was the son of George Disney and Anne Elizabeth ANDERSON, born 22 Jul 1853, in Iowa , according to his death certificate. George joined sister Amelia Jane and brother George Luther, and was followed by Martin Luther in 1847, and Alice A. who died in 1852 at age two. His father George died 8 Aug 1855 at age 39. His little brother Martin Luther also died in 1855, and his mother followed them in death in 1856, leaving little William an orphan at age three. They are all buried in Carlisle Cemetery, Allen Township, one-helf mile from the town of Carlisle, Warren County, Iowa. I've never found them in any 1850 Census, but I believe this is the family in the 1853 Iowa State Census, living in Warren County. GN Disney, with 3 females, and 3 males. That would be daddy George, sons George Luther or Martin Luther, and William Briggs; mama Ann Elizabeth, and daughters Amelia Jane and Alice A. Source Information: Ancestry.com. Iowa State Census Collection, 1836-1925 [datab...

Create your own timeline : http://www.ourtimelines.com/ , HistoryWorld : http://www.historyworld.net/default.asp Step-By-Step: Creating A Timeline : http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=6529&o_iid=831&o_lid=831&o_it=831 Food - what people ate: http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food.html This Day in American Weather History : http://www.weatherforyou.com/history/ American (Smithsonian): http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/timeline.htm    Interesting animated timeline/atlas: http://www.animatedatlas.com/movie2.html - great little 10 minute brush-up on the highlights of US history Australian : http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/timeline/ British : http://www.britannia.com/history/time1.html     BBC : http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/     Ulster : http://www.cruithni.org.uk/ Scottish : http://members.aol.com/skyelander/timeline.html Upper Canada - later Ontario, Canada : http://www.uppercanadagenealogy.com/chronologyS.htm...

Annually, both the Federation of Genealogy Societies (FGS) and the National Genealogy Society (NGS) hold conventions. Both are full of excellent classes and workshops. Also, the Association of Profession Genealogists (APG) holds a Roundtable or Conference before these national conferences. FGS : http://www.fgs.org/ NGS : http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/    Home Study Course also available on CD APG : http://www.apgen.org/conferences/roundtable.html , http://www.apgen.org/conferences/    The APG list is also essential: http://www.apgen.org/publications/apg-l/ National Institute on Genealogical Research : http://www.rootsweb.com/~natgenin/    An-depth look at federal records of genealogical value located primarily in Washington, D.C. Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy : http://www.infouga.org/ Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research , Samford Univ., Birmingham AL: http://www.samford.edu/schools/ighr/ighr.html UWExtension offers a 9-mo...