Good News! Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness has been resurrected!

RAOGK (Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) has been resurrected! Posted: 07 Jan 2015 08:20 AM PST Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) has been resurrected.  For more than a decade volunteers helped our community get answers to their questions for just expenses incurred. For some history about the original and how it operated, read Dick Eastman’s post, Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness is Back Online. The website states ... Our volunteers have agreed to do a free genealogy research task at least once per month in their local area as an act of kindness. While the volunteers of Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) have agreed to donate their time for free, you MUST PAY the volunteer for his/her expenses in fulfilling your request (copies, printing fees, postage, film or video tape, parking fees, etc.) if they ask for it. RAOGK is a global volunteer organization. At one time we had over 4000 volunteers in every U.S. state and many international locations, and helped thousands of researchers. We are trying to rebuild the RAOGK site. It will take a little more time to get it back to its former glory. Our volunteers take time to do everything from looking up courthouse records to taking pictures of tombstones. All they ask in return is reimbursement for their expenses (never their time) and a thank you. If you would like to volunteer in your community, at a certain repository, doing photography or in other ways, please register (it’s FREE).  Please do read the FAQ’s For Volunteers before you commit. Interested in making use of RAOGK, please read Request Guidelines before you consult the RAOGK Volunteer Lookup Directory. There is also an option to “Ask the Genealogical Community” a question on the main page. On Facebook, check out the RAOGK FB page. Links are also provided to other volunteer research sites: Gen Gathering (Genealogy) I need your Help Genealogy! Just ask! Do recognize that the volunteers only handle very specific and narrowly-defined tasks.  Do not ask a volunteer to do your entire genealogy.  Do not ask them to do anything beyond what they have offered in their description.  Do plan to pay their expenses.  Do plan to be patient.  Do recognize that they may not be able to do what you ask. Do recognize that their assistance might prove invaluable to your research and please be appropriately appreciative! Have you benefitted from an RAOGK angel?  If so please share! Are you an RAOGK volunteer?  Tell us why you are and what has been your most memorable experience as one.

Jefferson County Obituary Team Named Outstanding Volunteers

Since 2003, the Washington State Genealogical Society has recognized more than 400 outstanding volunteers, nominated by their local society or genealogical organization for their service and dedication. These volunteers are the backbone of their local society, giving their time and expertise, to the organization and the field of genealogy. In the coming months, you will be introduced to each of the 2014 award recipients and learn why they received the 2014 WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award.

 

Today we're introducing one of the local teams that was awarded an Outstanding Volunteer Award: the Jefferson County Obituary Team. The team, which included Lora Eccles and Barbara Larsen, was nominated by the Jefferson County Genealogical Society (JCGS).  They were recognized for spending hundreds of hours ensuring the accuracy of more than 23,000 obituaries in the JCGS obituary files.

 

The JCGS has long maintained an obituary file, from published obituaries in local newspapers from 1889 to present, with a few papers as far back as the 1870s and 1880s. Over the years, many of the entries had become duplicative, as well as some not on the page indicated in the index.

 

When Ms. Eccles and Ms. Larsen became the Obituaries’ Correction Team, they painstakingly matched each entry, page by page, to the index, as well as  removed the duplicate copies. There are 23,000 names in the files, so the project took much longer to complete than originally planned. The project will be competed by the end of the year.

Ms. Eccles’ and Ms. Larsen’s dedication to this project and attention to detail ensured a reliable, accurate source of obituaries. They richly deserved receiving 2014 Outstanding Volunteer Awards.


For more information on the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award program, visit the Recognition page of the WSGS website or contact Roxanne Lowe, Recognition Chair, at Roxanne@thekeeffes.com.

 

Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society News Flash!

January 5, 2015

For Immediate Publication:

The Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society (BIGS) will meet Friday, January 16, 2015, in the Bainbridge Island Public Library Meeting Room from 10:00 AM until noon.  The topic will be "A Road to Anywhere is a Road to Nowhere," a facilitated discussion on setting and sharing individual goals, areas of interest, and ways to collaborate.  Visit with members to find out what BIGS offers to those who join.  

Free to members, $5.00 donation suggested for nonmembers.  For more information go to www.bigenealogy.org, or call 206-842-4978.  BIGS is a 501c(3) non-profit organization.

Thank you!

Sylvia H. Nelson

PR Director

Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society

206-842-4978

Fort Bellingham........... Have you visited there?

Have you ever visited the site of Fort Bellingham? This short-lived fort (1856-1860) was built by U.S. Army Captain George E. Pickett and Co. D of the 9th U.S. Infantry out of Fort Steilacoom. Construction began in August of 1856 on a bluff overlooking Bellingham Bay in Whatcom County in Washington. The purpose of the fort was to prevent attacks by Indians from Canada and the Russian territory on the bayside villages of Fairhaven, Sehome and Whatcom. The fort was abandoned in 1860.

Quoting from Wikipedia:  "In his report of December 1858 Inspector General Joseph K.F. Mansfield wrote, “The Barracks, storehouses & officers quarters, are within an enclosed square, of about 80 yards the side. The fort is made of pallisades set in the ground, loopholed for musketry and flanked by two Blockhouses two stories high, pierced for mountain howitzers and loopholed: and is provided with 3 gates ... All the buildings are one story. The buildings were wood framed. Barracks had a mess hall, & kitchen, & bakery attached, and was ample."

The fort was abandoned on 28 Apr 1860 and the troops were removed to American Camp by the steamer Massachusetts. Only traces of the fort remain today but the private house in Whatcom that housed Captain George E. Pickett and his Indian wife is preserved at 910 Bancroft Street. Fort Bellingham was located about 3 1/2 miles west of the Pickett house on a parcel now occupied by the greenhouses of Smith's Gardens off Marine Drive. The fort was largely dismantled and moved to American Camp on San Juan Island during the "Pig War". 

This U.S. Army Captain George E. Pickett was one and the same who led the famous Pickett's Charge at the Civil War battle at Gettysburg in 1863. 

Kittitas County Genealogical Society News Flash!

Tonight, Monday, January 5^th, 7:00 pm, is the meeting of the Kittitas County Genealogy Society,  413 N Main St in Ellensburg.

If you wish to participate in the program, come ready to talk for 2 minutes tonight about an object that is important to your own family history. It would help our program if you’d write down your story before the meeting and plan to read it.

SUMMER NEWS:  The WSGS conference this year will be hosted by KCGS and will be in Ellensburg, 26-27 June at the Ellensburg (Quality) Inn on South Main Street. Friday morning the KCGS might have a barn quilt tour and perhaps a midday tour of the Central Washington branch of the Washington State Archives.

Saturday June 27th will be the main convention speaker all day, Dave Rencher, well known in all genealogy circles but known especially as an Irish research specialist and is past CEO of FamilySearch.org. He will present four lectures on that Saturday.

~~Tuck Forsythe

Our Washington State Regional Archives

I picked up this colorful flyer at the Yakima Museum when several of us attended the Seminar for Non-Profits offered to those sorts of societies of all sorts within Washington State.  (I sat next to a husband and wife team who were with the Washington Bee Keepers' Association.)

Two very nice gals from the State Archives were there handing out this flyer........ which I share with you today. 

Please notice that this flyer, these regions of the state archives, independent but partners with the Washington State Digital Archives housed in Cheney on the campus of Eastern Washington University.

The 2-story building there houses both the Eastern Washington Branch of the Washington State Archives and  the Digital Archives for the entire state.  Rather confusing at first, but it does make sense with time and thinking. 

So which branch of our State Archives would hold the county records for your ancestors????  Have you ever thought to contact them and/or visit for research? Perhaps that might be a good New Year's Resolution? 

Need A Good Book To Read?

The Lost Ancestor: A Genealogical Crime Mystery

Morton Farrier, who terms himself a forensic genealogist, loves to solve genealogical mysteries. 

When a dying client, Ray Mercer, approaches him and requests that Morton find out what happened to his great aunt. “I want to know what happened to her before I die,” Ray tells Morton.  Thus begins the story of how Morton learns the story of Mary Mercer, born in 1893 in the town of Winchelsea, Sussex, who disappeared from the family in 1911 and died………… well, you’re going to have to read the story for yourself.

This is Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s second novel and is just as gripping as was his first, Hiding the Past. Through the character of Morton Farrier, he takes us to local research repositories and orders records from the Public Record Office. He freely uses Ancestry.UK. All of this is good teaching to us the readers and we scarcely know we’re being taught because we are so caught up in the story.

How does Morton piece together these puzzle pieces:  red hair, Scotland, The Keep, duties of a maid, twins, Nova Scotia and a lily pond? You’ll just have to read The Lost Ancestor and find out for yourself.

This book may be ordered from Amazon as a Kindle edition for $6.89. Look for (and Like) Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s page on Facebook. 

I have read both books; both were great reads! I would 100% recommend them to anybody who enjoys a good mystery story with a generous sprinkling of genealogy mixed in.