Courtesy of Islington.gov.uk Thank You! Volunteer Recognition Day is observed every year on April 20. In addition, National Volunteer Week is celebrated from April 14 to 20. During this week, volunteers are recognized for their selfless contributions to help others and promote good causes. At SKCGS we are always appreciative of the efforts of our many volunteers, regardless of the size of the job or amount of time of involvement.  As in an exquisite machine, every cog, regardless of size, is important for the smooth operation of the whole. SKCGS operates totally on the service o ..read more

https://www.vecteezy.com/free-photos/blockchain Stock photos by Vecteezy Why? Why do we continue to do this work of family history and genealogy? After all, it can be very difficult sometimes, and depending on what we uncover, even painful. We often deal with records that many people regard as dusty old relics of the past, boring or even impossible  to read and understand. It can be expensive; many of the repositories and relatives we need to consult with are distant; travel is not free! Even when we use online services, the prices of most of them keeps rising. We want mor ..read more

Your Research Question Equals the Size of the Puzzle As usual, when trying to think of what to write about, something prompts the writer; and for me that is often what I've been recently working on. These days, I'm puzzling over my DNA matches tracing back to my third-great-grandparents, George Henry and Martha Willis McBee. Thrulines® at Ancestry.com has been a useful map from my ancestors to the matches.  The Map Is Not The Territory But ThruLines® are not "True" lines. They are created by algorithms from Ancestry user trees including our own; all trees are imperfect ..read more

Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will eventually allow us to do just that. It ..read more

FAN Research: Riches Ahead! It isn't all mysteries and adventure; by following the FANs (Family, Associates & Neighbors), fascinating stories can be unearthed. Families intertwine in the most interesting patterns. Digging in the dirt, as in archaeology, beauty sometimes emerges.  I found an image which reminds me of this family, created centuries ago by the Minoans, now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. Isn't it gorgeous? Courtesy of Mark Cartwright, published on 4 September 2017. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: C ..read more

AI: Bing Image Creator Generated Changing realities force many of us to consider the future of our genealogical collections. Whether a change in health, a new location or even just downsizing, it can be useful to evaluate what we have now, with an eye to the future. What we can pass along? Plan Ahead First: if you have online trees, create a plan to grant access to interested fellow researchers, even distant cousins. Depending on the website, you may need to add a codicil to your will, or just tell the site whom your successor will be.  Ancestry.com: there are two ..read more

Citation Needed:March for Science in Washington, DC by Adam Fagen on Flickr Citations! So necessary to our work, and so dreaded. We all know we will thank ourselves later if we write them, but somehow..... don't.  Why do we need them? Of course we want to keep track of what and where we found the source of the information we're using in our research and writing. That is our duty to ourselves.  However, to me, the most important aspect of writing citations is analysis. Analysis What is this record? Who created it, when and where, and who collected and kept it safe? Who was ..read more

FamilySearch Family Tree logo: Wikimedia Commons Why Not? Many of us hesitate to use the FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT) because we don't have complete control over the profiles of those who've died, nor to whom they are linked. These are valid points. However, if each user carefully links all the important sources to each profile and writes informative "reason statements" when adding them, the profiles are rarely changed. Instead, they are found by other relatives who can attach records and images you may not have access to, such as family photos, Bible records, etc.  The FSFT ..read more

Screen capture from Google Maps History In an exchange of emails this past week in both the main SKCGS group, and in the Washington-State-Genealogy group, many facts were revealed about the history of the I.O.O.F. Comet Lodge Cemetery, also known as the Old Burying Ground, the Georgetown Cemetery, the Graham Street Burying Ground and maybe more.  FindAGrave sums it up this way: "Since it was established in 1881, the Comet Lodge cemetery site has been whittled away to less than half its original 5 acres. Records are sketchy but it's safe to say that some 500 pioneers were burie ..read more

Flickr: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ We all knew how to do this as kids. Even once we started in school, there were summer vacations, and most of us -- at least the lucky ones -- played and did our chores without needing much direction. However, as we matured, the thoughts of jobs, careers, supporting ourselves, beginning families, created a structure that for many, left little feeling of creativity and freedom. In truth, the decisions we made in the past steered us to this moment, reading this post! Charter Members Forty years ago, folks in the south King Coun ..read more