*** NWGC….. Save the Date! Are you going?
*** Washington Rural Heritage…. do you know about this?
*** King County Court Cases Index, 1881-1980 Available
*** “Tons of Soil Go Into Sea”
“Where does your story begin?” That is the 2017 theme for the Northwest Genealogy Conference, sponsored by the Stillaguamish Valley Gen Society next 16-19 August in Arlington. Click to www.stillygen.org for more information. This is a fabulous event and worth your time, money and effort to attend. WSGS will have a large presence at this conference. Get registered and stay tuned!
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“Washington Rural Heritage provides access to digitized historic primary sources documenting the early culture, industry, and community life of Washington State. The collection is an ongoing project of small, rural libraries and partnering cultural institutions, guided by an initiative of the Washington State Library.” So states the introduction to their website, www.washingtonruralheriage.org. The website tells us that (as of when I printed this out a while ago) there were over 102 participating institutions and 288 privately held collections throughout the state. This project spotlights little rural places like the Kettle Falls Public Library, Lopez Island Historical Society, Cathlament Public Library and the Battle Days Museum. Quoting again from the website, “The physical collections are housed locally by owning institutions around the state, while the digital collections are housed by the Washington State Library. Participating institutions select, scan, and describe items which tell the stories of their communities.” If your Washington ancestor lived in a small (rural) place, do check this out.
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For a $5 fee, The Seattle Genealogical Society will search for your ancestor’s name in the index they compiled to the King County Court Cases for the years 1881-1980. SGS compiled this information from a card file of 100 boxes and contains over 1.7 million entries encompassing “virtually every case” in the following categories: Marriage disolutions and divorces; wills and other probate actions; changes of name; guardianships; community property agreements; bankruptcies and commitments. To take advantage of this opportunity, click to www.seattlegenealogicalsociety.org and follow directions to submit a query from the KC31 database. If your ancestor’s name is found in the index, for an additional fee to the King County Court Clerk will get you a copy of the entire file.
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From The Washington Farmer, January 19, 1933, article by W.A. Rockie, Superintendent, Northwest Soil Erosion Station, Pullman: “How many of you have been at Palouse Falls in Adams county, Wash, in the springtime? Once seen, one cannot forget it. In the early spring months the snow is melting from the Palouse region and the water flowing down there streams at this season is not clear, but a chocolate brown in color.” The article is a long one and I shall glean from the rest of it: “This flood of muddy water has been gathered from thousands of Palouse farms…… by measurements a typical Palouse slope land for winter wheat lost about 30 tons of soil per acre last year….the Palouse River drains about 3600 square miles and so an estimated 35,000,000 tons of soil from highly productive land is lost every year…..These lands are one of the mos valuable assets of the Pacific Northwest but they cannot continue to produce abundantly as they do now unless they are farmed differently than is being done today.” Isn’t it good that those farming practices did change!