** Banks Lake & the Rainbow
** Digital Public Library of America
** Going to Salt Lake City and the Family History Library?
** Norwegian Ten Commandments
** Check Out HistoryGeo.com (thanks Jeanine Barndt)
Last August, hubby and I spent a few sunshiny happy days on Banks Lake. One morning a thunderstorm came up and created a double rainbow! We live in such a beautiful state!
Do you know the history of this man-made lake? According to Wikipedia:
Banks Lake is a 27-mile long reservoir in central Washington in the United States. Created at the time of the Grand Coulee Dam, the reservoir was planned to irrigate the entire central basin of Washington. This eventually did happen, and is on-going, but electricity produced by the dam is also of vital importance.
Due to the nature of the lake, lying as it does within the walls of a basaltic coulee, there are few access points. To me this makes it a boater’s paradise where you can nearly have the entire lake to yourself. And the water gets delightfully warm enough for swimming! If you’d like to visit, check out Steamboat Rock State Park.
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Ever used the DPLA? The Digital Public Library of America? The DPLA is one of the most useful online libraries available today. It is new, having been formed less than two years ago. It is not a genealogy library. Rather, it is a general purpose library that just happens to have a lot of genealogy material in addition to other topics. The DPLA’s mission is to make cultural and scientific works more accessible to the public.
Dick Eastman, in his weekly online newsletter, wrote about the DPLA back in February 2015. At the time of his newsletter, he wrote that the DPLA listed over 8,000,000 items in its catalog from libraries, archives and museums. (Just checked; now it’s over 13,000,000.) Doing a search on the word genealogy returned a list of 65,707 items available via the library’s online portal.
The DPLA serves as a portal to provide new ways to search and scan through the united collection of millions of items that may be stored on any of thousands of other library websites. This alone gives me reason to want to know more. Of course there is a YouTube video about the DPLA for your viewing educational pleasure.
Check it out: www.dp.la (Yes, a pretty simple web address.)
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How to prepare to visit the Family History Library in Salt Lake City….. are you planning a visit anytime soon? Especially if it’s your first time, please do take advantage of the tips listed below in the FamilySearch Wiki article: Go toFamilySearch Wiki
- Click on Family History Library
- Click Visit to the Library.
Another Suggested method found on the updated FamilySearch site
- Click onwiki.familysearch.org/en/Main_Page
- Click onFamilySearch Centers.
- Click onTheFamily History Library Salt Lake City, Utah.
4 Click for Additional Library Information
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Barbara Zanzig, a friend with whom I rendezvous every year at the Salt Lake Christmas Tour, shared with me the Ten Commandments with a distinctive Norwegian flavor and twist. I share them with you. You’ll love ‘em!
Da Ten Commandments
1. Der’s only one God, ya know.
2. Don’t be idolizing dat fish on yer mantle.
3. Cussin’ ain’t Minnesota nice.
4. Go to church even when yer up nort.
5. Honor yer folks.
6. Don’t kill; Catch an’ release.
7. Der’s only one Lena fer ever Ole. No cheatin’.
8. If it ain’t yer lutefisk, don’t take it.
9. Don’t be braggin’ ’bout how much snow ya shoveled.
10. Keep yer mind off yer neighbor’s hotdish.
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Did your ancestors settle in western states and were first landowners? If so, you can find the information about their land at www.historygeo.com. Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming land records were recently added to the database. I don’t have ancestors in those states but I did find great-great-grandfather in Kansas. Doing a search on some surnames of those I know settled in these areas produced a lot of results. Check this database for your ancestors. Read the article about these 3.3 million original landowners added to historygeo.com.
Blog.historygeo.com/2015/06/08/western-states-added-to-first-landowners-project/
(Jeanine Barndt is the Head Librarian for the Heritage Quest Research Library in beautiful downtown Sumner, Washington; this bit is from the HQRL Newsletter for Fall 2015.)