Among many others, I’ve been “Scribing” or helping to index Washington records with SCRIBE, the indexing program of the Washington State Archives. As I’m working, I cannot help but think “what happened to THAT family, to THOSE people?” Recently I indexed the family of Leander Monson who in 1904 and 1906 (according to the school censuses) lived in Langley, Island County, Washington. Doing a little Ancestry supplemental research I learned about the Monsons.

Leander Otto Monson (1854-1908) and his wife, Emma Johansson (1861-1934) were both born in Switzerland; they married near Chicago. He was a farmer and ended up in Langley having Esther, Elvira, Arthur, Ernest, Florence and Carl.

The stories of our ancestor’s migrations are wonderful to imagine and/or to find and read.