Author Archives: Donna Phillips

Let’s Talk About….Black Loyalist Heritage Centre

by Donna Phillips

February being Black History Month, thought I’d share this bit with you:

If your knowledge of Black History in America was as spotty as mine then when those terms come up, you first think of southern slavery and possibly some in colonial New England. But Canada? Nova Scotia? Yes, indeed!

One of Canada’s best kept secrets, the largest free Black settlement in the 1780s where people voted with their free for freedom, is the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre. This is a unique historical site, nestled in beautiful Birchtown on the western shores of Shelburne Harbour in Nova Scotia. 

This Centre (yes, centre…. Canadian spelling) tells the story of the arrival of the Black Loyalists seeking freedom on these shores at the end of the 18th century. At that time, they represented the largest free Black settlement outside of Africa. 

A quote from their website:  Welcome to the Black Loyalists Digital Collections site.

This site explores an untold story of our nation’s history: how Canada became the home of the first settlements of free blacks outside Africa.

As Revolution began in the thirteen American colonies in the late 1770s, the British were badly outnumbered. When in desperation they promised freedom to any slave of a rebel who fought the Americans on their behalf, the response was greater than they could have imagined; as many as 30 000 slaves escaped to British lines. Working as soldiers, labourers, pilots, cooks, and musicians, they were a major part of the unsucessful British war effort. As defeat became inevitable, these free blacks were evacuated to Nova Scotia with the other Loyalists.

But their hoped-for promised land never arrived. Their land was never granted, and most were reduced to a position not so different from slavery, where they were dependent on the meagre wages they could earn from manual labour. In the end most chose to seek a new life in Sierra Leone, away from the cold lands where they had experienced so much prejudice.

This is the story of those Black Loyalists.

Let’s Talk About…. It’s A Wonder We Survived

by Donna Phillips

Cocaine toothache drops for teething toddlers??? Guess it WOULD work, but would you have???


 Yes, it is a wonder that our ancestors survived the medical knowledge and practices of their times. Most any page on an old newspaper will regale you with “Miracle Cures!”  “Drunkeness Cured!” “Blindness Prevented & Cured!” Really? In reality, I’ll bet many of our ancestors suffered the same physical ailments that we have today but relief was not often in sight. 

Here’s what the ads explained and promised:

“BLINDNESS, prevented and cured by the great “Actina,” an electrical pocket battery which removes cataracts, pterygiums (?) and cures granulated lids. 18 years of proof given; no cutting or drugging. Write for our 80-page directory of diseases.”

“COMBINATION MUD BATHS, wonderful cures have been effected by taking the famous Medical Lake Mud Baths. Rheumatism, eczema and all know diseases quickly and permanently cured. We have a modern plant; our bath house has 39 tubs, all cement. Our experience is sufficient to warrant satisfaction. Medical Lake Sanitarium, Mud Pumped from the Bottom of the Lake.” 

“DRUNKENESS CURED,  Any woman can cure her husband, son or brother of liquor drinking by secretly placing this remedy in his coffee, tea or food without his knowledge, as the remedy is entirely odorless and tasteless. Any good and faithful woman can wipe out this fearful evil and permanently stop the craving for liquor….the sight or odor of whiskey will soon make him sick. Any one who will send their name and address and 4-cents in stamps to cover postage (to St. Louis) will receive by mail, sealed in a plan wrapper, a free package of this wonderful remedy and full instructions how to cure the liquor habit.” 

I found this wonderful article in Nostalgia magazine, December 2006, article by Hilda Maston.

Let’s Talk About…. Tribute To My John

by Donna Phillips



Today is my hubby, John Charles Phillips, 81st birthday. He, like many of us, never guessed he’d ever be “so old,” as he says. Here he is at his father’s grave (Charles Alexander Phillips, 1906-1961, Shelton, WA, on top) and his mother’s (Esther Mary Oswald, 1913-1998, Spokane.) 

I’ve had some good luck researching his family. For a time, he was an avid bagpipe player and so wanted me to find his Scottish ancestry. Alas, best I could do was Scots-Irish, the Phillips coming into Colonial America and migrating to Georgia after the Revolution when there was land to be had. Seaborn Phillips survived his wounds at Gettysburg in the Civil War and died in Texas (Texas paid pensions). 

His mother, Esther, was an English teacher at Shadle Park High School for years. Her mother was Mary Ethel Leverich,1886-1967. The Leverich and Berrien families have long, illustrious histories in early New York. Mary’s biggest adventure began in 1909 when she and her maiden aunt traveled from their home in Danville, Illinois, via train through Yellowstone to Seattle. She kept a diary; I have that diary! One entry mentions standing in the dinner line on the train and meeting “Mr. Oswald.” They married in 1911.

The Oswald side of John’s family originated in Luxembourg, with Nicholas coming in 1850 with wife and children to Ozaukee, Wisconsin (on Lake Michigan) and helping found the town of Belgium. 

Their son, John Peter Oswald, 1878-1946, worked for nearly three decades as a machinist for the Great Northern Railroad. John and Ethel first settled in Hillyard (where the railway yards were) but in 1912 when expecting their first child (Esther), and realizing that “the White Death” (tuberculosis) was rampant in the city, and Ethel insisted that they move out of town to a farm. Which they did……….. the farm is on Flint Road (West Plains) and is still in family hands. John and Ethel’s five children were born there……….

While John Peter worked in Hillyard for the railroad…. nearly 15 miles from the farm on (what was then) R.F.D. 4. The family story goes that Ethel would take John, in the buckboard, along the dusty, unpaved Hwy 2, down Sunset Hill, to the Interurban, where he’d ride the bus to Hillyard and stay until Friday afternoon, when Ethel would again come down the hill to fetch him. They did this until 1926 when John’s rich inventor brother bought them a car.

Esther, John’s mother, recalls growing up on the farm….. and walking to the Bowl & Pitcher to sit and write in her journal. (Picture the Casino to the B&P…. would your teen do that? And no way would you let her!!) She graduated from Lewis & Clark High School, and then Cheney Normal School (now EWU) and was teaching school in Newport, WA, by age 17. Before her marriage in 1941 to Chuck Phillips, she and a school-teacher girlfriend traveled the world on what she called “tramp steamers.” Another memory: when she was expecting John (fall, 1942) she feared having to quit teaching school (that was the rule then) but her principal, who had lost most of his male teachers to either the Bremerton shipyards or the war, told her to “just put on a smock.” Which she did. 

Aren’t family stories interesting? And each one is different! Why not write up YOUR story on your birthday, or your spouse’s story on their birthday? 

Let’s Talk About…. Google for Genealogy

by Donna Phillips

Google should be one of the most-used tools in your genealogy tool box. The “wag” is that you can ask Google for information on a zillion subjects. (No, Google will NOT be able to tell you where great-grandma was buried.)

Family Tree Magazine offered this 8-page Cheat Sheet as an insert in their magazine a while back. My opinion? It’s worth the $9.99 but ONLY IF you use it! 😐

Here are the front page Google Search Tips:

  • Save time; search properly
  • Disregard punctuation
  • Disregard capitalization
  • Don’t stress spelling
  • Put the most important search term first
  • Use the Advanced feature
  • Set up Google alerts/automated searches
  • Use Google Chrome

Did you know Google offers (for free):

  • Google Books, 40 billion books
  • Google Translate
  • Google Maps
  • Google Earth
  • Google Drive
  • MORE!

There are dozens of tutorials on YouTube (also part of the Google family) to teach you!

Genealogical research is more than just picking the “low-hanging fruit” and sitting back. Genealogical research is learning how to reach that “higher” fruit!  Google can help, I guarantee. 😀

Let’s Talk About….. Expo ’74

by Donna Phillips



Did you attend Expo ’74 in Spokane? Do you realize that that was 50 years ago? I expect that there will be many activities and celebrations marking that anniversary during the coming year. 

How did Expo ’74 get started? And how come in Spokane?

A little booklet titled Spokane: Background to Expo ’74 by Dr. William B. Merriam, Professor Emeritus at WSU, provided lots of background to answer those questions.

In the early 1960s, Spokane began to undergo a change from a perceived “overgrown country town” into a city with the civic leadership, the resources, the courage and imagination to conceive and stage an Expo ’74. 

Through the 60s and into the 70s, plans to “make Spokane better” were snowballing. River bank beautification was a top priority. Back in 1913, the Olmstead Brothers had offered to design a Great Gorge Park to extend from the city center past the then Natatorium Park and Fort Wright. Obviously, their proposal was never acted upon. But rediscovered their report, and reading their words, helped push Expo ’74 along: “Nothing is so firmly impressed on the mind of the visitor to Spokane as the great gorge into which the river falls near the center of the city. The city should preserve what beauty and grandeur remains of its river gorge.” 

All the ideas, thoughts and plans came together by 1973 when promotion and construction feverishly began. Much demolition was required along with re-designing and landscaping. 

“By spring of 1974, Spokane was set for the opening, on time, of the biggest event in the city’s history…. Expo’74…conceived, planned, promoted and constructed in record time.”

Do you have a memory from Expo ’74 that you’d be willing to share? If so, let me know, please. My memory is of our 7-year-old son getting lost in the crowds and finding him, in tears,  being held and soothed by a handsome Black man who was selling cotton candy on the Washington street bridge. 

Let’s Talk About….. Chinese Genealogy

by Donna Phillips


True story: My Chinese daughter-in-law asked her father, who was born in China and immigrated to Vancouver, B.C. as a young man, to write the family genealogy. He did. He wrote it in Chinese. And she cannot read Chinese. But she treasurers it nonetheless.

Recently in Washington, a bill was passed to honor Americans of Chinese descent in January. The bill designates January as Chinese Descent History Month. This was planned to honor Americans of Chinese descent and their contributions to Washington state. Does your Society have something planned to honor those of Chinese ancestry in your community?

The FamilySearch Library (formerly Family History Library) in Salt Lake City, has been preserving records of Chinese families since the 1980s and is currently houses the largest collection of such records in the world. If you (like me) have a Chinese ancestor or relative, the FamilySearch Library is THE place for you to start digging into their history. (After talking to them, of course!


But I recently (April 2023) read a post by Huang Wei on the Voices & Opinion blog stating that the Shanghai Library (Shanghai, China) “is home to arguably the world’s top collection of Chinese genealogies, including more than 300,000 volumes of nearly 40,000 different genealogies, totaling 456 surnames.” 


A Chinese genealogy is a historical document that records (1) the lineage of a blood line descended from a single ancestor, (2) the blood relationship between family members, and (3) a family’s assets and customs. Sadly, one thing they do not typically include are records pertaining to female members of the family.


If you’d enjoy reading Huang Wei’s entire post, click to https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1012694

Let’s Talk About….. Serious Stuff

by Donna Phillips

Why does this joke make us laugh? Aren’t we like the disbelieving lady clerk, smirking at the poor fellow’s lack of knowledge?

At a recent EWGS Fall Seminar, I chatted with many of our marvelous members. Many of these members would classify themselves as “no longer spring chickens.” (Me among them!) But I was dismayed and saddened to chat with more than one senior genealogist who was struggling with “what SHALL I do with all the genealogy stuff I’ve collected??”

As a group, they offered the usual excuses: Don’t know what to do, don’t know where to start, don’t have time, don’t have interested family, not computer literate, “it’s just too overwhelming.”

I did understand. I was sympathetic. I did offer my one-on-one help. Hopefully some will take me up on that offer.

But bottom line:

  • YOU collected the stuff
  • YOU must so something with all of the stuff
  • Yes, it is terribly sorry that you didn’t do this earlier…
  • Do you really want all the stuff of your years’ work to go to recycling?
  • Chances are near 90% sure that if YOU don’t do something with all that stuff, nobody else will. 
  • No, your gene society doesn’t want it; the FamilySearch Library doesn’t want it; and your grandchildren surely DO NOT want boxes and binders of papers!!
  • And it’s patently unfair of YOU to expect that they will. 
  • YOU collected the stuff. 

Does this sad scenario have to be inevitable for you?? Don’t you want to leave a legacy and not a mess? There is an answer, I promise. Here’s how:

  • DECIDE to DO something
  • MAKE TIME to DO something
  • MAKE IT A PRIORITY
  • Ask for help………. your friends, EWGS folks
  • Ask me! I’ll happily come to you to help you get organized and started…

Started on what, do you ask? Getting all your information from those boxes and binders of paper into a computer database. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Believe me, that is the only way to leave your computer-oriented posterity a legacy. Think about it.

((** I posted this to my society, Eastern Washington Gen Soc, while I can come help one-on-one. Obviously you likely live too far away for me to personally come help. BUT I’m 100% sure there are your friends in your gene society who would come to help you. Just ask.)

Let’s Talk About….. ShipIndex.org

by Donna Phillips

 Never heard of ShipIndex? Well happy January gift to you!

Founder Peter McCracken and his team, based in Ithaca, New York, have created a website offering over 3,000,000 citations (pictures of ships!!) and offers nearly 2000 learning resources. Here is a snip from their Resources page:

I know you cannot really read this but there are over 12 L-O-N-G pages of references for your learning and most of them are free. Subscriptions are $22 for three months; $35 for six months; and $65 for one year. (Gonna have surgery? Gonna need to housesit or stay with a declining relative? Wouldn’t this help you get through those days??) 

ShipIndex.org includes a listing for anything that carried cargo and/or people and sailed under any country’s flag. 

Just for fun, I typed in Titanic, never realizing that there might be other ships with that name:

Royal Titanic (Recreational; Cape Fear, NC; built 1979; 14 gross tons)

So something maybe new for you in 2024….. enjoy and learn!

Let’s Talk About….. Clallam Co Gen Soc & Cattle Brands

by Donna Phillips

The Clallam County (Washington) courthouse, built in 1914, in Port Angeles, is surely one of the most picturesque courthouses in America. I remember being in that building years ago and the women’s restroom stalls had pink marble walls!

The Clallam County Genealogical Society (CCGS) was founded in 1981. In 2020, the group purchased a newer and larger building ……… which they desperately needed to house their library of 3000 books, periodicals and microfilms. If you’re thinking of a trip to Port Angeles, and want to visit their library, know that their entire catalog is accessible online:  www.clallamcogs.org.  

CCGS also maintains  offers an index to the 500 Pioneer Family files…… pioneers who were in Clallam County prior to Washington statehood in 1889. 

The Fall 1988 issue of their society’s periodical (no longer published), there was a great article originally found in a 1945 issue of The Genealogy Magazine of New Jersey. The title was “The Use of Livestock Brands and Earmarks in Genealogy.”

The article states: “The system of marking the ears of cattle and hogs was used in the early days just as cattle brands are employed in the West today. In colonial times, livestock were often allowed to roam freely on the village green. When evening came, the marks were necessary to separate which animals belonged to which owner. The registration of marks was kept by the village clerk and later by the county auditor.

“Such registrations were continued well into the 20th century when vast herds of cattle and sheep roamed the vast acreage of public lands in the West.”

I know that the Eastern Washington Branch of our Washington State Archives has brand books for our state. I’ve looked up the registered brand for hubby’s uncle and VIOLA, there it was. If your Pacific Northwest ancestor had roaming livestock, it’s quite likely that he had a brand and that that brand (or ear mark) was legally registered.

Let’s Talk About…. Women Who Married Aliens Lost Citizenship??

by Donna Phillips

Bet you didn’t know this American history tidbit!

In 1907, Congress passed the Expatriation Act, which decreed, among other things, that U.S. women who married non-citizens were no longer Americans. If their husband later became a naturalized citizen, they could go through the naturalization process to regain their citizenship. 

But none of these rules applied to American men who they chose a spouse. And he wasn’t eligible for citizenship, she could be denied!

WHAT? You’re saying? And rightfully so. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? 

Once American women got the right to vote in 1920, they started lobbying lawmakers, pushing them to recognize that their citizenship should not be tethered to that of a husband.

To shorten the sad story, laws did evolve and by the 1940s women born in the U.S. no longer had to limit their marriage prospects to native-born men or naturalized citizens.

Consider your family tree….. did this “trouble” affect any of your grandmothers??

(Thanks to a 2017 post by Tanya Ballard Brown on the NPR website, Code Switch.)