Author Archives: Donna Phillips

Let’s Talk About: Remember GPC?

by Donna Phillips

Remember getting catalogs from Genealogical Publishing Company (based in Baltmore, Maryland)? I sure do….. sometimes I did order a book but more often I made note of a book pertinent to my research and would look for it next time at a big library. Maybe you did that too?  Well, GPC has morphed into My GPC Library and comes offering books to you in a brand new format: digitally. Click to www.genealogical.com to get all the info. But, bottom line, you’ll have access to 800 books for a yearly subscription of $135, or for six months for $75, or for three months for $45.  (What a great idea for our long winter days, no?)

Before you read on, here’s a warm fuzzy for you from EWGS member Rosemary Braun. She has a granddaughter born when her parents were in South America, and was named Xochitl……. “so-CHEE.”  The name is Mayan and means “beautiful flower.”  Rosemary assures us that she loves her name. 

Breakdown of the major categories:

  • Industry leading how to books and manuals – an unsurpassed collection of more than 140 of our best titles that you cannot find anywhere else
  • More than 375 genealogy books on colonial American families
  • Over 239 books on New England or Mayflower genealogy
  • Nearly 200 immigration titles covering Colonial America to about 1865
  • Native American guides and records
  • The best collection of titles on Royal and Noble genealogy
  • More than 90 titles on Irish and Scottish genealogy
  • Guidebooks for African American genealogy and records of families prior to 1870
  • Nearly 800 titles in all, and growing

Let’s Talk About: Coulee Dam Memories

by Donna Phillips



This is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read lately. It’s the story of “Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.” 

College rowing had been a team sport since the early 1800s and began in New York. By 1900, many major colleges had rowing teams and the competition was fierce.  I literally couldn’t put the book down as I learned about the history of this sport and the teams at the University of Washington in particular.  I do recommend this as a worthwhile winter read for you all.

What I want to share with you today begins on page 122 and I both quote and paraphrase:  “In one small corner of the country (Washington state), something large was beginning to stir that terribly hot summer….. early on August 4th (1936) …. folks from Seattle climbed into their automobiles and headed east. People in Spokane filled their picnic hampers and loaded them into their cars and headed west. By late morning, the roads were black with automobiles converging from all directions on one unlikely spot: Ephrata, a forlorn little town of 516 people, out in the desolate scablands, not far from the Columbia River and a 50-mile long canyon called the Grand Coulee.

“By midafternoon, 20,000 people had gathered behind a rope line in Ephrata. When Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared on the platform before them his cigarette holder angled jauntily upward, the crowd roared its welcome. Then Roosevelt began to speak, leaning forward on his podium, clutching it. In measured tones, but with rising emotion, he began laying out a vision of the benefits that the new Grand Coulee Dam would bring to this arid land in exchange for the $175 million public dollars it would cost……….”

Roosevelt then spoke of the many benefits and in closing said:  “We are going to see, I believe, without own eyes, electricity and power made so cheap that they will become a standard article of use….for every house within the reach of an electrical transmission line.” 

While it was not mentioned in this book, no doubt Roosevelt spoke to the thousands of “arid lane” that could be transformed into productive agricultural land. 

I wasn’t there; you weren’t there, but with this author’s words, we can well imagine the day, the crowd and his welcome news. 

Let’s Talk About: Little Town Libraries

by Donna Phillips

We do tend to head straight to the “big” libraries in the big cities and so easily overlook what the smaller town libraries might have for us. Case in point, the Appleton, Wisconsin, Public Library in Appleton, Wisconsin, located northeast of Madison, the state capitol. 

This town of about 75,000 citizens, has just opened a brand new library…. doesn’t it look both grand and enticing????

Why should you care about the Appleton Wisconsin Public Library? Because they offer free genealogy resource/research monthly programs via ZOOM, that’s why. 

Their program quickly upcoming on Saturday, November 18, 2023, at 2:00 Central Time is titled “Researching German Ancestry”. Link to register is: https://bit.ly/3Xx1XHK (or likely from their website….. if you don’t register, you won’t get the ZOOM link). 

The Saturday, December 9th program is titled “Making Sense of All the Research You’ve Done.” The link to register is: https://bit.ly/3x1gtKm. Again, do register to get the ZOOM link. 

The library hasn’t posted any information about their 2024 programs but I imagine that these offerings will continue. 

Let’s Talk About: Barrier Hills

by Donna Phillips

Why was Spokane first settled along the river, east to west through what’s now downtown? There was a simple reason in those early days: the south hill.  A couple of years ago, Lynn Krogh and I enjoyed a Southside Community Center’s history tour led by Richard Sola. Here is some of what we learned that day:

There were some 50,000 people in Spokane by 1900. They mainly arrived on the railroad. They settled east to west in the valley because the south hill was a real barrier to growth. There was no way to get up the basalt-formation hills until roads were cleared and especially until the streetcars arrived. There were bridges across the Spokane River to access the north side and so settlement first spread north. 
Geologically, Dr. Sola taught, is that the Dishman Hills is the original seashore boundary (where the Pacific plate subducts). The several Ice Age Floods bypassed this area to it kept its good soil and was perfect for agriculture.


The first whites in the area were the fur traders; very few came between 1830 and 1870 because there was no easy way to get here except on the trail up from Walla Walla (which is why these towns south were settled before Spokane). 


Today we think nothing of the rather steep drive south up the Monroe Street hill (except when its icy!) but yesterday that incline was considered nigh onto impassable…. until it was not. 


Other Washington cities have had their steep road problems. Consider the massive regrading project in Seattle:

Quoting from Wikipedia:  “Seattle’s first 58 regrades “consisted largely of cutting the tops off high places and dumping the dirt into low places and onto the beach”.[4] The most dramatic result of this was along that former beach, filling the land that constitutes today’s Central Waterfront. Today’s Western Avenue and Alaskan Way lie on this landfill.[4]”  
I do suggest that you click to Wikipedia to read the rest of the story about the regrading of Seattle’s hills. 

Let’s Talk About: Free Brick Wall Busters Book

by Donna Phillips



Genealogy Brick Wall Busters Free eBookFamily Tree Magazinehttps://familytreemagazine.com › Resources › eBooks

Family Tree Magazine offers all sorts of good stuff, some for pay and many for FREE. Such is this offer…….. a 32-page guide that can be yours for FREE to download.
This book is comprised of reprinted articles from the FT Magazine, all helpful, insightful and How-I-Did-It articles. Why not go see….. it’s FREE! We can always learn something new and a review is also always helpful.


While your at the www.familytreemagazine.com website, check out their other offerings and consider subscribing…………. why not give yourself a November treat? 

Let’s Talk About: Salem Witches

by Donna Phillips


Can you imagine being dunked to prove your guilt or innocence? The poor man or (usually) a woman was tied to a chair and dunked into deep water until they confessed. If they could not recite the Lord’s Prayer without any error, they were a witch and dunked for good. 

Dunking was only one of seven “tests” administered to determine witches. One other was:

As part of the infamous “swimming test,” accused witches were dragged to the nearest body of water, stripped to their undergarments, bound and then tossed in to see if they would sink or float. Since witches were believed to have spurned the sacrament of baptism, it was thought that the water would reject their bodies and prevent them from submerging.

According to this logic, an innocent person would sink like a stone, but a witch would simply bob on the surface. 

Much research has been done on the genealogies of these twenty poor souls. If you suspect a connection to one of these twenty, here are some resources for you:

  • review your family tree for relatives living in Essex County in 1692-3
  • further build your Essex Co lines using verified sources (probate, journals)
  • compare surnames of the witches, and their children, to your own genealogy
  • consult the titles below:
    • Associated Daughters of Early American Witches Roll of Ancestors, by Kimberly Ormsby Nagy, 2012
    • The Witch hunt of 1692: A Tragedy in Massachusetts, by Marjorie Wardwll Otten, 1990
    • The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community under Siege, by Marilynne K. Roach, 2002
  • AmericanAncestors.org provides a variety of resources
  • FamilySearch.org/wiki has pages and pages of resources for Essex County

Thanks to David Allen Lambert’s article in the American Ancestors Magazine for this information. 

Let’s Talk (Again!) About: SCRIBE

by Donna Phillips


We realize that all these genealogically-wonderful digital records we so eagerly seek and use are made available to us by “somebodies,” right? Is there a space in your life to be a SOMEBODY and help pay it forward by helping transcribe Washington’s historic records? 

The Washington Office of the secretary of State, in an effort to increase accessibility to the historical records of our state, initiated the Historical Records Project (HRP) in 2002. Staff from the State Library and State Archives identified records from their collections for inclusion in the project, as well as those held by numerous local museums, genealogical and historical societies. 

Currently millions of searchable records are available free of charge on the Washington State Archives website (www.digitalarchives.wa.gov). Yet much work needs to be done. Countless numbers of records need to be transcribed and indexed in order to be beneficial to researchers. 

THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN! You can most definitely help!! You can help by signing up to help index these digital records via SCRIBE………. and you can work from home, at your own pace and with NO pressure and lots of tutorials and helps.  What sort of records, you ask?  Birth-Cemetery-Census-Death-Institution-Land-Marriage-Military-Naturalization and more. 

Click to https://scribe.digitalarchives.wa.gov to create an account and become a “scribe” today!!   P.S. View the User Guide to help get you started. 🙂 

Let’s Talk About: Washington Mermaids

by Donna Phillips

“Wearing a red knit swimsuit with white stockings and slippers, Miss Ruth Harkins was overcome almost to a point of weakness. She had just been announced the 1922 Inland Empire Mermaid Queen in a beauty competition sponsored by Spokane’s evening paper, The Spokane Daily Chronicle.”So began a bit posted in The Splash: Liberty Lake’s Community Newspaper, September 12, 2022, a story by Ross Schneidmiller of the Liberty Lake Historical Society. 


“A flurry of excitement began days earlier when the paper announced: “Chronicle Wants To Find Most Beautiful Mermaid.” To find her, the Chronicle conduced a special contest that ran from August 1-16, when a final selection was made at a parade on the shores of Liberty Lake. 
“The mermaids were to be judged on beauty of face, beauty of figure, grace of figure and bearing and general fitness. ……. meeting at the Davenport Hotel on the 17th of August  and the judges selected the finalists from the 117 photos submitted,” the newspaper reported at the time. 


“The day of the event began when the 50 finalists were paraded up Monroe Street having left the Chronicle building at 12:30pm, heading for Liberty Lake in a 20-car motorcade….. arriving at the lake, they were given a special dressing area in the large 300-room bathhouse to change into their costumes….. the 50 mermaids appeared before the judges at 1:45pm and the beach parade was staged at 4:00pm when the winners were announced. …. after being presented with five gold coins in front of 4000 spectators, Miss Harkins declared, “It seems like a dream….I’m afraid someone will pinch me and I’ll wake up.” The contestants were then treated to a dinner and a dance in their honor. 


** Jim Kershner’s 100 Years Ago Today for 19 August 1922 quoted the Chronicle story as saying “she won $100, a new bathing suit and a 3-pound box of chocolates.” 

Let’s Talk About: Mayflower Society’s Silver Books

by Donna Phillips


“The Silver Books primary purpose is for Mayflower descendant lineage verification. They also provide a map for you, researchers, and writers to study their lives and to better tell their stories.” (from their website, www.themayflowersociety.org)

Whether or not you wish to join the Mayflower Society, if you perhaps have a Mayflower ancestor, you might be wanting to know more about him/her and their descendants…….. so, perhaps, to connect your tree to theirs. The Silver Books are the go-to-starting-place for this research. The “bad news” is that there are only three ways that you can access these books:  (1) a library, like the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City;  (2) purchase;  (3) become a member and access them via the website. 

**The red bar at the bottom (which got cut off) leads to a 10-page PDF file: 

THE REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE GSMD SILVER BOOK SERIES Revised 1 September 2021 1 The Silver Book Project, originally known as the Five Generations Project, traces the descendants of the Mayflower pilgrims. The project aims to provide clear, well documented lineages of the ship’s passengers through the 7th and 8th generations. Each family has a volume* and many consists of multi-part sets. This guide explains how the books are organized. MF[#] refers to the title Mayflower Families and the volume number.

Some Mayflower Ancestor books have more than one part and, I understand, more compilations are in the works………. 

P.S. If you are an Ancestry member, this website offers many AmericanAncestors.org databases that may help you trace your Mayflower ancestry. Do check it out. 

Let’s Talk About: Bits & Pieces, This ‘N That

by Donna Phillips


If you are (as I am!) a fan of the TV Star Trek spinoff show Deep Space 9, then you recognize Quark, the Ferengi barkeeper on that station. Ever wonder where the script writers find these crazy terms? WELL, ferengi is a old recognized word meaning foreigner. Cool, eh?

Here’s a quote from Valorie Zimmerman, VP of the Washington State Genealogical Society, referencing the recent awards’ announcement:  “It’s so good to see so many genealogical societies swimming together!” We agree, Val. 

One innovative airline seems to have captured a unique clientele…. for an incredibly hefty price, they will fly your pet in comfort to your destination. Apparently they noticed that there has been a steady rise in the number of people traveling with their pets and have not been happy with the restrictions placed on these special passengers.  Really?

Do you know where the longest bridge is in Washington? Constructed in 1966, the 21,474 foot long behemoth was built to connect Astoria, Oregon, to Megler, Washington. It was build so people could cross the Columbia River at its mouth quicker and safer. 

Aristotle called the hand the “tool of tools; Kant, “the visible part of the brain.” The earliest works of art was handprints on the walls of caves. Throughout history hand gestures have symbolized the range of human experience: power, tenderness, creativity,, conflict and even bravo. Without hands, civilization would be inconceivable.  So the discovery in 2011 of the bones of a dozen right hands at a site were the ancient Egyptian city of Avaris once stood, was particularly unsettling. To skip to the end of the story, the ritual seems to have become standard practice in Egypt, with soldiers returning from combat and presenting the dismembered right hands of defeated foes to their pharaoh or military commander. (Want to read more? The story was in the newspaper; New York Times, Franz Lidz, photo by Julia Gresky.) 

Would you have guessed that they’re still finding unexploded shells on the Gettysburg battlefield? Yep, according to a bit in the May/June 2023 Archaeology Magainze, a U.S. Army ordnance disposal team was summoned to Gettysburg when a 160-year-old live artillery shell was uncovered during archaeologizl work. The 7-inch long unexploded round was found two feet below the surface near a rocky outcrop known as the Little Round Top.  Unbelievable, no?