Woke up early Saturday and the rain and thunder had quit. First class was by Judy Russell on That First Trip to the Courthouse. When I saw that in the list of sessions I was not sure if I wanted to spend the six days away and all the other costs associated with attending the conference, but I had read that Judy was an excellent teacher and at the banquet last night that was very evident. For anyone that has never been to a courthouse this is a great session, and Judy uses local laws and local sources to illustrate the power of courthouse research. I started volunteering at our Spokane courthouse in 1998 and still get there a few times each year doing research. My first trip to the Spokane courthouse was on jury duty in 1973 in August and there was no air conditioning in the courthouse then, and it was very hot in the courtroom and even hotter in the jury room. I did not take another picture of Judy so I will recycle the one from last night.

Photo deleted at request of NWGC

Judy joked about her different jacket on Saturday, instead of the red jacket she wore a pink jacket Saturday.

The next two breakout sessions are why I don’t really like breakout sessions a lot of times, I said yesterday one breakout session did not have a single one I was interested in, well on Saturday I wanted to go to THREE sessions in both the morning and afternoon breakouts. I picked Jean Wilcox Hibben’s session on America: Land of the Farm, Home of the Plow since I have so many farmer ancestors. My paternal grandfather and two uncles were farmers and when I was young and it was fun and a little scary to visit those farms. The session showed examples on how America was a land of farmers and so much of what we have today is because of farmers, so do not say your ancestors were just farmers, say proudly your ancestors were farmers. Jean uses music in her presentation, and when I got to the room for the session she was singing a song to loosen up her voice.

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Judy Russell was next with her session Where There is – or isn’t – a Will. This was a great session with many examples of information in probate packets. I know probate packets can contain a lot of very interesting information. I looked up a probate packet for a researcher and even though the lady that died was a widow and no children she had a lot of small farms her husband had acquired during the depression, so a lot of land, implements and houses to inventory, and the packet contained two appraisals of all the properties and equipment, that took up 80 pages, then there was a lawsuit where the heirs had sued the trustees saying they had valued the property too high and that they had to pay too much inheritance tax. I don’t remember the exact amounts, but the federal tax was just over $100, and the state tax was less than $10. So appraisals of all the property twice more. Then a second lawsuit, the heirs now were suing the trustees saying that they appraised the property TOO LOW and they did not get a fair amount. So appraisals of the property twice more. The probate packet was 365 pages long. The estate had a value in 1940 of about $200,000, so to me seems like they wasted a lot of money on lawyers instead of just distributing the estate.

Next was lunch and it was a sack lunch, I had tuna, chips an apple and two small cookies.

After lunch Judy Russell was back with Order in the Court: Using Court Records in Genealogical Research. The after lunch session is usually hard to keep awake, but Judy did wonders keeping us awake. This was another great session on records found in a courthouse, and she also said to check the higher courts, like courts of appeal and even the supreme court in the state you are researching. Law libraries have those cases available to read. Our local law library was downtown in a rented space for years and years, but since the auditors archive was cleaned out and the original auditors records were sent to the regional state archives at Cheney they put the law library in that space. For a fun marriage record go to the Washington State Digital Archives, type in King for given name and Corn for surname. This was done for the agriculture fair in Spokane that year.

Breakout session I went to was Jean Wilcox Hibben on Fun With Citing Sources, and I should have gotten a balloon, but unless you were there you have no idea why I wanted a balloon. I have not used my computer programs method for citing sources and she stressed that we should. Reason I have not used that is that GEDCOM may not transfer any of those sources if I ever change programs, so I put my sources in the notes, they are harder to find, but will transfer with GEDCOM if I ever change programs.

Last session of the day was with Jean Wilcox Hibben on Field Dependency: A Way to Evaluate Genealogical Sources. A lot of people skipped this session, and it was pretty good, mainly just an extension of her previous session. The parking lot emptied very fast and I headed north to highway 530 as I wanted to go by the Oso slide area, and also it was a little shorter and I was hoping less traffic than going back on I-5.

This was the Oso slide area, it is cleaned up pretty well, and a lot of new trees planted and miles of pvc pipe to water the trees.

I told of the thunder and lightning Friday night, well when I started up the North Cascades

highway to the pass this smoke was two or three small fires burning on the very steep hill.

There was a sign on the road that it had been reported already. Not sure how anyone could get

up close to that fire as it was almost straight up.

Stopped at several overlooks on the way to the top, and took this photo of the road going down

the east side of the pass. Except for a little smoke uneventful trip home.

Day three started out early when I found out Luana Darby was not coming, so I checked the syllabus and found a couple of other choices for the Thursday break out sessions. First we had Angela Packer McGhie on Creating an Effective Research Plan. Don’t know how many times I have heard you must create a Research Plan, and yet like most people I jumped around from ancestor to ancestor for years, and never really found any information on my brick walls. I finally settled down and picked a couple of ancestors to research.

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I picked Cyndi Ingle’s class on Advanced Googling for Your Grandma, but I knew both my grandparents, so I substituted great grandma. Cyndi gave a lot of examples and she is an excellent speaker.

The next two sessions were by Angela Packer McGhie, first Mining for Family History in Federal Land Records and I have used land records in my research, but quite a while ago so this class was a great refresher and she added several new items to search I had not used before. Lunch was a turkey sandwich, chips, an apple and a cookie. Judy Russell sat at our table, so that was fun. The second session after lunch (nap time) was on newspapers: Read All About Your Ancestors by Locating Historic Newspapers. I spend a lot of time researching in our local newspapers for others so I know the value of what can be found in a newspaper. One of her sources was by a local genealogical friend Mariam Robbins who has made a website of Historic newspapers that are online and where you can find them. Note she has dropped her married name after her divorce. The next breakout session was with Cyndi Ingle again on Plotting, Scheming and Mapping Online. Great class, as I have never done any online mapping, usually just look for old maps and print them to do my plotting. Last session of the day was Angela Parker McGhie again on Exploring the Family Search Wiki. I have contributed to the Wiki for my local area and years ago helped Family Search with their printed Washington State Resource Guide which is part of the information used in the Wiki. Angela pointed out a lot that I did not know, so great class.

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Friday started out with announcements and more door prizes. Twice I came within one number of winning a door prize.

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Friday was DNA day and CeCe Moore was the first speaker and her session was The Power of DNA: Genetic Genealogy Basics. Excellent session, learned a lot. I did know DNA was great at finding connections to your paternal line and also the maternal line, but before DNA even became available I had my paternal line back to the 1600s, and my maternal line back to the 1800s, so until autosomal DNA became available, I did not see how it could help me a lot.

Photo deleted at request of NWGC

The next breakout session was a very hard decision, none of the possibilities interested me at all, so I used my fall back method on how to pick the session, which speaker do I want to hear? And I picked Cyndi Ingle again and her session on Foreign Language Tools for the English Speaking Genealogists. I had learned to read the Danish handwriting on my Danish ancestors records years ago and liked to lurk on the Danish language board on Prodigy years ago, but since then I have probably lost most of what I had learned when I was actively researching Danish Records. Also learned years ago that the Danish script I learned to read is almost identical to the German Script so many genealogists have trouble reading. The next morning session was CeCe Moore again on Who Am I? Ethnicity Estimates, where she explained why the estimates from the three DNA testing services do not always match each other or the paper research. Had a turkey sandwich again for lunch, apple, chips and a cookie. After lunch CeCe Moore’s session was on Autosomal DNA and Chromosome Mapping: Discovering your Ancestors in You. This was a bad time to concentrate on a very hard to grasp concepts.

My breakout session was with Michele Goodrum and (I did not get her photo) it was on the Introduction to Genetic Genealogy and DNA for the Non-Scientist, which helped to explain what CeCe had been talking about earlier.

CeCe Moore’s last session was DNA Stories from Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr., she showed examples from several of the people that had been on Finding your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. They were then going to close the building for a half an hour to get ready for the Banquet at 6 p.m., but since it started raining early Friday and rained nearly the whole day they decided we did not need a shower before the banquet and left the reception area open till they finished the preparations for the banquet. Judy Russell was the speaker and her topic was Alphabet Soup: DNA, GPS and You. a very entertaining and informative talk.

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Thunder and lightning that night so hard to get to sleep.

Since it is over 350 miles to Arlington from my house in Spokane I started out Tuesday afternoon to be able to get my registration Wednesday afternoon at Arlington at the Byrnes Performing Arts Center. I wanted to go across Highway 2 this time to see if it was better than I-90. Started out pretty hot in the 90s when I left Spokane and seemed even warmer when I got out in the country. Hardly any vehicles on the road Tuesday afternoon, so I buzzed right along. Many of the wheat fields had been harvested, but several were still waiting for the combine.  Tuesday it was clear, but Sunday when I took this photo it was smoky.

Left the wheat fields and got into the orchards, and their huge stacks of bins for the upcoming apple crop.

Then started up the North Cascades Highway to the North Cascades National Park.

This photo from the Washington Pass Overlook, shows the road climbing toward Washington Pass and the switchback up to the top.

Headed into Arlington, and up to the Byrnes Performing Arts Center to pick up my packet for the conference that starts Thursday. I went to the line that contained the letter “H” packets, and they said I needed to fill out a survey first, filled in the survey, then went back to the table with the packets, told them my name and they had a marker in the packet to see the help desk first, so over to the help desk, where they said I had not paid for my meals and wanted a check to pay for them now, seems my check I sent a week or so before had not arrived yet. I had not brought my checkbook so paid in cash. Took the packet and back to the mini to check out the classes and headed for dinner. Got to bed early and was one of the first ones there on Thursday morning. Found out my picks for Thursday would have to be changed as Luana Darby had not come, so more checking the classes.

What a day! What a day! What a day!

Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, educated and entertained us throughout the day with information and stories (oh, the stories she told!) about research trips to the courthouse, wills and no wills and using court records. She was self-deprecating, witty, smart, and “pretty in pink”! If you don’t already subscribe to her blog, you should consider it — it’s full of information we all should know.

Forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog post that my break-out sessions included DNA and GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) with Angie Bush (that was the second workshop I’d taken with her — she’s great!) and Genetic Originals of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England with Olympia’s Steven W. Morrison. Excellent sessions! Today I learned all about “America: Land of the Farm, Home of the Plow” with Jean Wilcox Hibben and Janice Lovelace’s “Beyond Online — What’s at the Courthouse?” I’m now armed with enough knowledge to make the most of an upcoming trip to the Grays Harbor Courthouse in Montesano to learn more about my pioneer ancestor Patrick Murphy.

At the end of the day, my brain was overflowing with information and good intentions, so it’s a good thing I have an amazingly complete set of workshop syllabi and my scribbled notes. A big congratulations to the Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society — your hard work paid off in delivering a first-rate event!

Fellow blog team member Charles Hansen and I are here in Arlington at the Northwest Genealogy Conference, hosted by the Stillaguamish Valley GS. This 3-day event is packed with classes, networking, new ideas, and inspiration.

On Wednesday afternoon, I attended a Beginning Genealogy workshop, taught by the dynamic duo of Winona Laird and Janet O’Conor Camarata. Even though I’ve been doing genealogy for 30 years, I still got a TON of tips, tricks, organizational tools, and new resources! Great handouts, too!

Today (Thursday) was the first “official” day of the conference. The headliner was Angela Packer McGhie — and she was terrific! Her plenary sessions included how to make a research plan, federal land records, historic newspapers, and the Family Search Wiki. I’m so inspired! I want to try it all!

From an impressive menu of possibilities, it was hard to choose my two break-out sessions. Finally settled on Cyndi Ingle’s “Advanced Googling for Your Grandma” and “Genealogical Assumptions — Friend or Foe with Angie Bush. Cyndi never disappoints and she really packed a lot of information into her 60 minutes. Whew! And Angie Bush…great session! There was a standing room only crowd eager to hear her engaging discussion about common assumptions we make, like assuming words have the same meaning now as they did way back when. I’m still chuckling about her story asking her daughter to throw her her “thongs.” You know — the kind you wear on your feet!

Tomorrow’s a whole day of DNA and more. Will get to hear CeCe Moore for four sessions AND I’ll have to pick two break-out sessions. Will be hard to choose!