Hello again from a soggy, sunless Spokane…..but daffodils are up! Glad to share some serendipity today with you all………………  Donna

This is a most intriguing announcement from Microsoft:

Microsoft introduced a new app on Thursday that anyone with a dog should play with because it’s a lot of fun.

It’s called Fetch!, and it’s available for iPhones and on the web. It uses artificial intelligence techniques to classify images of real-world dogs into breeds. On the web, users can upload a photo of a dog, or you can take a picture of your pet using your phone’s camera.

If you upload a picture of, say, a Rhodesian ridgeback, Microsoft should be able to confirm the dog’s breed.

It’s the latest in a line of fun, silly apps released by Microsoft Garage, an “outlet for experimental projects” that are designed to show off creative and unexpected ways to apply Microsoft’s expertise in artificial intelligence. In the past year, Microsoft has released apps that detect and measures mustaches in photos or guesses your age, for example.

Like Microsoft’s other AI apps, Fetch! should become more accurate as users upload more photos and data. More technical information is available here.

Fetch! is already fairly accurate. Here it identified the breed of a dog belonging to one of BI’s reporters.

Wouldn’t it be fun to upload a photo of the dog in an ancestral photo to see what kind of dog they had? Probably a “Heinz 57” more often than not, but I think I’ll try this out!

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I have recently become aware of a genealogical deficiency of mine…. Not uploading stories, photos and documentation for my ancestors. So I recently created a tree on MyHeritage and titled it “Oswald Descendants 1911.”  John Peter Oswald and Mary Ethel Leverich were married in 1911, had five children and now a score of grandchildren. I set up this private website as a forum where any and all members of this family could post about their newest additions and learn more about their cousins.  But I do plan to post more about John Peter and Mary Ethel.

Now to the point of this blurb. I asked my sis-in-law to write up the story of her mom, Esther Mary,  (and my children’s great-grandmother) for this MyHeritage tree. She replied, “Mother did that herself…… didn’t I send it to you?” I replied in the negative and she rooted around, found it and sent it to me. Esther finished her autobiography just four years before she died. And I never knew about it! Sharon only THOUGHT she’d shared it with me!

Apply this to your own situation. How many family biographies for your family are out there and you have never asked about them???????

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President Mike McKinnon and I as WSGS vice-president, as you to consider contributing some of your time and talents to WSGS by taking the position of Region Rep. The duties of a WSGS Region Rep are:

• Attend Board and general meetings to represent the society members in their region.
• Communicate regularly with all societies within their region.
• Share with WSGS the activities, concerns and interests of all societies within their region.

We need a representative for Region 7 comprising the counties of Spokane, Pend Oreille, Ferry, Lincoln and Stevens (with only two busy societies).

We need a representative for Region 8 comprising the counties of Chelan, Douglas, Okanogan and Grant (with only 2-4 busy societies).

We need a rep for Region 1 comprising the counties of Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, Island and Snohomish (not sure how many societies).

WSGS meeting are held quarterly, January-April-June-September. The meetings are usually held in Yakima with the exception of the state conference (2016 will be in Tacoma during the Tacoma Pierce County Conference in June).

WSGS could surely use your ideas and your help, as could the genealogical societies within your region. Won’t you consider helping? Please contact me, Donna Phillips, at Donna243@gmail.com. 

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Good follow-up to Charles Hansen’s post; this image needs no more words.

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To those who poo-poo the usefulness of FamilySearch, here is a great answer.  According to the compiled statistics for 2015, show these things:

1.  There are more than 1.1 billion people in the Family Tree.
2.  There are 5.31 million searchable reccords.
3.  Over 12 million volunteer hours via FamilySearch Indexing have made the above possible.
4.  There are nearly 300,000 visits daily to www.FamilySearch.org
5.  There are nearly 5000 Family Search Centers around the world with half being in the U.S.
6.  Nearly 4000 folks serve as volunteer online FamilySearch support missionaries.

Are you asking yourself, “Why am I not making more use of this great resource???”  I surely am!

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Book Review:  The American Ground by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

“The dawn sky appeared deep grey, as if it had been sucked up from the sea itself. The snow that had threatened for several days finally began to fall, a fine dusting coated the rooftops and untrodden  edges of the pebble-beach walkways. The dimness of the day had forced the early illumination of candles throughout the Ground; to a stranger out at sea, the scene before him would have been one of resplendent beauty.”

“The squat oblong of glass and concrete that was the Kent History and Library Centre, just outside of Maidstone town centre, had been purpose-built in 2012. It was, like many other modern archives, light and open-plan with crisp white pillars and wooden flooring throughout.”

“(After talking to Bunny in her shop) Morton nodded absentmindedly as the door clattered open behind him and a large group of pensioners began to throng through the door.”

Harriet, speaking to a solicitor, “I be here about the inquest….is there anything you can be a-doing to help us? Blame me, everyone on the America Ground be as worried as I ever did see them.”

“Oh, Christopher,” Harriet wailed. “I be needing a rest, I’m rattleboned,” she announced, heading out of the door. “I’m going for a lie down.”

Is there any doubt that author Nathan Dylan Goodwin is an Englishman and writes from his home in Kent?

I quite fell in love with both Morton Farrier and Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s books after reading his first book, Hiding the Past. Goodwin weaves the dozen complicated story lines into a genealogical mystery and then unravels the mystery by going back and forth in time as we follow Morton into libraries, archives and using Ancestry.com/uk.

The American Ground is Goodwin’s third book chronicling the genealogy-mystery solving abilities of Morton Farrier. The first two books, Hiding the Past, and The Lost Ancestor, were try-to-read-in-one-sitting books…..they were that good.

In the Author’s Note, Goodwin writes:  “This novel is set against the backdrop of a real moment in history and a real place. The American Ground; a piece of land outside Hastings, Sussex in the 1820s.”  Those facts are true; Goodwin’s work is a work of fiction.

In a stretch of new land created at the base of a high cliff near the sea, folks built a town and living for themselves. When threatened by the King to take away their property, they declared, “like America,” that they were free, independent and part of America.  Into the hundred years or so of the town’s history, Goodwin weaves a tale of intrigue and murder as told through the people who lived the story (a fictional story). Goodwin added that he “took the opportunity of reviving some colourful nouns, verbs and phrases from the wonderful old Sussex dialect…sadly now forgotten.”

The American Ground can be purchased through Amazon.com either in paperback or for Kindle. Goodwin’s first two books are also available through Amazon.

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I’m sure you recognize this as one of those pamphlets handed to you as you enter, or at the Visitor’s Center, of our national parks and monuments. I have a box of these wonderful resources (from all over America) and am looking to give them away. Great for teachers; great for home-bound travelers; great for personal interest.  Please contact me at Donna243@gmail.com and I’ll ship them off to you.

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The following might really be of immediate interest to all of us as we plan our summer genealogy travels………………..

Editorial, 2 Jan 2016, by Froma Harrop, as appeared on our paper, The Spokesman Review (quoting only portions of her editorial):

“In America, any state-issued driver’s license had long been acceptable ID for passing security checks at airports. That lax attitude changed after Sept 11, 2001, when terrorists turned four commercial jetliners full of passengers into missiles, killing thousands more on the ground. All four planes took off from U.S. airports.

“On the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, Congress passed the Real ID Act. It tightens standards for state driver’s licenses used to board flights. Among other information, applicants must provide their Social Security number and immigration status. The licenses must also contain a chip of other technology that can be read by a computer. The deadline for compliance is approaching.

Some state have done their duty and issued secure driver’s licenses. Other have made enough progress that their licenses are acceptable for the time being. And a few states….Washington, Minnesota and New Mexico, for example…. Have largely not complied.  Barring another extension of the deadline, their driver’s licenses will soon be inadmissible as proof of identity at airport security.”

The article/editorial went on for several paragraphs discussing the ideas the nay-sayers are blathering (“too hard,” “violation of rights for immigrants,” yadda yadda) but all the fussing will not change these rules. The day is coming when to go through airport security you will need what Washington (state) calls an Enhanced Driver’s License.

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Serendipity
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal.
Serendipity

Serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”; a fortunate mistake. Specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.[1] However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages.[2]
Etymology

The first noted use of “serendipity” in the English language was by Horace Walpole (1717–1797). In a letter to Horace Mann (dated 28 January 1754) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”. The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (aka Ceylon), from Arabic Sarandib. Parts of Sri Lanka were under the rule of South Indian kings for extended periods of time in history. Kings of Kerala, India (Cheranadu)were called Chera Kings and dheep means island, the island belonging to Chera King was called Cherandeep, hence called Sarandib by Arab traders.

For more on serendipity
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Serendipity

For what it’s worth:  Wanting to teach myself more about genealogy and DNA, I ordered these two (used) books from Amazon. I’m finding that blog posts and magazine articles don’t spell it out clearly enough for me. Think these will help? They are vintage 1999 and 2005.

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Love learning something totally new. In a historical fiction (genealogy) novel, I came across the term thumb piano.  So I asked Grandma Google:  “The mbira or thumb piano is an African musical instrument consisting of a wooden board with attached staggered metal times played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the times with the thumbs.” So what’s my genealogy point here? Whenever in your reading or your researching, if you come upon a brand new term, stop right there and go ask Grandma Google.  She always will have an answer.

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Tip from Cyndi Ingle during the day she spent with EWGS last October:  “There are three ways to dig deeper: (1) learn about the advanced features on search engines and genealogy databases;  (2) learn about the records behind the technology;  and (3) dig into the records and then into the repository that contains those records.  Cyndi’s point was that like with any tool, a search engine is a tool and can be used to best advantage if you understand how best to use the tool (duh).

Cyndi was speaking of having to really dig deeper because, thinking of the iceberg, only 4% is sticking up………… only 4% of records on the Internet are super easy to spot…… and 96% is below the water line……….. that means that 96% is hidden deeper into the many online repositories…. “but the hidden web is 500 times more” she said……………. I think she means that there is more information available to you from any given repository (Family History Library or Library of Virginia or Texas State Archives, etc) that you would ever guess.

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Cyndi Ingle also said that a list of genealogy groups on Facebook has been compiled by Katherine Wilson which you can download as a pdf for free. Here’s the link:

http://socialmediagenealogy.com/genealogy-on-facebook-list/

Who would have thought that there were sooooo many genealogy groups on Facebook! There were 23 links to genealogy-related organizations in Washington. This list goes international too.

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Do you have a Revolutionary Patriot in your family tree? If you do, and are a woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, and can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution, you are eligible for membership in the DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution. DAR volunteers are willing to provide guidance and assistance each step of the way. Click to www.dar.org and then “membership.” There you‘ll find Prospective Member information.

The DAR publishes American Spirit magazine; in the Sept-Oct 2015 issue there was a great article about how the DAR is “Sharing a Wealth of Data With the World” by simplifying genealogy research and expanding access to Revolutionary-era documents.

The DAR recognizes 144,000 patriots and is eager to provide help to prospective members. Do check it out if you have a Revolutionary Patriot in your family tree.

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On the subject of membership in societies, are you eligible to join the First Families of St.Louis? The purpose of this organization is “to identify, recognize and archive the lineage of historical St. Louis families.” You are eligible to join if you can prove a straight-line descent from an early St. Louis resident in one of these three categories:  Founding Fathers, 1765-1804; Pioneer Families, 1805-1821; and Immigrant Families, 1822-1865. If this organization is of interest to you, click to the St. Louis Genealogical Society website, www.stlgs.org or call their office at 314-647-8547. Brochure I have says application fee is $30.

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Having just returned from a stupendous 2-week trip to Egypt, and getting back into my real-life-world of genealogy, I really wondered how much Egyptian genealogy helps are available. Not much, sad to report. FamilySearch has a Wiki page that’s mostly empty. Ancestry offers nada. The 4000-centuries listings of the ruling Kings and Pharaohs survives pretty much intact, but nothing on the thousands of common folks who worked, lived, farmed, raised families, worked on the pyramids, etc.  In my reading I did find reference to a cattle census…….. not very helpful except to date the regnal years. Using Google I did find a query post that went something like this:  “My parents were immigrants from Egypt in the 1950s……”

Doing a Google search for “Egyptian Vital Records,” I came upon a paper published in 1981titled “Development of the Vital Statistics System in Egypt.” I’ll quote one important statement here:  “In the modern era, the registration of births and deaths in rural as well as urban areas dates back to 1839; it was made obligatory towards the end of the last century. However, in spite of the early beginnings of compulsory registration of vital evens, the completeness of registration was very poor, particularly in the rural areas. It took almost 70 years for the vital statistics system to reach the 91% coverage of registration.” And we feel bad for those with Irish ancestry!

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Have Missouri heritage? Last May I heard a talk by John Dougan, archivist at the Missouri Digital Heritage archives. Here are some of the points he made:  “Our archives gets 8,000,000 hits per month; we offer a basic and an advanced search (“a simple search yields too much of nothing”; we have 9,000,000 records on the website so I do recommend using the advanced search” They have “digital museum exhibits” for which he quipped, “Block out hours of time for this part of our website!”

One statement Dougan made is parallel to the quotes from Cyndi Ingle (above). He strongly encouraged users to browse by TOPIC and then MEDIA TYPE….  “don’t search the entire barn for the horse, go look in the stall.”

One most interesting looking tidbit he gave about the site was that they have the Missouri State Penitentiary records, 1836-1931. “It’s an index mostly….only images back to the 1880s…but the photos we have can include mug shots and tattoos!” His final quip on this subject was “don’t assume your Missouri ancestor is not in this database until you go and look and hope you don’t get surprised.”

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Did lots of map reading on this trip; here are some for-real Texas towns:  Cut and Shoot,  Oatmeal,  Dime Box,  Snook,  Guy,  Best,  Shine,  Krum,  Benjamin,  Cactus,  Tool,  Cash,  Sunray,  Mule Shoe,  Happy,  Draw,  Quail,  White Face,  Valentine,  Orange,  West Orange,  Energy, and (best of all) Tarzan, Texas. Your ancestor from any of these bitty places??

Having just been for two weeks in Egypt, learning about all the 4000 year old temples and pyramids, and experiencing the warmth and friendliness of the Egyptian people, Egypt is on my mind today.

Here is my picture from the Mena House Hotel where we stayed several nights. The old part of it was built in 1869 to house the dignitaries who came for the opening of the Suez Canal.

Are there resources for folks with Egyptian ancestry? Very darn little, I found. The Wiki on FamilySearch has a “Egypt Genealogy” page but there is not yet much there. Could find nothing in the Ancestry catalog.

Reading Mountains of the Pharaohs: The Untold Story of the Pyramid Builders, by Dr. Zawi Hawass, 2006, my eyes jumped at this:  “The ancient Egyptian government took a census of cattle every two years, and kings of the early periods numbered their reigns according to these censuses.”  That’s cool, but of no genealogy help.

There are folks with Egyptian ancestry who will be wanting to trace their family tree. I hope some resources will soon be coming.

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Why do fall sunsets seem more colorful than at any other time?????

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There has been lots of wuzz-wuzzing (my father’s words!!) about whether or not the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will keep the “real” books on their shelves after each one is digitized. Should they or shouldn’t they? James Tanner, who is eminently qualified to address this topic, in a post in his GenealogyStar blog on 1 October 2015, explained a new concept (at least to me):The Digital Divide.

This particular problem, called the Digital Divide, is the divide between genealogists who use the Internet and those who do not. Tanner, in his post, thought it would be a good thing to have all the FHL books free and available online. But after his post, he received some thoughtful comments. “Not all of the potential genealogists have access to the Internet or their access was so slow as to make the (book downloading process) impractical.”

Tanner gives several scenarios and summarizes:  “So, we have, hypothetically speaking, a class of people who have no Internet access. In addition… we have a class of people who have no physical access to the FHL or any of the branch libraries around the world. Guess what? It absolutely makes no difference to them as to whether or not the books are in paper or in digital format.”

He finishes his post by pointing out any and all of the problems connected with this peculiar condition termed the Digital Divide (and they can be many) have nothing to do with digitizing books at the FHL. “In law, raising the issue of the Digital Divide as a reason why there is something wrong with the Library’s digitization of paper books and then removing them from the shelves, would be called a “red herring,” that is, irrelevant to the issues.”

I urge you to click to http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2015/10/genealogy-and-digital-divide.html and ready this entire post for yourself. While you’re there, sign up (via email) to receive all James Tanner’s thoughtful posts.

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Mary Holcomb, soon to be vice-president of EWGS, shared a great blurb with me…….. if you click to www.sos.wa.gov/legacyproject/washington-remembers you will find the stories of Washington’s heroes … including Fred Skiosaki. His story is a terrific read, as are all the stories found on this website. “Washington Remembers….. WWII….Their Sacrifice, Our Freedom.”

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One pearl gleaned from Cyndi Ingle, our EWGS Fall Workshop speaker, was for a little program called Fences.  “Are your desktop icons often scrambled from the positions you put them in?” asked Cyndi. “With this little program, you put “fences” (boxes) around groups of icons on your desktop and they stay put. I did it and so far I’m quite happy with the results……… go see for yourself. Google “stardock fences.” (Stardock is the company originating the program.)

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I’m a member of the St.Clair County (IL) Gen Society and so receive their Quarterly. In the latest edition they reported on a most-cool project. Under the direction of their teacher, local high school students in the German class are translating old German obituaries that were published in the German-speaking area newspaper in 1893. I think that is a terrific idea! Think of the various and many ethnic newspapers in our area…….

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Another Illinois research pearl I gleaned from the above Quarterly was that the Illinois Blue Books, 1900-2006, are digitized and now are available online. State Blue Books are “most than a directory of (state’s) legislative officials, their portraits and biographies, articles about (state’s) farms…………….. they contain departmetntal reports …… conservation, finance, insurance, labor, mines, public health, welfare, safety, education, maps, patriotic organizations and photographs……”  These online Illinois Blue Books can be found on the Illinois Digital Archives website, www.idaillinois.org

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Do you know: How many national parks do we have in Washington?? How many have you visited? Well, there are three: Olympic, North Cascades and Mount Rainier National Parks. And there are many national monuments and state parks. (We are so lucky in that regard!!) Came upon a “List Challenge” with a list of all the national parks in the U.S. (and there are 59) and inviting us to see how many we have visited…. www.listchallenges.com/national-parks-of-the-usa  My score was 30-some, how about you? (The above photo of mine is of Rialto Beach just west of Forks, WA.)

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Do any of your non-genealogy friends bring up to you the seemingly negative Bible verses against genealogy, like Titus 3:9 and 1 Timothy 1:4:  “neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies..”  I’ve done some studying and have come to understand that Jews of that day strove to prove their descent from Abraham thus claiming that they were automatically saved above the Gentiles and were better than the Gentiles. That’s what Paul was warning against; he stressed personal righteousness no matter what your ancestry. Whew!

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Shall end today with a great quote from Ellen Goodman, columnist for the Boston Globe:  “This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the talks of how we loved. In the end, it’s the family stories that are worth the storage.”  

Reason? I’ll be the least among four speakers at Heritage Quest Research Library’s OctoberFest on Saturday, October 10th. As it’s a 6-hour drive from Spokane, I’ll be heading over on Friday.

If you live near Sumner, and are not signed up for this exciting day, I don’t think it’s too late. Click to www.hqrl.com for information.

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Hubby and I attended a wonderful presentation last evening from the Spokane Chapter of the American Archaeology Association. Dr. Robert Neyland told us all about the H.L. Hunley, the Confederate submarine that sank the U.S.S. Housatonic and then sank herself.

Dr. Neyland related how Hunley had been found and recovered (in 2000) and was now undergoing restoration (which will take another 8 years!). Read all about it at www.hunley.org.  The most fascinating part was when he explained the recovery of the eight crew members…their bones and artifacts. At the above website they have posted photos of the cranial-face-feature reconstructions of all eight men. After all the forensic work was done, these veterans were buried under the Confederate flag in a Charleston, SC, cemetery and several descendants attended the event.

If you think you, or somebody you know, might be a descendant of a sailor aboard the H.S. Hunley, do some Googling and you’ll find plenty of exciting information on this particular brave ancestor.

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Did you know:  The membership of every organization is made up of four types of bones:

1.  Wish Bones  —  These “bones” sit around and wish every one else would do the work.

2.  Jaw Bones  —  These “bones” do all the tal king but little of the work.

3.  Knuckle Bones  —  These “bones” knock everything that everybody else tries to do.

4.  Back Bones  —  These “bones” are the ones who get under the load and do all the work.

Which kind of “bone” are you????

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Above the entrance to the University of Colorado Library is this carved phrase:  “He who knows only his own genealogy remains always a child.”   Isn’t that an interesting homile to be carved over the door of a university library?

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Just discovered a new-to-me website that will help in the finding of local or still-alive people. Give it a try at www.blackbookonline.com.  The home page describes this as “the free public records search site.”

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Another way-cool website that my brother shared with me is this….. Google this phrase:  “22 Maps and Charts that will surprise you.”  Posted by Ezra Klein on 11 Mar 2015, he explains:  “A good visualization helps you see what the data is telling you. The best visualizations help you see things you never thought the data would tell you. These 22 charts and maps were, at least for me, in that category: all of them told me something I found surprising. Some of them genuinely changed the way I think about the world.”  Really, now, try it you’ll like it.

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Have you heard of Thomas MacEntee’s The Genealogy Fairy? Thomas explains:  “Back in March 2015, I announced a new concept as part of my genealogy business: The Genealogy Fairy. I have seen a huge increase in business revenue related to affiliate marketing and I wanted a way to say thankyou to those who continue to support my business and believe in what I do to improve the way we search for our family history. 

What Thomas has done is to set aside 5% of affiliate income for some type of grant program. These Genealogy Fairy grants are open to all genealogical and historical organizations, especially non-profits, and to individual genealogists who seek to fund specific projects related to genealogy and family history. 

If this offer intrigues you, click to www.genealogybloggers.com/update-genealogy-fairy.com. Or just Google “the genealogy fairy.”  What a good guy to make such a great offer.

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Been wanting to make a family book? An ONLINE family book? Like with Shutterfly?  I was just introduced to the Olive Tree blog:   Olive Tree Genealogy, created by Lorine in February 1996 was started to bring genealogists FREE genealogy records. Olive Tree Genealogy has more than 1,900 pages of free genealogy records to help you find your brick-wall ancestors and build your family tree. In a post of 1 Sep 2015, Lorine pointed to three YouTube tutorials on how to do a family book using Shutterfly. Why not take a peek?

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Unserious Thought for Today:  Broken pencils are pointless.