This will open your eyes……….. to the sad truth. According to the May/June 2018 issue of Family Tree Magazine, article titled “Heirloom Hand off” by Denise May Levenick, here is a list of

The 10 Least Wanted Heirlooms:

1. “brown” furniture
2. china
3. crystal
4. silver-plate serve ware
5. table linen
6. collectible figurines
7. collectible teapots, teacups and spoons
8. chafing dishes and large serving ware
9. pianos
10. grandfather clocks

And can you guess why? I think it’s because most of today’s millennial’s do not entertain the way their parents and grandparents did….. big fancy table, cut-work tablecloth, crystal and silver, candlesticks with bobeches and multi-pot-bowl dinners. To entertain that way, you needed the stuff on that list. Who does that sort of entertaining now-a-days? Yes, some but not most.

So if you’ve got great-grandma’s crocheted tablecloth and/or silver knives and forks and/or Limoges china, use it! And if it stains or breaks, oh well. Your kids don’t want it anyway.

I apologize; the devil made me share this……….. but isn’t she darling!!

My good friend Sue Miner who lived in New Hampshire, shared a photo she took of a sand sculpture on a nearby beach. It was titled “Ancestors.”

Do you see the faces sculpted into the sand? Sue explained that a special something is mixed into the sand to help hold it. Wouldn’t this be a sight to behold?

Crista Cowan is The Barefoot Genealogist, and does the FABULOUS Ancestry YouTube videos…. and she does one every single Wednesday. The first week of the month she does “What’s New At Ancestry.” Even if you cannot watch Crista live each week, her videos are posted on YouTube and anybody can go watch at anytime. Cool!

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Surname story:  Last week I drove the 80 miles north to visit with the Northeast Washington Gene Society in Colville.  A new member to the group was introduced, Mary YANN. She related that the surname was Swiss and was originally spelled JANN, pronounced “yawn.” She explained that when her grandfather was in grade school, the teacher insisted that a surname must be spelled as pronounced! Hence, Jann became Yann. Would that happen today? Fat chance!

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We keep hearing about The Deep Web. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It can be, but for us genealogists, it doesn’t have to be. Quoting again from James Tanner’s “Genealogy’s Star” blog:  “Sometimes the deep web or dark web is portrayed as something mysterious or even evil, but here is a definition from the Association of Internet Research Specialists about the hidden Internet that explains what and where it is:

“When you hear or read about the hidden or deep web, it’s anything behind a paywall (or) something with a password……These are the things you are not going to find with a traditional Google search.”

Example: Picture a huge, wonderful, old card file cabinet in your local library. (My first visit to the Family History Library was in 1975 and I there used a wooden-drawer file cabinet!) You might can click to that library’s website, and see where is listed among their resources “a card-catalog index to surnames in the area for in-house use only.” No Google search will look for your surname in that catalog. Make sense?

Or your local genealogical society has a “members’ only” section where are posted things like past issues of their publication and/or their membership list. Again, Googling to that society website won’t get you into those publications because they are behind a membership wall. Again, make sense?

Maybe I’m silly-crazy but I collect interesting rest room signs. Like these:

Spotted the above one in New Zealand at a volcanic-geyser place. Can you read it:  GALSERS and GUYSERS.

Don’t recall where I saw the one below. Have you any interesting rest room signs to share? Love to see them!

We just gotta love old genealogy books. When, for $1.00, I bought a copy of the 1965 book by E. Kay Kirkham, The Counties of the UNITED STATES and Their Genealogical Value, I was pleased as punch. (What is the origin of THAT??)

Darn! Didn’t realize that dragging it just that much bigger would cause such distortion. Sorry. If you would like a better copy, as an email attachment, holler: Donna243@gmail.com

Reading through the county names, county seat names and parent county names, the only new one to me was Sawanish, the parent county of Mason County.

Of our 41 counties now, 20 have the Original County designation. Here’s a spot of real trivia for you: Washington Territory was organized from Oregon Territory in 1853 but Seattle’s King County dates to 1852. Most interesting, no?

We know what a seagull is, right? Would you guess how many different types of gulls there are??  This is Mr. Resting Seagull that I spotted in New Zealand…. just posing for tourist photos, no doubt.

“There are at least 28 types of gull species seen in North America. These birds are fairly well distributed throughout the continent along the coastlines and at sea. Although gulls are referred to as seagulls on a daily basis by most people, they are simply referred to as “gulls” in the birding society.” (Quoting from this website: https://www.birds-of-north-america.net/gulls.html )

From another website, I learned that there are 50 species world wide! Gracious. Never would have guessed. Would you?