**** The Yakima Valley Genealogical Society just celebrated their 50^th anniversary in October. Three of the original charter members are still alive; one of those is Maxine Bissell, age 100+, and they hoped she’d be able to attend the party. The day of celebration was Saturday, Oct 21^st, and included a potluck by the members and an open house and sharing of stories. Sue Ericksen, a member for 25 years, and current president, arranged the day. Way to go, YVGS!!

How many other genealogical societies in our state have 50 years under their belt? Skagit Valley Genealogical Society just marked their 30^th. The Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, founded in 1935, has been serving genealogists in Spokane and surrounding areas for 82 years. Any society top that?

**** This is truly a serendipity story. Last time I visited the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society library, Frank McLean showed me their newest treasure….. 16 volumes of Mortgages of Yakima County, dating from 1898. And where did these books come from? Frank said that some time ago a fellow called from Hawaii to say he had spotted these at a yard sale there and did some looking on the Internet, found YVGS, and so called to see if YVGS wanted these books. (“Duh,” quoth Frank.) This wonderful fellow paid to ship all 16 volumes to Yakima. The YVGS plan now is to digitize all the pages (“nearly done,” said Frank) and index it all and make it available on the YVGS website.  The question begs: How on earth did these books end up in Hawaii?????

**** Reading a fantastic book: FamilyTrees: A History of Genealogy in America, by Francois Weil, 2013. Weil starts at the very beginning of America and explains why folks were interested in knowing their backgrounds and family history. (I’ll give more bits from this book in the future.) Page 204:  “Market growth (of the genealogy industry) since the 1970s has taken place in two phases. Before the growth of the Internet came the commercial effects of the new interest in genealogy, symbolized by the success of Roots, and of technological change in the preservation, reproductions and transfer of information.”  At a conference in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1982, a session on using computers in genealogy was included. “Computers are becoming quite common in genealogical research,” it was declared.   Did you realize that Ancestry.com (1983) predates FamilySearch.org (1999)??? When did you begin using a computer for your genealogy???  My first computer, in about 1991, was a Kaypro 10 and I was so excited to have it! With it’s green letters on a black screen!

**** Ever heard of “warnings out” when doing New England research? Quoting from an article by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, in the NEHGS Register, Summer 2015: “The floating poor, unwelcome anywhere but the town in which they were born, left scant documentary record of their existence. They are often mentioned only in warnings out when the town council ordered that they leave town before becoming a burden on the tax rolls. As each town bore the responsibility of supporting its own poor, strangers without proper certificates from their own towns represented an undue drain on the chronically stressed town treasuries.” Have you found your ancestor on a “warned out” list??

**** Judy Russell has a terrific nearly daily blog. Last Friday (Oct 27) she posted a great bit about NARA, our National Archives. She reminds us that this repository of American history offers “a virtual cornucopia if information about records there, researching in person at its facilities, and about genealogical research in general.” Wanna know more? Click to www.YouTube.com then to the NARA channel, “Know Your Records.” There you’ll find 61 video-lessons listed, plenty enough for a couple of soon-to-come snow days.

**** Don’t most of us know about Internet Archive…. quoting from their website: “Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.” The news about Internet Archive is that now you can digitally borrow a book from this site! Say you’re looking for a family history, The Turners from Tennessee, and you finally find a copy on Internet Archive….. now you can borrow that book for up to 14 days for free.  Check it out.  (P.S. I made up that book.)

**** True serendipity: Did you know that brown chickens give brown eggs and white hens give white eggs. That’s the ONLY difference; there is no difference in nutrition, so I read.

****Ever seen or snacked upon a Donut Peach??  Spotted this in a little market near the Fiske Library in Seattle. They were delicious….but yes, a funny shape.

**** Know what triggers the leaves to change color? When a hot, dry summer is followed by a hot, dry fall, this allows the leaves to continue making chlorophyll that keeps them green. But chlorophyll productions finally slows and stops in the fall. And without chlorophyll, the yellow and orange pigments of the leaves become dominant, resulting in the many beautiful colors of fall. (This is my Japanese Maple.)

****Do you enjoy the History channel on TV? They have a new thing…. “American history streaming live…series, documentaries, all commercial free!” This is only for Apple/iPad/iPhone products and subscription is $50 a year. But think of all the good-better TV you’d be able to watch! Click to www.historyvault.com/american

**** Know what a rhumb line is? Washington is a maritime state so thought you’d like to know this new-to-me term. “A rhumb line is a line on the earth’s surface which intersects all meridians and parallels of latitude at the same angle. A line of constant course is a rhumb line.” Now a picture is definitely worth a thousand words here:

**** Want to know more about DNA….using it, understanding it, etc? Just like with any other new-to-you-thing, you need to go back to school, so to speak. In this case, just Google the words “understanding DNA” or some such and you’ll have more watching and reading to do than you have time for!  I recommend (1) www.youtube.com and the DNA subject/channel; (2) Diane Southard’s www.yourdnaguide.com; (3) Ancestry Academy and their lessons on DNA. It’s up to you and me; if we really apply ourselves, we can and will understand something about DNA. BUT BUT BUT please know, too, that you never have to know it all! Just enough for your purposes.

Is your favorite morning juice apple from the Tree Top company?

Back in 1944, a co-op of over 1000 apple growers was formed with headquarters in Selah under the leadership of William H. “Bill” Charbonneau. Realizing that the public was dissatisfied with “fruity drinks that contained only 15% real juice” which he called “belly wash masquerading as the real thing,” he determined to do better with Washington apples. He founded the Tree Top company with the high standards of “all natural, no sugar added,” which still is followed today.

Today, Tree Top’s seven plants produce a long line of apple products with apple juice and cider being the backbone of the retail market. Bill’s genius was to take the “culls,” those fruits deemed undesirable as eating apples, and turn them into a useful product. Up to this time, the culls had been dumped by truck loads into the landfill.

The name, Tree Top, arrived in 1947, with the contest winner to name the company. Today, America’s #1 selling apple juice is Tree Top, made right here in Washington!

(From Tree Top: Creating a Fruit, great book by David H. Stratton, published in 2010 by the WSU Press.)

IS there a book with my family in it?  I’ve been asked that question many times and not just in beginning classes. The answer is this: You won’t know if you don’t go looking.

1. FamilySearch.org has a huge collection of family histories.
2. Google books,  ditto.
3. Hathitrust.org,  ditto
4. Archive.org,  ditto
5. Digital Public Library of America (www.dp.la),  ditto.

So please don’t dump genealogy for knitting or sky diving until you’ve looked for your Bazeleel Jinglemeyer in every place you can think of.

Diane Huckabee told the story of finding the name LaStone for a child….. and after much pondering, she realized it must stand for “Last One!” (Just had to toss that in here for you; thanks, Diane, for sharing.)

Spotted a book in the Fiske Library in Seattle: Washington Ghost Towns, by Lambert Florin, 1970, WSU Press. Intrigued, I hauled it back to my table. The index listed 23 different ghost towns! I would never have guessed that Washington had that many. But wait! Doing a Google search for “ghost towns in USA” and then “Washington” I found a list of 55 ghost towns in our Evergreen State!

This was Ruby, Washington, just 13 miles north of Okanogan. Quite a town; did your ancestors struggle to live there? Was it a mining or lumbering town? (Grandma Google knows the answer.)

Thinking ahead to your next summer’s road trip, and if you’re a ghost town nerd, pin that list to your map and away you’ll go!

A drone to walk your dog?  Yep. A company in England has created a drone that has a built-in, retractable leash, and a hands-free pilot that uses GPS to walk your dog on the route you select. All for a mere $2300. The article does state that “a Great Dane probably could overpower the drone, while a Yorkie might be lifted into the air.”  Think I’ll sit on this awhile…..

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Are you an alumni of WSU (Washington State University)? If so, you’re entitled to a free subscription to their Washington State Magazine which comes quarterly out of WSU in Pullman. Contact the Biographical & Records Team, PO Box 641927, Pullman WA  99164-1227 to state your subscription. For a $15 annual fee, you can subscribe if you’re not an alum.

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What does it really mean to be healthy? A bit in a recent National Geographic Magazine from Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General, explains emotional well-being is just as important as eating a healthy diet and staying active. So how do we fix that, Murthy was asked. “The first thing we need to change is how we think about emotions. Emotions are a source of power…. but too many people think of emotions as a source of weakness…. we must learn to cultivate emotional well-being tools such as sleep, physical activity, social connections, and contemplative practices like gratitude and meditation. Murthy’s bit was ended with his fear that the level of stress among people today is what kills emotional well-being. Something to think about for sure.

Most everybody in the world of today’s genealogy knows of Thomas MacEntee, the Tech Guru and All Around Crazy Guy.

Thomas is a nationally-in-demand speaker and (I’m so proud to say) is one of the main presenters for the annual Salt Lake Christmas Tour. (www.saltlakechristmastour.org)  He recently announced some big changes in his business model and what he offers to all of us and how he offers it to us. I asked him for a re-cap and now share it with you:

How Is SLCT Instructor Thomas MacEntee Spending His Summer?

Well besides trips to Southern California, too many visits to Reno to visit some one-armed bandits, Thomas has been busy retooling and reprogramming his genealogy business and various websites. Here’s an update directly from Thomas:

• As of June 1st, Thomas has stopped updating his site GeneaBloggers.com and has transferred much of the community organizing efforts to a new group named GeneaBloggers Tribe(http://geneabloggerstribe.com/). The new group is run by Pat Richley-Erickson (aka Dear Myrtle) and focuses on resources for genealogy bloggers. So why did Thomas decide to leave the blogging community after starting GeneaBloggers in 2009? As he says, “I didn’t leave blogging as much as I realized that over the past eight years the genealogy community has gained knowledge of many social media skills including blogging. I felt that my energies were better directed towards education involving genealogy methodology and working with those new to family history.”
• Thomas’ new site Genealogy Bargainslaunched in March 2017 and is now his main focus. Genealogy Bargains posts daily deals and coupons on products such as AncestryDNA, 23andMe, genealogy books and webinars. You can save as much as 80%! So before you click that CHECKOUT button, remember to visit Genealogy Bargains at https://genealogybargains.com
• And what about DNA and genealogy? Well Thomas has hopped on the bandwagon with his new site DNA Bargainswhich debuted a week before National DNA Day which is April 25th. Not only will you find the best deals on DNA test kits, but you’ll find his reviews and opinions about each test. Visit DNA Bargains at https://dnabargains.com to figure out which DNA test is right for you and your genealogy research.
• And finally, Thomas has gathered up all his other small sites (Hack Genealogy, High-Definition Genealogy and others) into one umbrella site called Abundant Genealogy. The new site provides information on the genealogy industry PLUS Thomas posts many “freebies” such as downloads of his popular e-books in both Amazon Kindle and PDF versions.

We all know Thomas is a busy guy and he says that he’s looking forward to teach classes at the upcoming Salt Lake Christmas Tour in December with several new presentation topics. What’s the best way to follow Thomas and keep track of all his content? Sign up for his free genealogy and technology e-newsletter at https://abundantgenealogy.com/mailinglist