Don’t Pay Your 2016 Dues. Win Your Membership in the October Archived Document Contest.

Entries to the Archived Document Contest in September gave the Judges plenty to discuss. They enjoyed getting to know the individuals behind the documents that were offered.

Digital copies of a scrapbook were shared. These scrapbooks were created by a businessman in the early 20^th century. He collected poems that he enjoyed written by Whittier, Longfellow and Wordsworth. He also kept copies of his own poetry that had been published in local newspapers. The poetry showed a very special and unknown part of this man who was known as a businessman and Seattle politician. Typical genealogical records would have never been able to share the spiritual and sensitive side of this person, yet the scrapbook collection made it possible to get to know this side of him.

Typical genealogical records can provide insight into ancestral mysteries though. The Judges also got to review a digitized copy of a marriage certificate found at the Ellensburg library. In finding this certificate descendants discovered that their ancestor had married again after his wife had died. Not only had he remarried but he had married a woman with the same first name as his deceased wife. Without finding this marriage certificate it would have been easy to assume that his first wife had lived many years longer than she did since both women died with the same name.

After much discussion, and a lot of fun with various scenarios, the Judges decided that Mina Jo Payson was the winner of the September contest. Her document taught a very important lesson in allowing the documents to support our research. This was a difficult decision for the Judges, however, as they would love to see everyone find a scrapbook filled with items of importance to our ancestors.

This is for the documents contest. My brother came home from the library in Ellensburg and asked me if our great grandfather had a second wife. When I went up to the library, we looked for a marriage certificate and guess what? He married his housekeeper six years after his first wife, Sarah, died. Conveniently her first name was Sarah, too! This led to some more interesting discoveries about our family.

What have you discovered about your ancestor? Share a digital copy of a document on the TriCity Genealogical Society Facebook page. The document could have been found anywhere except the Internet. Explain where you found the document and how it ties into your family history research. Don’t pay your dues. Win your dues. The prize for the October Archived Document Contest is a 2016 Membership to the TriCity Genealogical Society