What is Your Most Prized Possession?

My husband works in Aiken, South Carolina and has maintained a temporary office and apartment there for three years. Recently the apartment building he was staying in was completely destroyed by fire. He had no idea that when he crossed the threshold at midnight he would be the last person to ever pass through that door. Since he was sleeping at the time the fire broke out he was very lucky to escape with the shirt on his back, his smartphone, and his laptop.

As a Nuclear Safety Engineer he has accumulated a wonderful reference library. Much of his collection is in digital format which makes it easier for him access digitally. It also makes the collection easy to move when he changes working locations. The most precious part of his library has been digitized and contains unpublished and published material, much that is no longer available to the public. Even though his collection was in digital format, he stored them on CDs. They were not copied on to his laptop or backed up to an off-site storage facility. He had intentions of doing that… someday. When asked he will tell you that this collection is the most valuable item he lost in that devastating fire.

I sing the old song of “Backup Backup Backup” in telling this story. One of the sponsors for the TriCity Genealogical Society Archived Document Contest is Backblaze.com. Backblaze.com provides online backup effortlessly. Over the years I have used a variety of this type of software and I have struggled with the amount of resources that are demanded from my computer while the backup occurs. I have been using Backblaze for over a year and I personally endorse how easy it is to use. It is invisible yet effective. Jan Norman won the June 2015 Archived Document Contest which was a one year subscription to Backblaze.com. I encourage anyone who uses a computer to check out what Backblaze has to offer. Go to www.backblaze.com to learn more about their services.

The August 2015 prize to the contest is a one year subscription to “Internet Genealogy”. “Internet Genealogy” beautifully combines the Internet and genealogy by providing articles that focus on genealogy-related resources, software, tools, products, technologies and more. You can find out more about what this magazine has to offer by checking out their website at www.internet-genealogy.com. Data backup is an issue that is often discussed.

The Archived Document Contest was created to stir an interest in off-line repositories and non-digitized records while simultaneously celebrating computerized genealogy. There are some wonderful monthly prizes lined up. To enter merely submit a digital image of a document that was obtained in some method other than downloading from the Internet. Include a brief description of how you obtained the document and how it relates to your family history research. These submissions can be done on the TriCity Genealogical Society Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TriCityGenealogicalSociety or by emailing them to Susan Davis Faulkner at denmother4@hotmail.com. You do not need to be a member of the TriCity Genealogical Society to submit an entry or to win.

Winning may be easier than you think and the long term benefits of winning may be more rewarding than you can contemplate. Jan Norman has the opportunity to have a complete backup of her digital collection just because she entered the contest. The August contest is now underway and the winner will have rich resources at their fingertips as well. 

Sub-Agent of Indian Affairs Descendant Wins Archived Document Contest for July 2015

Each month the Archived Document Contest provides us new information and the July 2015 contest had its own set of curiosities and twists. Genealogists everywhere seemed busy with road trips, conferences, and family reunions. They loaded their Facebook pages and updated their blogs with information about their summer activities.

Summer officially ends on September 22 and the TriCity Genealogical Society has their Traveling Through Time conference scheduled for September 12. This provides traveling genealogists an opportunity to add one last conference to their summer itinerary. It also provides local genealogists an opportunity to attend a conference without traveling.

The speaker for this upcoming conference will be William Dollarhide. Mr. Dollarhide is a very well-known author and speaker. The TriCities should feel honored to have a genealogist of his caliber come to the community.

Another individual that you will probably see at the conference is Larry Bafus. Larry won the July 2015 contest. He submitted a copy of his 3^rd great grandfather’s acceptance as a Sub-Agent of Indian Affairs of Washington Territory which was written in 1854. Larry’s 3^rd great grandfather was Andrew J. Bolon. Bolon’s district covered “between the Bitterroot and Cascade Mountains.” Sadly, Bolon died a year and a half later at the hands of the Yakamas near present day Goldendale. An interesting point to Bolon’s acceptance letter is that it was written to Isaac Stevens who at the time the letter was written was Governor of Washington Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

Larry Bafus

Acceptance Letter of AJ Bolon

Traveling Through Time

William Dollarhide

Saturday, September 12, William Dollarhide will be the speaker for the TriCity Genealogical Society seminar titled “Traveling Through Time.” The seminar will be held at the Reata Springs Baptist Church located at 2881 Leslie Road in Richland, Washington.

Many genealogists are familiar with the name Dollarhide, and there are obvious reasons. He has authored over 120 magazine articles and over 30 books. His book Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920 is one of the top-5 best-selling genealogy books in America. He is also well known as a national speaker, speaking to genealogy audiences in more than 45 states. In addition to speaking at local and state level seminars and conferences he has instructed several classes at the national level in conferences sponsored by the National Genealogical Society and the Federation of Genealogical Societies. His credentials include honors of “Award of Merit” from the American Society of Genealogists and an “Award of Appreciation” from the National Genealogical Society along with many “Awards of Appreciation” from state level societies.

The TriCity Genealogical Society is honored to sponsor this seminar, in which William Dollarhide will focus on four lectures. The titles of these lectures are “Dollarhide’s Five Rules,” “American Migration Routes 1750-1800,” “Civil War Genealogy,” and “Finding Living Relatives Online.” A traveling bookstore containing many Dollarhide books will be available at the seminar.

Registration to the “Traveling Through Time” seminar is open to the public. The costs is $35.00 and includes lunch if submitted before August 15^th. To register, download a registration form from www.tricitygenealogicalsociety.org and send it to TriCity Genealogical Society, PO Box 1410, Richland WA 99352. For more information contact Susan Davis Faulkner at denmother4@hotmail.com or 509-554-1050.

June's Archived Document Contest Unanimous Winner

The month of June 2015 provided the Archived Document Contest with a wealth of information. We discovered more locations for important documents. We also enjoyed the stories that encouraged us to go beyond the Internet to find gems of our own family’s history.

In June we learned that Civil Servants, even when burdened with their own workload, can be a valuable connection. Margie Stein Beldin received information about her great grandparents’ marriage registration which also included her great great grandfathers’ name. This opened up a new generation of family information for her. We also got to mentally visit cemeteries and research libraries with Jan Norman as she told her story of finding letters between her third great grand uncle and his Civil War active military nephews. Marian Beecher Halverson and Susan Davis Faulkner shared additional stories of photographs and documents provided by family members. This reminded us of the vast amount of information contained in family collections.

Jan Norman and her cousin, Jim Cunningham

The Judging Panel voted unanimously that Jan Norman’s trip to the Working Man’s Institute and Library in New Harmony, Indiana walked away with the June prize for the Archived Document Contest. Jan Norman’s “feet on the ground” research provided incredible and personal information about her family in 1863. The letter that Jan submitted was full of details of what her ancestors experienced while fighting in the war.

Go to the TCGS Facebook page to read the entire letter.

Page Two of the Schnee Civil War Letter

Jan wins a one year subscription to Backblaze. Backblaze provides continual online backup service so Jan won’t have to stop her important work to save those valuable files.

July’s Archived Document Contest is currently underway. Upload a digital copy of a document you acquired in any method, other than downloading, to the TriCity Genealogical Society Facebook page to enter. July’s prize is a free registration to the Traveling Through Time Seminar scheduled for September 12, 2015 in Richland. William Dollarhide is the speaker. For more information on the seminar go to www.tricitygenealogicalsociety.org. To check out the current Facebook entries, or to enter, go to https://www.facebook.com/TriCityGenealogicalSociety

Photo by Roxanne Lowe

Here are some of the people from TCGS that attended the Washington State Genealogical Society conference in Ellensberg with speaker David Rencher.   L to R – a friend, Renee Petersen, Veronica Anguiano, Hank Jackel (standing), Margie Belden and Mary Ann Orton.

At this conference Veronica Anguiano and Margie Belden were awarded WSGS Recognition awards for which TCGS had nominated them.

Veronica Anguiano 

Veronica was recognized for her outstanding efforts in the cataloging of historical documents of importance and value to researchers interested in Benton and Franklin Counties.

Veronica Anguaimo has been selected by the Tri-City Genealogical Society (TCGS) as their recipient of the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award. She was selected for her commitment to researching and sharing information, even outside her local Society.

Ms. Anguiano has distinguished herself in untiring support of the TCGS as its Research Chair and helping research Benton and Franklin county histories. Ms. Anguiano has responded willingly and efficiently to numerous requests for information from outside her local society.

Ms. Anguiano has become heavily involved in re-cataloging the TCGS library holdings so the holdings can be searched from the FamilySearch Library Catalog. As the holdings are re-cataloged, the new numbers are uploaded to the FamilySearch system, making them searchable from FamilySearch’s online site.

Ms. Anguaimo is a respected and diligent member of the TCGS, and richly deserves this recognition.

Margie Belden

 Margie was recognized for exceptional and consistent support of the goals and operation of the Tri-City Genealogical Society.

Margie Beldin has been selected by the Tri-City Genealogical Society (TCGS) as their recipient of the WSGS Outstanding Volunteer Award. She was selected for her dedicated, enthusiastic efforts to educate members of her local Society.

Ms. Beldin has distinguished herself in untiring support of the TCGS as its Education Chair for many years.  In that position, Ms. Beldin has made many classes on a wide variety of subjects available to the membership. Ms. Beldin has not only coordinated setting up classes and programs, she has taught numerous classes herself, as she actively increases her knowledge and capability through attendance at genealogical conferences and classes outside the TCGS. She is always willing to share the knowledge that she gets from these events.

Ms. Beldin is a valued and hard-working member of the TCGS, and richly deserves this recognition.

Benefits of Membership Explained by Kathy Weddle Sizer

Kathy Weddle Sizer, President of the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society, has been a member for

over 40 years. On June 10, 2015 she explained the benefits of society membership and active participation to those attending the TriCity Genealogical Society meeting. As with any other organization, club, or society, membership in a genealogical society can provide companionship which without effort leads to mentorship. Hiking can be done alone. It is not wise but it is possible. Someone that is interested in hiking would benefit by joining an organization where they can learn more about terrains, gear, and methods. The same is true for genealogy. It too can be done in solitude but the void created by solitary research can lead to innocent mistakes.

Kathy provided an example that was close to home. Her niece found Kathy’s grandmother’s name listed on the Social Security Death Index. Using the location of Kathy’s grandmother’s last benefit location as her place of death, she made a grave error. Kathy’s grandmother died in Union Gap but her last Social Security benefit was received in Cle Elum. Kathy’s niece innocently used the Cle Elum location as her place of death. This error is now available for others to copy from Ancestry.com Members Public Trees. Had Kathy’s niece attended meetings and interacted with other researchers she would have known that there can easily be a difference between the last benefit location and the death location. Kathy also pointed out that many errors like this are available to copy from various sites online and warned researchers about the fallacies available in online family trees.

Interacting with other researchers can help someone tear down brick walls. Many a seasoned genealogist is happy to share the methods that lead to their own personal victories that can also be repeated by researchers struggling to understand the best way to prove historical facts. There are also seasoned genealogists who focus on particular studies like medical information or military involvement. Kathy shared stores about adoption cases that were solved by following leads made available from other members or presentations at meetings.

There is strength in numbers. A society represents a group of people and through their efforts great repositories can be created. Kathy gave many examples of what can be found at the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society library but also provided personal stories of great discoveries she had experienced by researching at genealogical societies close to her ancestral homes.

Kathy summarized her presentation by saying, “My membership in my local society is the best gift I can give myself.” Kathy’s devotion to local societies was not only enthusiastically testified verbally but also visually. Even an arm in a sling didn’t hold her back from enjoying the TriCity Genealogical Society meeting.

Winner of May's Archived Document Contest Announced

There were only a few submissions in May 2015 for the Archived Document Contest but these few entries provided wonderful lessons. Documents from the 1700s and the 1900s were located on microfilms available through the Family History Library. The documents on these microfilms containing important genealogical information were viewed in Salt Lake City and also at the Richland Family History Center. This proved to us that travel is not necessary when looking for un-digitized documents. Microfilms from the Family History Library can be brought to our neighborhood Family History Centers.

Ray Baalman is this month’s winner of the Archived Document Contest. He submitted two documents from 1700s France. More importantly he shared with us a very valuable lesson. “The important principle illustrated here is NEVER overlook the importance of witnesses at baptisms and marriages. They are often relatives and can give important clues about where to look next.” Ray illustrated this lesson by explaining that he found his seventh great grandmother recorded as the godmother of his fifth great grandmother on that grandmother’s marriage record.

Ray wins an annual subscription to Newspapers.com. With this subscription he will have access to over 3600 newspapers from the 1700s to the 2000s. There are currently 103,266,276 pages available for viewing through the every-word searchable databases. For more information about Newspapers.com go to www.newspapers.com or read their very entertaining blog titled Fishwrap at blog.newspapers.com

Below is Ray Baalman's submission including copies of the documents and a translation from French to English. 

Here is an entry for May's Archived Record Contest from Ray Baalman.

I am submitting two eighteenth-century documents I discovered on microfilms from the Family History Library and read at the Richland Family History Center. I am submitting both because they are related, and they point out an important principle of genealogical research. I am also appending a transcription and translation of the records since they are in French and a bit hard to read.

For many centuries, most of my French ancestors lived in or very nearby the town of Saint Avold in the east of France, not far from the German border. One of the more prominent members of the family, Christophe Margot, was a successful tanner, who lived and practiced his trade in the town of Saint Avold. I found his baptismal record in the parish register and nothing more until his first child was baptized when Christophe was 29 years old. I could not find Christophe’s marriage record.

After locating the baptismal records of all three of his children and studying them closely, I discovered that his second child (my fifth great-grandmother), who was baptized in 1721, had godparents who came from a different town (sarlouys on the record, now spelled Saarlouis) some 20 miles north of Saint Avold. I ordered the film for marriage records in Saarlouis (which was in France then, but is now in Germany) and found that the marriage had taken place there in 1717. The marriage record also proved that the godmother of my fifth great-grandmother was her grandmother, my seventh great.

The important principle illustrated here is NEVER overlook the importance of witnesses at baptisms and marriages. They are often relatives and can give important clues about where to look next.