WSGS Conference 2013 at Yakima, Day 2

Saturday started out early with great breakfast as part of our room rent at the Howard Johnson Motel. They also had cereal, juice, coffee tea and some fruit.

I then wandered through the vender area, but I will do more on that in another post. Our first session was with the main speaker Bret Petersen the main speaker.I thought I had a better picture.

The first session was Using Newspapers in Research: You sNEWS, You Lose. and he gave several examples of items in the newspapers that you might not have thought about. Did you ancestor have a business, so did he advertise in the newspaper? Unclaimed mail lists, where the post office listed unclaimed letters of people that had moved. Letters to the editor, did your ancestor write a letter to the editor about something he was interested in. And of course births, weddings, anniversaries and obits. One of the sources listed was a blog: Online Historical Newspapers Website by Miriam Robbins of EWGS.

Next was the first of three breakout sessions:
Illustrating Family History When You Have No Photos by Connie Lenzen
12 Tips and Ten Topics in 45 Minutes by EWGS member Shirley Penna-Oakes
and the one I went to: Digging Up New Dirt- Unearthing the "Real" New England Immigrant by Steven W. Morrison. Excellent case study on Deacon John Doane.

Then Bret Peterson again with his second presentation Are You My Mother? - Finding the Maiden Name in Your Tree. Major topics Naming Patterns, Census Records, Family Bibles, Marriage Records, Birth Indexes, Social Security Applications, Land Records, Church Records, military Records, Newspapers, Death Records, Cemetery Records, and Probates and Wills. Bret had excellent examples of each.

Next was lunch and the WSGS Annual Meeting. The meal was good, but I am not a fan of pasta, and it seems like that is what gets served at a lot of meetings. They read the minutes of the previous meeting, did a treasurers report, and then presentation of awards for outstanding volunteers. Once again EWGS did not submit any. Bob Witherspoon presented the awards and gave me a hint on one for Bonnie McDonald the WSGS newsletter editor, by asking if I could take a picture of the group.

Here is a picture of the volunteers that were present, and all will receive a certificate from WSGS.

Next was two more breakout sessions:
Family Traditions: The Search for Truth by Connie Lenzen was the one I attended. Connie talked about how true Family Traditions are, and how to prove or disproove the tradition.

Native American Research in Washington State by Barbara Benge
Pulling it Together Creative Ways to Capture the Stories Behind the Data by Wendy Warren

The last Breakout Session
Mama Said  by Susan Davis Faulkner
Brothers: William and Daniel by EWGS member Shirley Penna-Oakes
Genealogists: "Access Denied" by Scott Sackett the one I went to, and I thought I got his picture but it is not on my camera. Scott works at the State Regional Archive at Ellensburg and was a very good speaker on what is happening at the various state archives. He also showed a preview of the new indexing program soon to be online so volunteers can again help index the records in the archives.

The last session was by Bret Petersen The "Shady" Side of the Family Tree Prison, Criminal, Asylum Records and More. Good presentation on the black sheep of your family. The asylum was very interesting, Hard to believe that asylum he showed had 11,000 residents and is almost forgotten now.

They had some door prizes to give out ( I did not get one) and then we headed for home. Ran into a couple of rain storms one before Ellensburg and the second before Vantage. I did stop an got a box of rainier cherries between the storms, and canned them Sunday morning. This is a rainbow I saw just before the rest stop at the top of the Vantage hill.