March Newsletter
Mason County Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 103
Shelton, WA 98584-0103
The Mason Log
Volume 10 Issue 7 March 1, 2013
March meeting
· Thursday, Mar 7th
· 7:00 p.m. Start time
· Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at 12th & Connection
· Membership dues - single: $15.00 Couple: $20.00
· Find us on the web at http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wamcgs/
The inside scoop
· DNA
· FHC and National Cemeteries
· Members’ Corner
· Google Books
· Letter from the editor
DNA and Genealogy
Our speaker for the March meeting is Lee A. James of Olympia. He’ll be talking to us about DNA. His handouts cover Y-DNA surnames projects, Y-DNA, and name changes. I think this will an interesting meeting.
My own interest in DNA related subject matter has grown of late. My wife and daughter gave me a 23andme DNA test kit for my birthday in January. I’m still waiting for the results. However, for those who haven’t been exposed to 23andme and its DNA procedures, let me tell a few things about it.
After the thanks for the money note, they ask you if you’d be willing to respond to some online surveys which would further their research and databases about my and your DNA. Being a good sport I said yes. The first survey was called Empathy, which we all know is a word found between emotion and empty in the dictionary. They wanted to know all sorts of things, like how often did I cry during “Love Story” and “Bambi”. They wanted to know if I could identify with people going thru life’s ups and downs and feel their anguish and joy. There was more, all of it just as riveting as the above. The average score was somewhere in the 80 percentile. I on the other hand was in the bottom five percentile. From that point on I noticed a small red flag in upper corner of all the surveys I took. All the surveys are somewhat interesting but only 23andme know how they are linked to your DNA.
National Cemeteries
Recently I spent a Wednesday night at the FHC prowling the Internet searching for information about the Williams family in Aly, Arkansas. All I found was a marriage record which is useful but I needed more. After an hour or so of no other results, I tried a different family, the Church family, and place, Washington D.C. For those who use Ancestry on a regular basis you’re familiar with the box on right-hand side of the screen when they display the results of your search inquiry. In this box they will alert you to another place or name that might be worth a look.
Such a thing happened to me. It said that my person or someone with the same name, Robert Church, was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery. I decided to look and it was my person. This site opened up the National Graves registration database, available through Ancestry. This site has the cemetery or internment cards for the entire National Cemetery system though 1962. Below are the cemetery cards for my people, Robert and Ella Church and their son Herbert and his wife Clara.
With this information in hand I decided to see what information was available from the cemetery itself. The website for Arlington Cemetery is http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Default.aspx
This website provides directions to the gravesite of your family member if you are able to visit Arlington.
If you can’t visit Arlington, you can obtain a picture of their tombstone through the Arlington Cemetery find a gravesite search portal. I’ve chosen to illustrate this using Robert and Ella Church’s tombstone. It’s an unusual one. Robert, as the veteran is on the front, and Ella is on the back. If you look at her cemetery card it all becomes clear.
Members’ Corner
Pat Tostevin submitted this website as one of interest. I spent several hours wondering through it looking at old photographs and searching the historic photographers database for tips and information. There is a lot of information on this website and if you have old photographs this is worth a look.
http://www.classyarts.com/
From the desk of the editor:
I’ve been mining online sources for years and my online citations for the information used has been very good, I thought. Turns out that online sources change url’s faster than diapers on a newborn. So I’m revisiting my sources to check for currency. So far the news is very mixed. It’s about 50-50 and some of the no shows are proving to be elusive when I try tracking them down and updating the citation. I would be interested if some of you are experiencing the same problem.
Let’s eat Grandma. Let’s eat, Grandma. Punctuation saves lives!
Visiting the websites of National Cemeteries brought to light the difficulty that the current members of MCGS would have in gaining eternal admittance. Not one of us would get past the first step in the process.
As you stretch your research back in time, remember that for England and her possessions the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1752. Prior to that the English used the Julian calendar, which means there could be a difference of ten days or so in the exact date of an event. There are charts available on the Internet that can help with this particular problem. There was no universal adoption of the Gregorian calendar. As you might suspect, politics and religion were the main considerations for when the conversion occurred.
Common sense is so rare these days it should be classified as a super power.
Stan Graham
360-426-0691
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