The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
October genealogy workshops worth trip to Spokane
This story was published Sept. 12, 1999
Whether you are a gnarled veteran genealogist, a beginner or a wannabe, The Eastern Washington Genealogical Society is offering workshops in October that are not only worth a trip to Spokane, but the cost of admission as well.
Merrill Hill Mosher, Coos Bay, Ore., has several specialties that are of interest to vast numbers of Northwest genealogists.
Mosher specializes in Colonial Virginia and North Carolina, in tracing ancestors to their eastern origins and in Oregon and California pioneers.
Colonial Virginia and North Carolina figure prominently in the genealogies of thousands of Northwest families. Both sent hordes of pioneers streaming over the Appalachian Mountains to seed settlement of the Midwest and beyond.
"Go West ...," advised Horace Greeley, the New York newspaper editor, and our ancestors took heed, packed and trekked. The clarion call for modern-day genealogists is, "Go East!" East to family origins.
Mosher will tell you how.
Ancestors with a pioneering spirit present special problems for their genealogizing descendants. And don't I know! The Day family seemed to have had a proclivity for areas only partially civilized, lands where government was thin and records were poorly kept.
They gravitated to pre-statehood Kentucky and Wisconsin, early statehood Iowa, Kansas and Colorado, early Oregon and pre-statehood Washington.
Tracing them hasn't been easy and the job is far from complete. I'm sure I could learn a lot from Mosher.
Mosher's workshop will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 2, at the Student Union Building No. 17, Spokane Falls Community College, 2410 Fort Wright Blvd., Spokane. The fee will be $20 for EWGS members and $22.50 for nonmembers if paid before Sept. 27. After that date, admission will cost $25 for members and nonmembers. Lunch is included.
A registration form is on the EWGS Web site at: www.onlinepub.net/ewgs/fall/ october.html. You can print the form, but must mail it with payment.
The second event will feature Arlene Eakle, a professional genealogist who operates on a national basis out of Tremonton, Utah. She will conduct a seminar for the EWGS on Oct. 16.
Her topics are migration patterns into the central United States; the Appalachian Triangle (southwest Virginia, eastern Tennessee, northwest Kentucky and northeast North Carolina); tracing a Southern pedigree (Through Arkansas to Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland origins) and tracing the women on your pedigree.
Eakle is a dynamo whose fee quickly separates those with an idle interest in their family history from those who are seriously dedicated to filling in their family trees. I know because I paid her $100 an hour for consultation on my still missing John Day, of West Liberty, Ky., and later of Lancaster, Wis.
And that was several years ago. I don't know whether her fees have gone up.
I also have attended Eakle's lectures and have interviewed her. She is among the best.
Eakle's workshop will be from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Driscoll Baptist Church, N. 4815 Driscoll Blvd., Spokane. She will be well worth the $20 tab, which you can pay at the door. Bring your own lunch.
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If you haven't visited the EWGS Web site or haven't been there in a while, you could well profit from a few minutes of surfing. Go to: www.onlinepub.net/ewgs/welcome.html.
The EWGS provides many valuable resources that just might be worth a trip to Spokane. Information is available on the Web site.