Genealogy at Trilogy Redmond Ridge

Researching Roots and Climbing Our Family Trees

By: Gwen Blough, Phyl Schaff, and Marilyn Waite
Published April 29, 2012

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Genealogy Field Trips
As genealogy research has become more and more popular, our Trilogy Genealogy Club decided to explore resources that are available here in our own backyards by taking local genealogy field trips. One of our first trips was to the Fiske Genealogical Library in Seattle. Founded in 1971, Fiske’s goals are to provide on-going education in genealogical research techniques and to build a library of genealogical materials not readily available, especially for those townships east of the Mississippi River.

We heard a short discussion of what is available at the Fiske, and then we explored the library on our own.  One of our members found that they stored older copies of “The Ogle Genealogist,” which is a publication of one of her family lines.  We also discovered that the Fiske has a list of wonderful genealogy classes offered monthly.  This month’s class is titled “Extracting information from Passport Applications and Passenger Manifests.” Some of us have attended classes offered at the Fiske this past year, and these have taught us some better ways of recording the results of our research.

Here in our area we are fortunate to have a regional facility of the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which contains genealogical records and is staffed by knowledgeable, helpful people. So, the Genealogy Club took another field trip this year to visit NARA Pacific Rim in Seattle, where we were taken on a tour of the archives by an experienced genealogist. We learned so much about research and records from this tour! One of our members found out how to send for her father’s WWII service records, and she is now waiting with anticipation for those records to arrive.  The facility has both microfiche records and original documents stored at the site. What a treasure to have this resource so close to our homes!

Future Plans for the Genealogy Club of Trilogy Redmond Ridge
Our meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 10:00am to 12:00pm, and the Family Memoir Group meets from 12:00pm to 1:00pm.  Our upcoming meetings will feature the following topics:

• May 28th:  My Research to Become a DAR (Presented by Glenda Harris)
• June 25th:  Group members will present information found about fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers.
• In July we’ll have a field trip to Heritage Quest Library in Sumner, Washington. 

Other Speakers will be scheduled for the Fall of 2012, and we already have plans to showcase memorabilia of our ancestors in November, which could possibly lead to an exhibition of this memorabilia for the greater Trilogy community to see. 

We expect that there will be many more adventures down the road as we research our rich family histories, and we encourage anyone who is interested in discovering their own family stories to join us.

Article by Gwen Blough, Phyl Schaff, and Marilyn Waite

Gwen, Phyl, and Marilyn are members of the Genealogy Club of Trilogy Redmond Ridge. They invite other Redmond Ridge members who are interested in researching their family histories to join them on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 10:00am to 12:00pm.