 Our own Bill Ettlich, long-time member, past-president and current secretary of the club spoke about his family genealogy project with the title "Learning things you might not want to know," because that is what may happen if you start your own genealogy project to discover more about your ancestors. Bill found that doing a genealogy was not as simple as going to Ancestry.com and filling in the blanks. He also limited his scope to his family history in America. Bill decided that it was a massive enough project without trying to determine the family ancestry in Germany before his grandfather emigrated to America in the 1880s. His grandfather first settled in Germantown, Nebraska, but more permanently settled at a farm near Pine City, Washington, in the southeastern part of the state known as the Palouse Country. Although Bill had four banker's boxes of family information from his mom, he found that the most fruitful and enjoyable part of the project was a 2-week trip "pounding the pavement" in SE Washington. He looked for information at newspaper offices, mortuaries, churches, Chambers of Commerce, and in cemeteries. One of the most prized discoveries was a tall gravestone monument marking the final resting place for his grandfather. To write up the results of his research, Bill devised his own outline-based method for recording the family tree. Once he gathered all the information, he needed 9 months to write up the genealogy of over 100 pages. He described this work as putting together a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with 75% of the pieces missing. But he enjoyed using deduction and logic to fill in some of the missing pieces. Bill encourages more of us to take on a project like this and to start soon, since there will never be more memories and source material than there are now. |
Kristina Noble is an Education and Outreach Coordinator for El Dorado Disposal. She has been with the company for 4 ½ years and have been working with the Sustainability Department for about 1½ years. She is passionate about gardening, composting, recycling, and my big baby dog Lillian. Her hope is that someday people will see the effects of our nations throw-away economy. She was raised in this county and loves our community and how unique it is. Prior to working with El Dorado Disposal Kristina was an Early Childhood Educator, so teaching is something that comes second nature. It makes her giddy to teach someone the proper way to recycle or to speak on the process of food waste decomposition..png)
