The President's Letter is a monthly column written by the FHSA President. It is published in our newsletter and posted here. Katie Gertz offer's insights into family history, the needs of the society, and personal reflections each month.
September President’s Letter
September 2026 President’s letter
My next-door neighbor recently came back from a 3-week visit with her immediate and extended family in Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota. To her surprise , her nephew who is about 40 years old has decided he is very much interested in his family history. My neighbor has told him that I am involved with genealogy and family history so I may be in touch with him very soon.
My neighbor gave me the information he has gathered so far plus she had some family group sheets her grandmother had given her. My neighbor has now asked me to help her and her nephew prove the “family stories” and the information that the grandmother had written down on the family group sheets. As you might guess, this got me excited that a “younger” person has become involved in tracing his roots. Maybe I can sign him up as a new member!!! In any event, I will help him in his quest for reliable proven facts. The family ancestry is German who settled in Minnesota. Since we are having a German expert genealogist speak at our Annual Meeting in November, I will invite him to attend, and he can more about his German ancestry from our speaker.
Now back to my own story. I have discovered another Revolutionary War Patriot. His name was Jacob Skillman and he was born in 1735 in Queens, New York. I found his pension file on Fold3. If you haven’t ever used Fold3, you really should take a look. Fold3 is especially useful for its military records and there is a new feature that is using artificial intelligence to do a transcript of the pension file documents that are, of course, handwritten. The Ancestry subscription plan that I have includes Fold3, Newspapers.com, as well as Ancestry. Every year, Ancestry.com has sales where their subscription prices are discounted sometimes by as much as 50%. So, I take advantage of that each year.
I will write more about my new research finding with this Patriot next month. So be sure to look for my October president’s letter to learn all about it.