Ray, I am up north way to your East in NYS, zone 5 most years, and I've never used paper towels, baggies or anything else and have been able to germinate seeds very well without any pre-sprouting at all. And grown several thousands of varieties that way.
I know the seed age of what I'm working with. For seeds less than about 5 yo I just sow the seeds in artificial mix and they come up and I have to thin.
For seeds about 5-12 years old I just double sow and thin where needed.
For seeds beyond 12 yo and they're rare hard to find varieties then I do the following to either boost up germination or wake up seeds that are currently non-viable.
Soak the seeds for a day in water to which a pinch of blue stuff like MG or Peters is added, or for those who grow organic a few drops of either fish or seaweed. Stir from time to time to be sure the seeds sink since old seeds are dehydrated.
Double sow those seeds and water with the same solution you used to soak the seeds in, but fresh, not what you used for soaking.
My current record is waking up 22 yo seeds of September Dawn and the documented record is waking up seeds 50 yo that had just been stored in a file cabinet.
On some seed packs there's a packed by date and that's what it is, not the date that the seeds were produced. In Euope they have a best used by date on the pack.
Some of us have found that seeds for heart varieties lose viability quicker than non-hearts.
So no paper towels for me, or coffee filters or whatever, and to date I've been able to germinate any seeds I want to with just a few exceptions.
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Carolyn
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