February 20 Genealogy Club

We had an excellent turnout for our German flavored week. Steve Packer gave his usual informative talk--this time all about research in Germany. Besides some German history and tips about naming patterns, German genealogical terms and immigration information, he included several new websites that would be useful in chasing your German ancestors.

Steve Packer

Our private cookie baker outdid herself. Louise Kant is a former member of our club, and she is still willing to bake cookies once a year for us. We were treated with German chocolate bar cookies, German town cookies, German husarenkrapfen, German cheese cookies, butterkuchen and springerle. All were delicious!

Congratulations also to our door prize winners: Mary McCann, Bob O'Donnell, Whitey Hoehn, Carol Lundholm, Maureen Edwards and Nancy Archibald.

February 13 Workshop

The mini topic involved working in the Family Tree area of FamilySearch. Dick showed how to add memories to an ancestor's page, although there were issues with the internet feed. (When he opened the website later that evening, the photo was in his "gallery" where he could then move it to the correct page.) He also discussed how to add the source hints to the ancestor's person page.

There was time for questions and a chance to practice the techniques. Maureen also spent time with Legacy users to show them how to work between their software and FamilySearch.

News Items

Ancestry has put its DNA kit on sale again this month. It is marked down to $69, and the price is good through February 25.


MyHeritage is providing free access to its marriage records in honor of Valentine's Day. Access is free through tomorrow, February 15, at midnight Central time.

February 7 Field Trip

We took another group to the Family History Center this past week. It seemed as if no one looked away from their computers for three hours! Another goal accomplished: everyone found something new.

And thanks to Carolyn, Maureen, Nancy, Annie and Wendell (from the history center) for assisting the researchers.

Meet Bone-apart!

Bone-apart

Our mascot finally has a name! Members who attended this week's meeting were asked to vote for their favorite among the names that were suggested at last week's workshop. The name Bone-apart received the most votes.

Genealogy Club - February 6

The topic this week was "Dating Old Photos." The most useful tips to assist in your analysis of ancestor photos are:

1. Photographic format
2. Photographer's name and location
3. Props and background
4. Clothing and hairstyles
5. Your own family research

Annie used photos from her family collection to demonstrate how the above ideas can be used.

News for Swedish Researchers

The Swedish National Archives has made an announcement that will please many Swedish descendants:

Digital collections now free!  This is the "Riksarkivet" website.

From 1 February 2018 all digital collections at the Swedish National Archives are free to search and view. You will find more than 100 million digitised archival records in the Digital Research Room.

You can read more (in Swedish) at: https://sok.riksarkivet.se/om-soktjansten?infosida=fri-tillgang.

Thanks to Dick Eastman's online newsletter for this information.

Legacy Webinars - February

Legacy has quite a variety of free webinars this month. Learn more or register to watch in real time at www.familytreewebinars.com.


Wednesday, February 7 - "Digging for Historical Records on FamilySearch" by Sunny Morton. Beginner, Intermediate

Tuesday, February 13 - "Have Nordic Ancestors? Count Yourself Lucky - Nordic Records are Amazing" by Mike Mansfield. (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland)  Beginner

Tuesday, February 20 - "Using Swedish Taxation Records to Solve Tough Genealogical Problems" by Jill Morelli.   Intermediate

Wednesday, February 21 - "Tribal Quest: A special project to document the family histories of tribal people" by Golan Levi.  Beginner

Friday, February 23 - "Legacy 9 Unlocked (part 2): Adding an Online Document" by Geoff Rasmussen.  Beginner, Intermediate

Wednesday, February 28 - "Find Your Roots in German Farm Histories" by Gail Blankenau.  Intermediate

January 31 Field Trip

Nine of us visited the local Family History Center on Wednesday, and it was a very successful morning. Because of the number attending, all participants were able to spend the entire three hours on one of the computers. Listed below are a few of the day's discoveries.

Carolyn received some instruction from Wendell, our volunteer host, on entering items in the Family Tree on FamilySearch.

Mark and Carol located information for both sides of their family and had a chance to work in the Ancestry website.

Denise found an obituary and a 25th wedding anniversary article for her Scottish ancestors. She also found an article in the center's library about the Scots Irish.

Phil and Gladys discovered an interesting discrepancy in the records. An ancestor appeared as a 17-year-old with a child on the census. When the marriage record was located she and her father stated she was 21 at the time of her marriage!

January 30 Workshop

Workshop focus was on the "Search" feature of FamilySearch. We looked at how to narrow a search for a person's records by "Type," such as census records, vital records and military records. If you look at the entire list of records, be sure to rearrange it to see what has been recently added. We also saw how to use the map to reach specific collections of records.

Also under "Search" we looked at using the catalog for place name searches, discussed the "books" area, and looked at a few examples of how valuable the Wiki could be to one's research.

During the workshop members were asked to submit suggestions for a name for our skeleton. Next week we will vote on the list to choose his/her name.