State Research Guides on Ancestry

Ancestry has begun producing state research guides, and Ken Doane suggested that we print and file them in our club information folders.

Ancestry says, "The guides offer a crash course on state history, records particular to the state, record repositories, collections on Ancestry.com, and other state resources to help you bring your research closer to home. If you haven’t seen your state yet, it’s coming."

We have printed the guide for New York, which contains a summary of early New York history, available census information, vital record dates, Ancestry's New York collections and also lists other record repositories. The guide ends with a timeline through 1960 that includes items such as wars, major epidemics, and other events that might explain actions of your ancestors.

Other states that are already available include Alaska, California, Georgia, Indiana, Texas and Virginia. We will get these guides printed and into the appropriate folders as soon as possible. 

Genealogy Club Meeting

Tuesday, January 21, will be a regular meeting with a speaker. Grant Villetard, a member of the club for several years, has volunteered to speak to us about "How to Choose a Computer Software Program." And of course we mean a program for organizing and maintaining your family research. Grant has tried many of the software programs available and will tell us his experiences with them. I'm sure he is planning to answer questions from the group as part of the presentation.

If you haven't yet chosen the software for your genealogy program, his class should help you make your decision.

Irish Research 101

The Legacy webinar scheduled for January 22 is listed as appropriate for beginning and intermediate researchers. The presenter, who works at the Family History Library in Salt Lake, specializes in Irish research.

Here is Legacy's description of the class:

"Irish Research 101: Learning the Research Process

Follow along as Irish expert Judith Eccles Wight shows you what she does to resolve an Irish research problem or two. The solution involves records in both the country of settlement and the place of origin in Ireland. This class will also ask for audience participation--what do you suggest be done in the research process?"

Visit www.familytreewebinars.com for more information and/or to register for the free presentation.

Arizona Genealogical Advisory Board

The chairman of the Pinal County workshop committee forwarded me a note from the AzGAB asking if we would like our club listed on their website: http://azgab.org/ I visited the site to find out more about the organization and have copied their mission statement below.

AzGAB is where you would find information about all the societies/clubs, etc. in Arizona with a connection to family research. If you click on the link to "Societies" you may find an organization of interest to you, with contact information or a link to their website. It was surprising to me how many exist in this state.


AzGAB is a statewide non-profit organization

Our mission is to facilitate education and communication among organizations and individuals who are dedicated to the promotion of genealogy and history.
Our goal is to:

• improve communications among genealogical societies, libraries with genealogical collections, professionals, and the general public.
• express its concern regarding records preservation and public access to records.
• promote such special projects as the organization approves.

 Membership is open to all genealogical societies, groups, libraries, professionals or individuals sharing these goals without taking autonomy from any organization or individual or acting in any supervisory capacity.

Family History Center Trip

Twelve club members visited the local Family History Center this morning. Wendy Carlson gave us an overview of their facility: the classroom, the computer room, the library and the room with the microfilm readers. Yes, you can still read microfilm; everything is not yet online!

It seemed that everyone who attended came home with something--whether it was a printout from one of the subscription sites available or just new knowledge about researching ancestors.

The Family History Center on Colorado Street is open Thursdays from 9-1 and 6-9 and Saturdays from 9-1.

Club Volunteers

Volunteers who helped to staff our table at the craft fair encouraged visitors to join the genealogy club. Tuesday night's meeting showed good results, as we gained several new members. On the other hand, interest in having lookups done to contribute to the park's cancer awareness drive is not as high as in previous years.

Thanks to the members who volunteered this past Tuesday, as well as those who helped at the Welcome Home Party.

 

Jean, Ray, Sandy, Jean & Ann were among the volunteers Tuesday.

January 15 Legacy Webinar

Legacy's webinar on Wednesday will be presented by Karen Clifford, who will address the subject of determining which person of the same name might belong in your family tree. They list this presentation as best for the intermediate or advanced researcher.

Here is Legacy's title and description of the topic:

Too Many with the Same Name
               

"How can one know that the John Smith who is listed on a pedigree chart, is the same John Smith who was listed in the will of George Smith as his son John? What is to be done when there are too many people with the same surname and given names in the same locality? Learn approaches for bringing these two research problems to rest."

Visit www.familytreewebinars.com for more information or to register to watch in real time.

 

January 14 Workshop

Tuesday's workshop will begin with a roundtable for sharing successes, brick wall problems and/or goals for this season. This will assist in planning for future workshops.

If there's an interest we can provide some practice with Ancestry in preparation for Friday's field trip to the local family history center.

Don't forget that our club has an extensive library. Books, magazines, informational folders and CDs (all genealogy-related topics) are available to be checked out for two weeks at a time. Take advantage while you're in the park!