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22 Jan 2020 DIRT Meeting summary

Our meeting today was well attended and we had 3 new members join us.  Our focus items for this meeting were:

1) Review and feedback on the Genealogy Fair 2020 "Working Together - New Discoveries"
2) Summary of 2019 Genealogy activities
3) Bob's Corner focused on the card catalog in FamilySearch.org: Click here
4) List of Webinars since last meeting
5) Deadends : Know Alternate Approaches discussion, see two handouts
    Click here for Genealogy Checklist
    Click here for Alternate Sources
6) Each of the 5 tables used a different website to explore finding more information about Obituaries
7) Each of the 5 tables selected 2 people with death dates and used one or more sources to find obituaries on those individuals - hooray - most tables found new information from obituaries of their ancestors
8) Upcoming events for Feb/Mar were shared

Genealogy Fair 2020 - Working Together - New Discoveries held 14 Jan 2020

There were 42 attendees at the Fair and 15 were new.  It was a great turnout.  The session was designed with 1) Short introduction to the Genealogy Club, 2) Guest Speakers, 3) break and looking at information tables, 4) Working together in separate tables for New York/New Jersey; North Carolina ; Virginia ; Beginners with DIRT members sharing experiences and answer questions, then he final Raffle ticket prize giveaway.

We hope that many of the new attendees will join the genealogy club and attend our sessions.  Starting in February the first meeting of the month will focus on Beginners and the steps to success, the 2nd meeting will be more in-depth topics.  Let us get together and work together.

Here are the presentations and handouts used at the tables:
1) Overall presentation: Click here
2) South Carolina Room Charleston County Pulic Library
        - Marianne Crawley - Click here
3) Charleston Chapter South Carolina Genealogical Society
        - Charlie Black - Click here
                - for their website: Click here
4) Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints Family History Center
        - Dave/Delsa Biorn - Click here
5) Genealogy Checklist : Click here
6) Beginners handout : Click here
          (please experiment with the links on the page
7) Photo of raffle winners: Click here

For those of you who have FamilySearch.org and want to use the Relatives around me app, please follow these instructions to get this onto your phone.
  1) download FamilySearch app onto your phone
  2) open the app with your account and password
  3) Select more
  4) Select Relatives around me
If others with about 60 feet have the same application open on their phone, it will tell if you are related or not based upon the ONE FamilySearch tree.

Please send to Lynn Baker any feedback pertaining to the event.  What did you like, what would you suggest for improvements

2020: Its the new year and our first meeting.

Remember there is the Seabrook / Kiawah Island Genealogy Club (DIRT) Annual Genealogy Fair on Tuesday, 14 January 2020 from 1:00-3:30 PM at the Live Oak Room, Lakehouse.  Bring your friends and enjoy the speakers, food/drinks, working together and prizes.

Review of available webinars from December 2019 for members who bring USB drive to session.

Our focus today was on:
1) Beginners Step 4 "Know What Records are Available for the time period"
           During the session we used the following sites to investigate time period
              - FamilySearch Research Wiki: Click here
              - The Family History Guide: Click here
              - Google search
2) Presented what the new Baxter-Patrick James Island Library has to offer
              - to get an appointment call: 843-795-6679 or
                                                 email: bpcreative@ccpl.org
3) Reviewed strategy for Genealogy Fair and got volunteers to help
4) Open session for questions and brick wall questions from participants

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends.  Here are some photos of Christmas from over 100 years ago, notice the candles and packages.

Our Holiday party was a smashing success.  Everyone brought food, drink and wonderful stories.  Thank you to everyone who participated.

We did have some meeting information to discuss as well:
1) How to use Google history to look at old searches (www.google.com/history)
2) Reminder to frequently check the upgrade status on Family Tree Maker to keep up to date
     Help Tab - Check for Updates
3) Bob's Corner - Thoughts on sharing your genealogy boxes with Family History Center : Click here
4) Discussed the upcoming Genealogy Fair 2020 and got lots of new ideas
5) Discussed changing the meetings for 2020 - one meeting focused on beginners and the second one of the month on more advanced researching.  Split beginner meet into 1 hour teaching new approaches, second hour on working in groups with computers to try what was taught in the first hour.
6) Lynn to post 3 month schedule with topics on blog

Began Step 3: Know the History of the Area you are Researching

Before jumping into the next topic we also discussed
1) State Projects
2) Bob's Corner - he talks about his experiences and insight volunteering at the FHC: Click here
3) Review of Source Citations and using Family Tree Maker with templates and Ancestry.com
4) Discussed Christmas party and the January 14, 2020 Genealogy Fair - speakers and approach

5) Began new session on "Know the History of the Area you are Researching" for handout click here
    - we had groups focus on North Carolina and Virginia investigating the links in the handout

November 27, 2019 Meeting cancelled due to Thanksgiving holiday.