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.

Began step 2 of Beginning Genealogy - Keep Good Records and Cite your Sources
  - Organizing your records
  - How to create a full citation using the 5 Ws from Thomas Jones
       - Who
       - What
       - Whereis
       - When
       - Wherein
- Group exercise using this approach, then developing the citation: Who, What, Whereis, When, Wherein
- A handout will be provided to all paid members with a summary and the specific "requested citation examples from this session"

Our State Project focal points gave a great review on their respective status. If you are interested in joining any of these groups - New Jersey, North Carolina or Virginia, please send me an e-mail.

We started "Bob's Corner", where Bob Silkett who is now volunteering every Friday at the Family History Center will give us his "new" knowledge of research approaches.  Today he recommended we all join the "FamilySearch.org blog", Click here to keep up to date on new information concerning the FamilySearch.org site.  You can also subscribe and get constant updates to enhancements and research strategy.

Summary of FHC "Gen Tech 2019" Workshop

This was a great success on Oct 12, 2019, held at the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints on Sam Rittenberg Road (over 168 attendees).  There were some great displays in the lunch area. Just a few are shown below

Here are the handouts for the session, click on the title for the link:

       Overall schedule for workshop

• Ancestry.com Deep Dive for research
• Antebellum Records
• Best Genealogy Software
• Capturing your Living History
• Enslaved Blacks in White Church Records
• Evolution of Family Search History Research
• FamilySearch Indexing
• FamilySearch.org - Advanced
• FamilySearch.org - Beginners
• Genealogical Interviewing
• Genealogy Tech Savvy
• Get more from FamilySearch digital collections
• Having Fun With Family History
• How I found my German ancestors
• Reconstruction Era Records
• That We May Remember
• Using City Directories
• Using Google for Genealogy

Several sessions did not have handouts.

Yesterday's meeting had a great turnout.

The focus of the meeting was, (1) State group projects, (2) the beginning of a new series on "How to begin your Genealogy Journey and improve your research" and (3) the latest updates on Ancestry.com.

There are currently 3 State group projects underway (1) Virginia, (2) New Jersey and (3) North Carolina.  If you have interest in joining one or more of these send Lynn Baker an e-mail.

For the begin series we will cover the following steps in the coming sessions on "How to begin your Genealogy Journey and improve your research": For handout: Click here

1. Research known information
2. Keep good records & cite your sources
3. Know the history of the area you are researching
4. Know what records are available for each time period – FamilySearch Research Wiki
5. Dead-end?  Consider a variety of alternatives
6. Know the meaning of the legal and genealogical terminology used
7. Make wise use of libraries, courthouses, archives, etc.
8. Don’t believe everything that is in print
9. Beware of genealogical clichés
10. Observe genealogical etiquette
11. Seek help

Every Session will have an overview of updates on research sites.

At our 25 September meeting we discussed the basic outline for doing genealogical research and had great examples and input on what to add.  This structure will be used for our coming sessions to make sure that we have a basic set of approaches to all the genealogy that we do.  Future sessions will build off this outline.
1. Research known information
2. Keep good records & cite your sources
3. Know the history of the area you are researching
4. Know what records are available for each time period
5. Dead-end? Consider a variety of alternatives
6. Know the meaning of the legal and genealogical terminology used
7. Make wise use of libraries, courthouses, archives, etc.
8. Don't believe everything that is in print
9. Beware of genealogical cliches
10. Observe genealogical etiquette
11. Seek help