Meeting held 24 May 2017 at Lake House:

I want to shout out a great "thank you" to Bob Silkett for doing such a marvelous presentation and taking us through the use of our local library for free access to genealogical research and then deep diving to show us all how to better use Heritage Quest (free through the library) with city directories, books, people, census records and more. Thank you. Click here, to find the handout that Bob provided as reference for each of us to do our own research. Thank you.

There will be no evening meetings in June, July, or August.

I discussed the fabulous BYU Webinar on "Digging Deeper Into Google for Genealogists" by James Tanner that was just posted. Click here for the Youtube version. For the language translation portion skip ahead to 14:55 minute mark.

I will put together a "Death Certificate" homework fun assignment for later this year.

See you all on June 14, 2017 1:30-3:30 PM at the Lake House for Bob Silkett's presentation on Newspaper research using the free library access.

A great welcome back to Joan Reed who is re-igniting her interest in doing genealogical research.

Have fun on your family heritage journey.

DIRT Meeting Summary May 10, 2017

I want to thank Denise Kotva for sharing with us her personal research using FindAGrave and going to specific locations to prove her findings.  We all learned something new to help in our own journey of research.  Great Job!

We continued discussing the "Webinar Project" and providing members to select from the current list of over 150 Webinars (online videos) on genealogical research that Lynn Baker has downloaded and made available to members on a USB drive.  Come to our next meeting and find out more.  This is a way to continue learning about specific areas ranging from general information, DNA, State specific, country specific and more.

We also talked about the "Christmas Challenge", asking each of you to pick a small genealogy / family heritage project to give your loved ones at Christmas.  As you select what to do, we at DIRT will help you with your project.  Here is a beginning list of what has been suggested, it would be up to you to decide what you want to do.  Please share your ideas and what you want to work on.

·        book for child telling story of one person, ancestor and what life was like for that person as a child

·         Recipe book of family heritage recipes

·        Christmas cards with Family Heritage photo

·        Christmas decoration with family photo

·        colage of genealogy photos made into a puzzle for kids to put together

·         digital photo frame with genealogy photos loaded before shipment

·         Family bookmarks with Family crest or photo

·         family crest

·         Family pedigree chart - fancy version

·         framed old family photograph

·         genealogy bingo game

·         Get ornaments from other countries of origin

·         group genealogy sheets of the family

·         letterhead of family crest or old family photo

·         Living history video of your family story/memories with photo overlays

·         Ornamental tree with genealogy ornaments

·         short story of one item in the family heritage

·         small book about one ancestor with an interesting story

·         story of first ancestor coming to the US and description of crossing

Family History Guide - May Newsletter

If you click here you will (should...) be connected to The Family History Guide's May newsletter. I don't know how many of you are using The Family History Guide or are subscribed to their newsletter, but I thought you might find it interesting.