Willow Va ll e y G E N E A L O G Y C L U B December 2015 What are you most interested in learning about genealogy? What Genealogy Club programs would interest you most during the next year? Would you like to learn how and why your ancestors came to North America, and what records are available to track your family s migration? Are you interested in learning more about online genealogy and new ways to organize and share your records? Is there a research center in the area you would like to visit? Perhaps you want to know how DNA is connecting families in new ways, or how to share your own story with future generations. No matter what interests you most, your program committee would like to know your thoughts before planning programs and contacting speakers for next year. The Willow Valley Genealogy Club is for each of you, our members, and we want to deliver programming that will help, inform, teach and yes, entertain you. December Meeting: Genealogy Gems in the Newspapers Tuesday, December 15, at 2:00pm Speaker: Carolyn Bausinger Come and learn some of the amazing information about your ancestors that is readily available for you to discover in old newspapers. Bring earlier generations to life by expanding your family research far beyond birth, marriage, and obituary notices. Connecting Families A member interest survey will be included again this month, along with your copy of this newsletter. We would like to have you complete and return the survey during the December meeting or you can send it to any committee member by in-house mail any time before Saturday, December 19. Surveys are anonymous, as they do not ask for your name, or anything other than your thoughts or requests for future programs. Please help us plan an outstanding calendar for 2016-2017! You may return your survey in person during the December meeting or return it by in-house mail to: Wayne Barner Spring Run, Apt. J-506 Carolyn Bausinger Lakes, Apt. D-304 Cheri Weakley Lakes, Apt. C-211
November Meeting Our November meeting was well-attended. President George Nettleton opened the meeting, and presented our amended bylaws for a vote by all members present. Members had received a copy of the bylaws along with their November newsletters, and had been encouraged to comment at an earlier date. The bylaw changes were approved. Cheri Weakley presented an informative and interesting program on learning to use the website, findagrave.com. For those who have never used the site, findagrave is an astonishing all-volunteer effort that has generated over 138 million burial records to date; many of those records also include that often hard-to-locate photograph of a grave marker. Willow Valley Genealogy Club Findagrave currently includes information for more than 400,000 cemeteries in over 200 different countries. These include at least a partial listing of graves in over 250,000 of these cemeteries. Are your ancestors listed? The only way to know is to visit the site! Board Members George Nettleton President george@nettletons.net Carol Fox........ Vice President carolfoxa318@gmail.com Cheri Weakley was the very embodiment of findagrave.com for her presentation sporting a findagrave logo golf shirt, tombstone socks, and watching over our own temporary cemetery atop the piano. Dave Hazlebeck....... Secretary hazlebeck@yahoo.com Forrest Collier........ Treasurer ffcollier@gmail.com Wayne Barner......... At Large wabarner@aol.com Cheri Weakley......... At Large cmweakley@hotmail.com Carolyn Bausinger..... At Large carolyn.bausinger@gmail.com Newsletter Editor Carolyn Bausinger We had a near-record turnout for our November meeting. 2
From the President s Laptop In the September newsletter, I mentioned Weld County, Colorado s, great index of records. It was a real help when I was preparing for my visit there to search out my family. And it got me thinking about whether we have an index here in Lancaster. The answer is yes and no. It seems that historical societies have their own in-house indexes (which may not be on the internet). And on the internet, there are a few: check our genealogyclubwv.com, go to research links and check out some of the sites there. (Under Lancaster County Links, check Lancaster County Genealogy-Kindred trails, Lancasterhistory.org,; under Pennsylvania Research-look for PA GenWeb). We can help expand any of these indexes (as well as Familysearch.org and Ancestry.com) by volunteering to be an indexer for them. If this should be of interest to you, contact them for information on how to be an index volunteer. Normally, there is a form to fill out asking for particulars about you, your computer ability and equipment, as well as the amount of time you would be willing to spend for them. You can always volunteer more hours monthly than you sign up for, so choose on the low side maybe an hour a month. Here is a link to the Lancasterhistory.org application http://lancasterhistory.org/join-us/opportunities-at-lancasterhistory-org/volunteer-opportunities/submit-a-volunteer-application. Ask if they expect you to find the records yourself (cemeteries, city hall, etc.) or will they have them. Don t forget to ask whether you need to index at their facility or if you can index from home. Consider the idea of indexing here in Lancaster, even if you don t have family here, as it may help someone who is researching ancestors here. It may even encourage someone to be an indexing volunteer where they live (which may be advantageous to you or your descendants). The person who runs the Weld County Master Index mentioned above, has no family, nor ancestors, in Weld County, but she feels the index is an important component for genealogists and hopes it will encourage others around the country to do the same. That s the concept for USGenWeb, Genealogy Trails and Kindred Trails, too. Just be aware, that some indexing services (Ancestry is one) own the index which is now their property to do with as they see fit. On another topic one source we often overlook or don t think we have the time to waste looking through, is newspapers. What a treasure they are especially home town newspapers. I ve found information about my early life from the weekly hometown paper in Mt. Morris, NY. There were articles my parents wrote in local newspapers in Westchester County, NY. There are graduations, weddings, obituaries, accidents, so many things. Remember the old Personals columns in the newspaper: Mary Moore s cousin Seth Moore is visiting for the weekend, and so on. It s not a vital record, but it certainly can fill your genealogy bricks with mortar. And we re in for a treat at this December meeting, as Carolyn Bausinger gives us an introduction to newspapers what you might find there, making your ancestors fully formed people rather than just names on a family tree. Be sure to come, bring a pencil and pad (or ipad or laptop) to take notes, so you can dig up more on your ancestors when you get home. Have any of you visited the Findagrave website since our last meeting? Maybe you could share what you found during the refreshments half hour. George Nettleton, President New Member Service This month, we will begin The Genealogy Answer Person. During the half hour of coffee and tea, Wayne Barner will be available to hear questions you may have about your genealogy: how to archive, how to organize, where to look for an obit, what to do as a replacement for a birth certificate, etc. Have your questions ready and make a bee-line to Wayne at the end of the regular presentation. 3
Sharing Surnames Don t forget that our new Willow Valley Genealogy Club website offers each of us the ability to make new connections and share our research on family surnames. Whether you are researching one, two, or hundreds of surnames in your family, email the information to our webmaster, Carolyn Bausinger, carolyn.bausinger@gmail.com. She will add your surnames to our website and include your email address so that anyone researching those surnames and your shared ancestor(s) can contact you directly. What do these three 19th century photos have in common? All were submitted by members for our March program on dressing for the photographer, which will teach us to determine when they were taken. In order to add your information to our website, you will need to include: Surname First name of the earliest person you have with this family surname Time period and location for the family Don t forget to contact Carolyn Bausinger to have YOUR old family photos included during the March meeting! Personal Ancestral File has disappeared. Now what? QUESTION: I would like to know why the home PAF program was discontinued. I have thousands of names in this program. I bought a new computer with windows 10, and I can't transfer my genealogy to the new one because PAF is discontinued. I love the PAF program and how it works. I have at least 6 books I have worked on with the pages from the home PAF and have thousands of pedigree charts and group sheets from PAF and don't want to change all that. I am so frustrated at this. ANSWER: Ancestral Quest is modern incarnation of the PAF product. It reads.paf files and has the same interface. You really don't want PAF 5 anymore. Ancestral Quest is to PAF 5 what Windows 10 is to Windows XP. It is well worth the $30 (but they have free versions as well). Other similar products exist which also interface to the Family Tree. You can see many of these in the Application Gallery. Ancestral Quest, Roots Magic, and Legacy all have free versions that synchronize with Family Tree and can read PAF files. Posted in Genealogy News. Reprinted with permission. 4
Maintain and update your family tree with the latest genealogy software Above: Small, lightweight camera and Flip Pal Scanner for those times when the xerox is broken or unavailable Take notes anywhere with a handy digital device Evernote will help you keep track of and organize all your records When all else fails, you might need this room-size Ouija board carpet and coffee table. Could it help you break through brick walls? Hmmm... 5