The next meeting of the SCR genealogy group will be Wednesday August 6, at 1:00 pm in the Cedar Room. 

Please note change of speaker for this meeting.

Our guest speaker will be Susan Jackman speaking on the "USGENweb." Susan has done genealogy research for many years. In 1989 she became a librarian at the Sacramento Family History center. She also teaches at seminars held there. Susan  is a genealogy instructor at  Folsom-Cordova adult education. She is a professional researcher and specializes in Pennsylvania German research.

I recently attended the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank CA.  I had not been to a genealogy conference since the National Genealogical Society Conference held in Sacramento in 2004 so it was nice to catch up on the latest research resources and techniques.  Below is information on a few of the seminars I attended.

Family History Archives at the Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University

Website:  www.familyhistoryarchive.byu.edu

Free access and use

This website is a joint project of the Family History Library and the Harold B. Lee Library.  They have recently added to the collection many titles from the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne Indiana.  The collection currently holds nearly 9000 family histories with more titles added weekly. 

When you get to the site, you’ll be asked to enter the following keyword searches:

    SURNAME – Enter the surname you want to search

    AUTHOR – Enter the surname of the author (if known)

    TITLE – You can search for all or part of the title (hint:  try searching for your surname, or a place
     name as part of the title).

You can search using one or all of these keywords.  

If you wish to donate your family history to the Family History Library which will then digitize it for this site, go to http://familysearch.org.  Go to the “Library” Tab, Click on GIFTS AND DONATIONS. You will be asked to complete and sign a copy of the Authorized Gift Form.

Rootstelevision.com

Website:  www.rootstelevision.com

Free access and use

This is an innovative site that shows videos that people submit about their ancestors, conferences they’ve attended, family history, trying to identify unclaimed persons.  It was created by well-known genealogist researcher and speaker, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and her friend who is a television producer. 

In order to financially support this site, you will find some short ads that are annoying; however, if it keeps the site alive, we’ll just have to deal with it for now.

There is an index of videos so you can choose the ones you want to look at.  Another feature of the site is the ability of societies and organizations to publicize their events on it. 

The big news of the presentation is that they are working with Comcast in Utah to make this an On Demand choice on cable television.  Stay tuned…..it may be coming to television in our area at some point.

Footnote.com

Website:  http://www.footnote.com

Can browse their resources but need to pay to get the documents

Footnote.com is a place where original historical documents are combined with social networking in order to create a truly unique experience involving the stories of our past.

The Footnote.com collections feature documents, most never before available before on the Internet, relating to the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, U.S. Presidents, historical newspapers and naturalization documents.

Footnote.com is more than just an online repository for original documents. In addition to hosting millions of records, Footnote supports a community of people that are passionate about a variety of topics relating to history.

Footnote.com creates an environment where members can share their content and insights, ranging from major historical events to personal accounts and family histories. Footnote.com, together with its members, is revealing a side of history that few have seen before. In other words, if you have additional documentation to add to something that Footnote has, you can submit it to for others to see and use.

There were other interesting topics that I will share in the future.

Submitted by,

Gwen Myers