Genealogy Jamboree in Cumberland Gap, TN

The Cumberland Gap Tennessee Genealogy and History Group is holding its 6th annual Genealogy Jamboree from June 9-11, 2016.

The Jamboree will feature demonstrations by crafters and military re-enactors. Participants will see blacksmithing, butter making, chair caning, basket weaving, soap making, apple butter making, and more, as they were done by our pioneer ancestors.

Lectures by renowned national, regional, and local speakers and storytelling will be available all three days.

This three day event is free to the public and parking is free in the town of Cumberland Gap. Visit the Cumberland Gap Genealogy Jamboree website for more information and to register.

March 12 is Genealogy Day!

Back in 2013, Christ Church Limerick and Irish Ancestry Research Centre (IARC) declared the second Saturday in March as Genealogy Day. During this one day event, the public was given free access to church registers from many denominations and family history research advice from various history and genealogical societies.

Given the origin of Genealogy Day, celebrating it in the month of March is fitting since the U.S. President declared March as Irish-American Heritage month. One can argue that to a genealogist, every day is Genealogy Day. But this gives us an excuse to cater to our desires. Here are some ideas of how you can celebrate National Genealogy Day:

• Start a blog. The most popular free blogging platforms are Google's Blogger and Wordpress. Both have a very short learning curve and are easy to use. Basically, if you can use a word processing program, you can have a blog.
• Write a story about one of your ancestors. The story is the best part of family history. And the story is what will keep your children and grandchildren interested in their roots.
• Publish your tree online. Creating an online tree will allow others that are researching your lines find you and opens the doors for collaboration. There are many websites that will host your family tree for free. They include (in no particular order):
• FamilySearch 
• Ancestry
• WikiTree
• MyHeritage
• Geni 
• Findmypast
• Add a story or picture to your FamilySearch Family Tree.
• Spend the day at the local Family History Center. These are staffed with enthusiastic volunteers just waiting to help you find your ancestors. If you live in Tucson, there are two FHCs open on Saturdays: 500 S. Langley Ave. (open 10am-5pm), and 3530 W. Magee Rd. (open 9am-1pm). Or go to Find a Family History Center and type in your city and state to find the closest FHC to you.
• Help someone else start their journey into the wonderful world of family history research.

The activities you can do to celebrate Genealogy Day is endless. Tell us in the comments what you plan to do this day.

A Little Bit of Everything Workshop & Seminar

PCGS is sponsoring a special two-day event featuring Pamela Boyer Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA, and Richard G. Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA. Both Sayres are professional researchers, educators, authors, and lecturers. Both develop, coordinate, and teach courses for university-affiliated programs in genealogy, and they lecture regularly at national and regional genealogy conferences across the United States.

On Friday, November 4, 2016, the Sayres will present a two hour workshop:  

Maps! Wonderful Maps!

Maps enable genealogists to understand more about an ancestor's migration, community, and occupation. In this two-hour hands-on workshop, students will learn about traditional and online resources for finding historical, topographical, birds-eye view, and other maps, how to interpret the maps’ symbols and notations, and how to correlate other information with map data to place an ancestor in time and place. In on-line demonstrations, students will see some of the myriad sites for finding and downloading appropriate maps. For hands-on exercises, students will be provided with hard copies of maps, documents, and other tools to be used in correlating deeds, censuses, newspaper articles, or other documents with maps to solve genealogical problems using various kinds of maps, from deed plats to land ownership maps to panoramic maps. Demonstrations and exercises will include a mix of rural and urban problems and solutions.

A full day seminar will follow on Saturday, November 5. The Sayres will lecture on four topics covering a little bit of everything:

Enough is Enough! Or is it?

Tips and a step-by-step case study help attendees learn how to decide when adequate research has been conducted to meet the goals of a project. This session covers determining what other sources might be available, analyzing, and organizing research to ensure that a reasonably exhaustive search has been conducted.

Apps Galore for Genealogists

Learn about some of the many iPhone or iPad applications that will increase productivity for a genealogist. The speakers will discuss and demonstrate applications for the iPhone (or other smartphone) and iPad, from eBooks to genealogy programs to deedplatting to GoogleEarth, and beyond that to apps that help organize our busy lives—from accounting to contact management to file sharing. Live demonstrations from the iPhone andiPad will be shown on the projector, enabling attendees to see the usefulness of these apps for themselves.

Capital Treasure

This presentation features four brief case studies that demonstrate the wealth of records that can be found in the Washington, DC area or on websites of repositories such as the National Archives,  Library of Congress, Bureau of Land Management General Land Office, National Park Service, and Civil War Trust. Cases show how to find records of birth, marriage, and death for a burned county in which all such records were destroyed; how to learn how a Civil War veteran was shot to death in his old age; how to locate detailed facts about a person’s life from a simple land record; and why numbers of Union Civil War soldiers are buried at a site far from where they fell.

The Civil War—A Valuable Genealogical Resource

More than 3 million men fought in the Civil War (2,213,363 Union and 1,050,000 Confederate). The eligible military population (ages 18–45) in the 1860 census was about 4.5 million men. When compared to other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century wars the greatest probability of a military-aged individual serving is in the Civil War. The enormous quantity of extant records combined with the broad scope of the war make this event a unique and extraordinarily rich genealogical resource.

The workshop and seminar are priced separately, but there is discounted pricing for registration at both events. Registration deadline is October 22, 2016. Early Birds receive additional discounts if registration is received before May 1, 2016.

Participants may reserve a room at the La Quinta Inn & Suites for a discounted rate of $79 per night just by mentioning PCGS.

Visit the PCGS website for more information and to register.

Do It the Write Way: A Special Two-Part Writing Workshop

Image: Clipart ETC (http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/)

This special two-part writing workshop will give attendees some tried and true techniques to bring their family history to life and create a fascinating story anyone would want to read. Our instructor, Rondie Yancey, will help you flex your writing muscles to create something of lasting value for you and your family.

If you are one of those people who got scared to death by their high school English teachers—FEAR NOT!! We will prove to you that You CAN write and share the family story you have been researching all these years. If you can talk, you can write an interesting and informative story your family will love to read. So...

Part One, "Getting Started," will be held on Saturday, April 23, 2016. You will leave this workshop with a good start to your story. You will come to Part Two, "Polish Up," on Saturday, May 28, 2016, with a draft of your finished story and will receive editorial feedback to help you polish it into a finished product.

Workshop participants may find the Microsoft Word Workshop, scheduled for Saturday, April 30, 2016, particularly useful in preparation for Part Two, "Polish Up." See our blog post Registration now open for Microsoft Word Workshop for details.

The cost for attending the workshop is $15 for PCGS members or $20 for Non-Members. For those workshop participants that choose to enter our 2016 Write-On! writing competition, the contest entry fee will be waived  See our blog post Our Second Annual Write-On! Writing Competition Has Begun for more information about the Write-On! writing competition.

Advanced registration is required and must be received no later than April 9, 2016. Visit our website homepage at http://azpimagensoc.org/index.php or the PCGS Calendar for additional details and to register.

Our Second Annual Write-On! Writing Competition Has Begun

Pima County Genealogy Society (PCGS) is accepting entries for our 2nd annual Write-On! writing competition.

This year's competition has two categories:

Category 1 - Biographies. Memoirs and biographies where the major portion of the facts are from personal memories, interviews, family oral traditions, etc. No, or few, historical records are used in research.

Category 2 - Family History. A family history or biography that has been researched and documented through historical records.

Cash prizes and certificates will be awarded to the winners in each category. In addition, a grand prize of one year membership to PCGS will be awarded to the winner with the most points overall.

Submissions must be received by the Contest Coordinator by June 20, 2016. Awards and public announcement of the winners will take place during the PCGS general meeting on Saturday, August 10, 2016.

The entry fee is $15 for PCGS members or $20 for non-members. Contest entry fee is waived for paid registrants of the 2016 Do It the Write Way two-part workshop.

Visit the PCGS website for competition rules, judging criteria, and registration information.

Good Luck!

War of 1812 Records: Preserve the Pensions Project

Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, presented a very informative and interesting webinar today on Legacy Family Tree Webinars. She described the types of records that should be searched to find vital information on your War of 1812 Soldier. The webinar is available for viewing FREE at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Visit their website and look for War of 1812 Records: Preserving the Pensions by Rebecca Whitman Koford. I love free, don't you?

Did you know that for every dollar you donate to the Preserve the Pensions project, Ancestry.com will match that donation?  But wait...the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) has agreed to match every donation made within 24 hours of the broadcast of the War of 1812: Preserve the Pensions webinar. If you donate $20, FGS will match it making it $40. Then Ancestry will match that, making $80. Where else can you get $80 worth for only $20? The webinar was broadcast at 12 noon MST on Wednesday, March 2, 2016. To take advantage of this generous offer, you will need to make your donation by noon on Thursday, March 3. Visit https://www.preservethepensions.org/donate to be added to the Honor Roll. You can even donate in honor of your War of 1812 Soldier!

Don't miss the Best Deal Ever! 

Free Irish Records Online, and That's No Blarney!

Image by SatyrTN via Wikimedia Commons

Each year since 1991, the President of the United States has issued a Presidential Proclamation designating March as Irish-American Heritage Month (Wikipedia, Irish-American Heritage Month). This year's Proclamation reads, in part:

As we celebrate Irish-American Heritage Month, we recognize the Irish people's contributions to our country's dynamism, and we reaffirm the friendship and family ties between our two nations. For centuries, sons and daughters of Erin have come to America's shores, adding to our rich vibrancy and putting their full hearts into everything they do. From building our country's cities as preeminent architects and earnest laborers to building our national character as people of great joy and cherished culture, Irish Americans have endured intolerance and discrimination to find a place for themselves and their children here in the United States. While remembering the great Irish Americans of the past, we celebrate what forms the foundation of the lasting Irish-American story -- a shared embrace of hard work and humility, fairness and dignity, and a mutual quest to secure a freer and more peaceful future. (White House Press Release: Irish-American Heritage Month, 2016, February 29, 2016)

The Library of Congress has published a series of webpages about Irish Immigration. On those pages, we learn that the Irish began immigrating to the United States in the 17th and early 18th centuries during our Colonial days. At that time, the Irish population in America was second only to the English. The second big wave of Irish immigration began in 1845 with the Potato Blight. It is estimated that as many as 4.5 million Irish arrived in America between 1820 and 1930.

We celebrate the contributions made by the Irish in our country by honoring their heritage during the month of March to coincide with the popular St. Patrick's Day celebrations on March 17.

American genealogists of Irish descent have even more to celebrate this month—Findmypast is offering free access to Irish records during the first week of March.Findmypast launched 10 million new Irish Catholic Parish Registers on their website today. To celebrate, they are making all 110 million Irish records free for everyone from March 1-7, 2016. To get started, go to their Ireland Records page. As an added bonus, Findmypast has committed to make the Irish Catholic Parish Records free to search forever! Read their news release 10 million new Irish Catholic Parish Registers released on Findmypast.

So hurry on over to Findmypast to search for your Irish ancestors. May the luck of the Irish be with you!