Two + Two = One Dream Weekend

Two presenters for two days make for a Genealogist's Dream Weekend!

There are still seats available for the Fall Workshop and Seminar featuring Pamela Boyd Sayre and Richard G. Sayre. And the registration deadline has been extended to October 31.

Pamela Boyd Sayre and Richard G. Sayre
Image Source: Sayre & Sayre (http://www.sayreandsayre.com/index.htm)

The weekend opens on Friday, November 4 for a 2-hour workshop on 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." (Sayre & Sayre Lecture Topics, http://www.sayreandsayre.com/pdf_files/Sayre_Joint_Lectures.pdf)

Image Source: Ryde District Historical Society

The all day seminar will be presented the following day, Saturday, November 5. Beginning at 9:00 a.m. and running until 4:00 p.m., topics presented are:

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." (Lecture Topics, http://www.sayreandsayre.com/pdf_files/Pam_Sayre_Lectures.pdf)

Apps Galore for a Genealogist : "Learn about some of the many iPhone or iPad applications that will increase productivity for a genealogist. In this two-hour session, the speakers will discuss and demonstrate applications for the iPhone (or other smartphone) and iPad, from eBooks to genealogy programs to deed-platting 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 and iPad will be shown on the projector, enabling attendees to see the usefulness of these apps for themselves." (Lecture Topics, http://www.sayreandsayre.com/pdf_files/Sayre_Joint_Lectures.pdf)

Capital Treasures : "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." (Lecture Topics, http://www.sayreandsayre.com/pdf_files/Sayre_Joint_Lectures.pdf)

Burning of Del Norte County Courthouse, Crescent City, CA
Image Source: David Berry (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dberry/528751474)

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." (Lecture Topics, http://www.sayreandsayre.com/pdf_files/Rick_Sayre_Lectures.pdf)

Image Source: Pixabay

The Saturday seminar includes lunch. Vendors and book sales will be present and some very nice door prizes will be awarded to some lucky winners!


If you have never heard these wonderful presenters speak, you are really missing out. The Sayres are both Certified Genealogists (CG), Certified Genealogical Lecturers (CGL) and Fellows of the Utah Genealogical Association (FUGA). They both have recently broadcast webinars for the Board for Certification of Genealogy (BCG); Richard's topic was Finding Evidence of Kinship in Military Records and Pamela's was Enough is Enough. Or Is It? Visit Family Tree Webinars at http://familytreewebinars.com/bcg to get a preview of those presentations and to see for yourself what wonderful presenters they are.

Both the workshop and seminar will be held at the La Quinta Inn & Suites - Reid Park, 102 N. Alvernon Way, Tucson, AZ. Out of town guests (or anyone not wishing to drive home after the seminar) may book a room at the hotel for a reduced nightly rate.

Don't miss out on this rare opportunity to learn from two of the best presenters the genealogy community has to offer. Hop on over to the PCGS 2016 Workshop-Seminar webpage at http://azpimagensoc.org/cpage.php?pt=28 for details and registration.

BCG Free Day of Quality Education October 7, 2016

Image from Legacy Family Tree News

The Board for Certification of Genealogists is sponsoring six one-hour lectures at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City on October 7. The lectures are free and open to the public with no advance registration.

The good news for those of us residing outside the Salt Lake City area, five of those lectures will be broadcast as live webinars by Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Registration for the webinars is required. Go to the Legacy Family Tree News article To Be Broadcast Online - BCG's Free Day of Quality Genealogy Education October 7 in Salt Lake City for details and the link to register. Below is the schedule for the live broadcasts (all times are in Arizona time):

8:00 AM - "Enough is Enough. Or Is It?" Pamela Boyer Sayre, CG, CGL

9:15 AM - "FAN + GPS + DNA: The Problem-Solver's Great Trifecta." Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL

10:30 AM - "Black Sheep Ancestors and Their Records." Ann Staley, CG, CGL

12:30 PM - "Bringing Life to Our Ancestors: Manuscript Collections." Jeanne Larzalere Bloom, CG

3:00 PM - "When Worlds Collide: Resolving Conflicting Evidence." Judy G. Russell, CG, CGL

Marriage Indexing Seminar

Image Source: FamilySearch Blog

The U.S. Marriages Project is a joint initiative between findmypast.com and FamilySearch.org. Its purpose is to save the marriage records from every state in the United States. This service project will create a high quality, searchable database of nearly every marriage recorded in the United States since the early 1800s.

Anyone can participate in this deserving project. Indexers may choose the state(s) they wish to index. Who knows? You might even get the marriage record for your great-grandparents! Visit the FamilySearch Blog Join the Cause! Index Every Marriage Record in the United States for instructions on how to get started.

Also, FamilySearch representatives will be in Arizona soon to show how anyone can learn to do this work.

WHEN: September 30, 2016
WHERE: Mesa FamilySearch Library Training Center, 464 E. 1st Ave. Mesa, AZ
TIME: 7:00–8:30 p.m.

Attendance is free and registration is not required. Save a marriage! Join in this special project.

Fall 2016 Workshop & Seminar : "A Little Bit of Everything"

We announced our Fall workshop & seminar in a previous blog post from March 10, 2016, A Little Bit of Everything Workshop & Seminar. The deadline for registering is drawing near.

The seminar will take place Saturday, November 5, at the La Quinta Inn & Suites, 102 N. Alvernon Way.  Pamela Boyer Sayre and Richard G. Sayre will be our presenters. Seminar topics include:

• Enough is Enough Or Is It 
• Apps Galore for a Genealogist
• Capital Treasures
• The Civil War-A Valuable Genealogical Resource 

The seminar includes lunch and beverages. Vendors, book sales, and door prizes will also be available. Check-in is 8:30-9:00 a.m. and the seminar runs from 9:00-4:00 p.m. PCGS member cost is $45.00, Non members $55.00.  

An optional workshop on using Maps will also be presented from 2:00-4:00 p.m. (check-in from 1:30-2:00 p.m.) on Friday, November 4th by Pamela Boyer Sayre and Richard Sayre at the above location. The cost of the workshop is $35 for members and $45 for non members.

Special pricing for attending both events will also be available.

Registration deadline is October 22, 2016.

Visit our previous blog post (link above) or our 2016 Workshop-Seminar page on our website for details and registration.

Putting It All Together -- October 29, 2016 Family History Conference in Tempe

Registration for the 2016 Family History Conference sponsored by the Mesa AZ FamilySearch Library in Tempe is now open! We received the following press release from them:

ANNOUNCING THE 2016 Family History Conference sponsored by the Mesa AZ FamilySearch Library on Saturday, October 29, 2016, at the Tempe Institute of Religion on the ASU Campus, 1000 South McAllister Avenue in Tempe, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:10 p.m.

This year’s conference will feature a keynote address by James Tanner, a friend to our conference and respected family history guru.

Our theme is “Putting It All Together” and provides a wide variety of over 50 class choices for all types of learners, from beginners to the most advanced genealogists.  Come and learn how to be more effective and efficient when doing your research.  Learn to trace your roots with DNA.  Learn to document your sources.  Get specific information on various ways to research in specific countries.  If you are new to family history, come learn the basics.  Some of the most popular classes are repeated in an effort to accommodate everyone.   Spend all day or come for a single class or two; you may attend a maximum of five classes.

Registration will begin online at www.mesafsl.org on Wednesday, September 14, 2016.  At the time of registration, registrants will be given the opportunity to purchase lunch from Jason’s Deli.  Otherwise, the conference is FREE.  See you in October!

In the past, you were required to select the specific classes you plan to attend during the registration. Seats for each class is limited and registration closes for that class when it is full. This conference usually fills up very quickly so don't delay in reserving seats for the classes you really want to attend.

Putting It All Together -- October 29, 2016 Family History Conference in Tempe

Registration for the 2016 Family History Conference sponsored by the Mesa AZ FamilySearch Library in Tempe begins soon! We received the following press release from them:

ANNOUNCING THE 2016 Family History Conference sponsored by the Mesa AZ FamilySearch Library on Saturday, October 29, 2016, at the Tempe Institute of Religion on the ASU Campus, 1000 South McAllister Avenue in Tempe, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:10 p.m.

This year’s conference will feature a keynote address by James Tanner, a friend to our conference and respected family history guru.

Our theme is “Putting It All Together” and provides a wide variety of over 50 class choices for all types of learners, from beginners to the most advanced genealogists.  Come and learn how to be more effective and efficient when doing your research.  Learn to trace your roots with DNA.  Learn to document your sources.  Get specific information on various ways to research in specific countries.  If you are new to family history, come learn the basics.  Some of the most popular classes are repeated in an effort to accommodate everyone.   Spend all day or come for a single class or two; you may attend a maximum of five classes.

Registration will begin online at www.mesafsl.org on Wednesday, September 14, 2016.  At the time of registration, registrants will be given the opportunity to purchase lunch from Jason’s Deli.  Otherwise, the conference is FREE.  See you in October!

In the past, you were required to select the specific classes you plan to attend during the registration. Seats for each class is limited and registration closes for that class when it is full. As of this writing (September 14 @ 9:50 a.m.), registration had not yet been opened. However, this conference fills up very quickly so keep checking often in order to reserve a seat for the classes you really want to attend.

National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair

On October 26 & 27, 2016 (Wednesday & Thursday), the National Archives is hosting a two-day, virtual Genealogy Fair via webcast. Viewers have the opportunity to participate with the presenters and other family historians during the live event on YouTube. All of the session videos and handouts will be available from the National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair web page free of charge. You can watch the sessions and download the materials at your convenience. Registration is not required. Visit their web page at http://www.archives.gov/calendar/genealogy-fair/ for the class schedule and links to watch the free conference. You can also get materials from past conferences from their web page.