Next Meeting - February 28
Meeting at 7:00pm
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Mark your calendars and join us at any and all of these FHIG meetings on Tuesdays in 2017: We'll meet on: March 28 April 25 May 23 June 27 July 25 August 22 September 26 October 24 November 28 Even in 2017, no FHIG in December!
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Why pay money to have your family tree traced? Go into politics and your opponents will do it for you! ~Author Unknown~ Thanks to FHIG participant Gerry Brick for sharing this genealogy-related quote.
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The Family History Interest Group (FHIG) at Bernards Township Library aims to inspire and encourage you as you seek to learn about the life, loves and relationships of past family members. This newsletter is the place to find information about upcoming and past FHIG meetings, news and notes about related topics, and ideas, tips and suggestions for your own genealogy searches. Looking forward to seeing YOU at a meeting soon. -- Ruth
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with Dave Marr Tuesday, February 28 Dave Marr has done DNA testing on himself, and facilitated having other members of his family tested. Much has been learned: about the family, and about DNA testing itself. Many DNA matches have been found, and the speaker has discovered numerous distant cousins. This talk will focus on DNA testing at Ancestry.com, since that work is furthest along. It will describe two situations where paper records do not exist (or cannot be found), and how DNA was used to prove a theory and thereby break through a brick wall (only to find another brick wall behind that one!). The talk will discuss some important lessons learned, pros and cons, and some common pitfalls, along with the significant findings. Audience members will see how DNA can confirm (or deny) a relationship in cases where paper records are not available.
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About Dave Marr Dave retired from Bell Labs about 15 years ago, and has been busy on genealogy projects since 2006. He has done much research on a large German immigrant family that arrived in the New York metro area in the 1850s; on a large Scots-Irish family in southwestern PA (that stretches back to before the Revolution); and a German family that arrived in Minnesota in the 1870s. DNA testing has confirmed a good portion of this work. Dave is a member of genealogy societies in the locales that he is researching, and two Morris County organizations, FHIG and Morris Area Genealogy Society (MAGS). He has presented several talks (on a variety of subjects) at FHIG meetings over the years.
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The Family History Interest Group (FHIG) meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month except December from 7:00 to 8:30 pm in the Program Room on the lower level at Bernards Township Library.
Coffee and tea (and cookies or snacks if participants bring them!) is usually served at 6:30 pm and participants are invited to socialize. Our coffee and tea arrangements are $elf $upporting -- If you enjoy a cup please consider dropping a quarter or two in the basket provided.
FHIG meetings are FREE and all are welcome, whether they have been previously involved in family history research or not. No prior experience in tracing genealogical roots is necessary. The Group provides opportunities for those interested in family history and genealogy to share information and experiences and be more successful in their search.
For more information please call the Library at 908.204.3031, ext.4 or email RLufkin@Bernards.org
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Were you part of our lively discussion on 1/24 about "What Did You Do When You Started That You'd Do Quite Differently Today?" aka Common Errors in starting Genealogy Research? for viewing on your computer. Our own FHIG participants had much to share in relation to "Things they'd do differently" including: Make note of the source of your information. Almost everyone misses this at first and has to work extra hard later to clarify. Go to the library, archive, database or other source with a plan. Understand the difference between full records and indexes; indexes can introduce errors. Learn about censuses - what questions were asked?; town and county boundaries may be different now; spelling varies since the census taker wrote what he/she heard. A number of excellent source websites were mentioned: MyHeritage, HeritageQuest and Ancestry Library Edition all available free from Bernards Township Library (Ancestry only for use in the Library). BTL cardholders can use HeritageQuest from home also. Those with a card from a MAIN library can access MyHeritage from home. Please let us know if you've had success with any of these.
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Russ Worthington mentioned at our January meeting that many sessions from RootsTech 2017 will be live-streamed from Salt Lake City on February 8-9-10. See the schedule here: Once this global genealogy conference is underway, the live-stream will be linked on the RootsTech 2017 homepage at https://www.rootstech.org/ to watch on your computer, or here at the Library with headphones/earbuds. After the conference, recordings of these sessions will be posted on the website for a limited time, so you can follow up later if your schedule this week doesn't allow. Let Ruth know if you take in some of these sessions and like them, or not. Russ will be attending RootsTech 2017 in person, so we'll no doubt get his report at the next FHIG meeting.
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