Roots & Branches

Ok, so you have put together your basic genealogy or family history.  Now you might be wondering “What do I do with all this information?”  The trick is to think “Whatever you want”. 

So often we do the work, “Oh isn’t this all cool”, and then it goes in a drawer.  Well, what is the point of doing all that if you do not use it?  In my way of thinking, make it fun and make it work for you.

For example:  It is your Jackson Family Reunion.  Bring out the books, place them on a table.  Show everyone the great work you have been doing.  Also display the pictures and pedigree charts.  People tend to get drawn in when these are up.  Everyone starts talking.  Usually they will start mentioning things like “Look here is Uncle Tom”  “I remember Grandma Isabelle, do you?”  “Yeah, she was an angel”, “I love that someone is doing this!”

Be prepared, next they will be asking for copies of the paperwork and of the pictures.  I usually say yes if they will pay the costs.  Or even better is to start trading photos or documents.  Once the door gets opened others will usually join in.  This can be a great way to get you further in you search.  In addition, try to keep a camcorder going during the discussion whenever possible.  You never know what will come up. 

Remember, this information can be passed on to others as gifts.  Imagine your favorite cousin that loves genealogy getting a framed copy of your great-great-grand parent’s marriage license.  How cool would that be to hang on the wall along with a picture or two. 

Another great idea is to make a Photo Book.  These make great gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, etc.   These are available in many places online these days.  I believe you can also get them printed through Walmart, Walgreens, and Target, to name a few.  

Try these online also:

Kodak: http://www.kodakgallery.com/PhotoBookOverview.jsp

Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/en/products/photo_books/

Shutterfly: http://www.shutterfly.com/shop/Photo_Books/product_c18000

Snapfish:  http://www.snapfish.com/storenewphotobooks

VioVio,: http://www.viovio.com/products/photo_books/?gclid=CJvCwLOywZkCFRFWagodMGxBug

Great news!

The Wyoming Newspaper Project is now

available online.

Discover the stories that formed Wyoming, through the Wyoming Newspaper Project. For the sheer volume of information they contain, newspapers are the single most important printed record of human activity. Historians, genealogists, and other scholars rely on them to provide a first-hand and sometimes the only account of local news. Available through this website are all the newspapers printed in Wyoming between 1849 and 1922, in an easily searchable format.

More than 900,000 newspaper pages have been converted from microfilm to a digital format. Using the links on the left, you can browse the entire collection or search for newspapers from specified towns or counties, on certain dates, or by a specific title. The text is searchable, including news articles, news briefs, obituaries and other items of interest.

Funding for the project was made possible by the Wyoming Legislature, the support of Governor Dave Freudenthal, and the Library Services and Technology Act federal program. All of the metadata (what makes the newspapers’ text searchable) was created by residents of Wyoming.

About the Project

This project is a work in progress. As of March 2009, we have over 500,000 full page newspaper images loaded. In the coming weeks, we expect to load the remaining full pages. An updated list of the newspapers and dates loaded is now available and will be updated as we load more pages. Finally, you may experience some down time while we continue loading images and improving the project.

www.wyonewspapers.org.

(Information taken from the description on the site.)

FYI

You will need Acrobat Reader to open and use this program.

Be sure to make these changes to you program before using.

Open up Acrobat Reader (the standalone version). Go to Edit > Preferences > Search and check the box to “Enable search highlights from external highlight server”. This option is by default turned off. It should be turned on to view the highlighted text of the search results.

If this sounds like something you would like to more about, take the next half hour and learn more on the Wyoming State Library Webinar Archive.

Wyoming Newspaper Project
Learn about the hundreds of newspapers available in the Wyoming Newspaper Project (http://www.wyonewspapers.org/). (32 minutes).