Thursday, October 20, 2016

Fall Youth Family History Event -- SUCCESS!!

So I haven’t blogged about it yet, but amidst my chaotic summer/fall transition, I was extended a call to serve in the Family History Center here in town.  In the LDS church, we are offered callings to serve in the church, as the church has lay clergy, and thus part of our membership is service in the church.  So, I was ecstatic, or should have been, but due to my over worked, over scheduled, and stressed out life, I didn’t feel a ton of excitement at the time.  I completely switched into SURVIVAL mode, and I think I’m finally starting to surface again.  Big PTA events are behind us now and we just successfully hosted our first big Youth Family History Event at the center, and I’m starting to feel that super excitement that comes with a new calling, especially one that you already have such a passion for. But I must acknowledge the fact that I had awesome fellow volunteers who made the last couple months rewarding amongst all of the chaos, I’m super blessed to be surrounded by so many fantastic people…
The activity was this morning, and was what I would consider a huge success.  One of the youth in our area who has a newfound love for Family History was my sidekick in making plans, and it came together super slick.
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We started with refreshments, Rootbeer Brew, and socializing.  Then we got things rolling by introducing them to Relative Finder, an awesome site that draws your Family Tree from FamilySearch.org, and compiles a list of historical figures that you are related to as well as information about how you’re related to them.  It also has the ability to create a group so everyone at the event can join that group and see how they’re related to one another.
After my cute youth sidekick taught them Relative Finder we handed out some Scavenger Hunt lists.  They teamed up with a partner and off they went.  It was surprisingly fun and successful! They truly seemed to have a good time, and I was enjoying helping them find the hidden treasures of the center.
FHC Scavenger Hunt
After the Scavenger Hunt we grabbed lunch in the classroom and once again my youth sidekick taught them to use various family history apps of her choosing.  It was a great success, the youth had fun and several were interested in being invited to any future events the center puts together. Yay!!
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I had to sneak out during this part because I had a date with the devil (my cute hubby) and BYU Football.  Kicking off our trip to the Boise game as a family.


Sunday, October 2, 2016

Thank you MyHeritage--link to FS tool

I was super excited to read the news about this new feature earlier this week, but I wanted to take the time to play with the new tool before I blogged to profess my love.
It is a WONDERFUL feature, I'm so excited to have it available now, thank you MyHeritage for being on board. Now if we could just get Ancestry and FindMyPast on board.  I can honestly say that having this tool will drive my research to MyHeritage first before I go searching on the other sites for records, just for convenience purposes.  The tool works slick, and easy.  The only problem I've stumbled upon so far is that it wasn't available with all the records I've found, but the ones it was available on, it worked like a charm. Thank you for making my busy life just that much more simple!