Wednesday, June 8, 2011

May 2011 Staff Meeting

Midvale Union Fort Multi-Stake Family History Center

Staff Meeting
19 May 2011 – 7:00 p.m.
Welcome: Alice
Opening Song: "Turn Your Hearts," Hymn 291 Jeanne Nielson, pianist
Gayle Soulier, chorister
Opening Prayer: Susanne Lefler
Spiritual Thought: Sharon Jimenez Quote from President Thomas S Monson

"Temples are more that stone and mortar. They are built of faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service…
There is much to be done in our temples in behalf of those who wait beyond the veil. As we do the work for them, we will know that we have accomplished what they cannot so for themselves. President Joseph F. Smith in a mighty declaration’ stated, " Through our efforts in their behalf their chains of bondage will fall from them, and the darkness surrounding them will clear away, that light my shine upon them and they shall hear in the spirit world of the work that has been done for them by their children here, and will rejoice with you in your performance of the duties." My brothers and sisters, the work is ours to do…
I express my undying gratitude to my Heavenly Father… for all of our temples, wherever they are. Each one stands as a beacon to the world, an expression of our testimony that God, our Eternal Father, lives, that He desires to bless us and, indeed, to bless His sons and daughters of all generations. Each of our temples is an expression of our testimony that life beyond the grave is as real and as certain as is our life here on earth. I so testify."

Summer Party: Kathy Burnham talked about summer party. A sign-up sheet was passed around to sign up to bring food and to help set-up and
clean-up.

Presentation: Family History and Blogging Janet Hovorka

Janet had a hand out and went through the first two topics, Blogs and Face book. She told us of some of her favorite sites, demonstrated how to use them and explained what each one was. Some of Janet’s favorite genealogy blogs that were not listed in the handout were, rzamor1.blogspot.com Renee Zamora
granitegenealogy.blogspot.com Trudy Maxwell
genealogysstar.blogspot.com James Tanner
geneapress.blogspot.com Press releases
GeneaWebinars.blogspot.com News about upcoming genealogy webinars offered throughout the online genealogy community.

Be a Better Genealogist By Using Social Networking
By
Janet Hovorka
janet@generationmaps.com http://www.thechartchick.com/

There is a wonderful active friendly genealogy community out there who is anxious to help you with your genealogy research. To do genealogy using social networking, you just use these resources in a genealogical way. This class will survey ideas about how these tools can be used for connecting to other genealogists so that you can learn from them and know you aren’t the only one crazy about your family history.

Blogs
An ongoing article feed where stories and pictures can be posted. Comments can be made and discussions created. Searchable by google. Can be by invitation only or open to anyone.
http://www.blogger.com/ Easy to use building site for blogs
http://www.wordpress.com/ Easy to use building site for blogs
http://www.geneabloggers.com/ Genealogy Blog Support Group Site
RSS feeds. Feeds your blog to any blog reader
http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/2010/02/22/AnnouncingTheFamilyTreeMagazine40BestGenealogyBlogs.aspx Blog.familytreemagazine.com
http://www.footnotemaven.com/
http://www.geneamusings.com/ Ancestryinsider.blogspot.com
http://www.genealogue.com/


Facebook
Facebook is an interactive place where you can comment back and forth and connect about the present as well as the past.
http://www.facebook.com/
The strength of facebook is the newsfeed. What you do posts in your friend’s newsfeeds.
You can share Pictures, Notes, Birthdays, Events, Links
Extend your reach with Groups, Ancestor Fan Pages
Janet Hovorka
Sue Maxwell
Thomas MacEntee
Amy Lenertz Coffin
Laura Prescott
Dick Eastman
Becky Jamison
Randy Seaver
UGAgenealogy
GenerationMaps
FamilySearch
Association of Professional Genealogists
ProGenealogists
Family History Library
National Genealogical Society

Twitter
Share links, and combine with other social networking to get education.
http://www.twitter.com/ 140 character maximum. Brevity can impose clear thought.
http://www.bit.ly/ and www.tinyurl.com help keep links to less characters.
Be creative when you create an account. Could be an ancestor, an area, a branch
of the family tree, or some other aspect of your research.
JanetHovorka/GenerationMaps
Acoffin
Geneabloggers
footnoteMaven
rjseaver
marktucker
tmacentee
#genealogy
# (conference)

Podcasts
Podcasts are electronic recordings that can be played while exercising or other activities.
Genealogy Gems www.genealogygempodcast.com
The Genealogy Guys http://www.genealogyguys.com/

Videos
Great educational videos on how to do all sorts of things…
http://www.youtube.com/ Videos, Channels, Searching
Elyse90505
5minutegenealogy
Genealogy Gems
Familysearchvids
GenerationMaps

Some rules of the Internet to keep in mind when social networking.
Keep it short. Always remember they have tons of other options to click on.

Keep it visual. Make good use of subtitles and lists. Use vivid language and pictures.

Keep it compelling. Use interesting titles and make sure the first paragraph grabs them.
Relate what you are talking about to their lives. No one will ever turn down a chance
to see a photograph or hear an interesting story.

Keep it connected. Start with one outlet and then as you add others, integrate them
together to attract people with differing internet approaches. Add links for further
exploration and you might just nurture another genealogist.

Keep it. Don’t forget that you are spending time recording your family’s history. Make
sure you keep copies of what you are producing in a format that will survive for the
next generation and the generation after that.

Further information can be found in Social Networking for Genealogists by Drew Smith

Announcements:
Next staff is meeting, June 16.

Staff party is July 21 in Alice’s back yard, 832 E. Grenoble Dr. (6875 south).

We have updated Family Insight, FamilySearch Indexing, RootsMagic, AncestralQuest, Legacy, Java and Adobe on all the computers this week. We have also done a disk cleanup, defrag and Windows update. Please let us know if there are problems – other than sometimes #8 has to be restarted.

Check out our public Blog at fhcstaff.blogspot.com to see our past staff meeting information and when the next meeting is and what it will cover. Alice put some Internet sites you may be interested in. Please let Alice know of more we should add.

Also, sign up to see and contribute to our private Blog. You must respond to an email within a few days, let Alice know if you need her to resend the email. If you have responded you can see the Blog by logging into Google and going to staffmemberinfo.blogspot.com. to contribute to the blog you must go to blogger.com blogger.com and login. The first time you use Google Blogspot you will have to register and create a user name and password if you don’t already have a Google account or gmail.

What have you done to encourage your ward or stake to get more involved in Family History? What can we do to help? The new Family History Administrative Manuel named "To Turn the Hearts" and the Church Handbook of Instruction Book 2, section named "The Work of Salvation in the Ward and Stake" are available at https;//www.familysearch.org/consultant/ along with other information for Family History Consultants and Centers.

Closing Prayer Barry Tripp

33 staff members were in attendance plus Janet.