AZ GenWeb

Well - as if I didn't already have too much on my "plate"....I added one more thing this week - but I am SO excited about it! I am now the volunteer coordinator for Apache County's page on AZ GenWeb!!

AZ GenWeb - Apache County

I have always loved the GenWeb pages as some really useful information can be found within them! Of course all of that information depends upon volunteers, and since I am so grateful to those who have volunteered & created sites that have helped ME - I decided I needed to reciprocate! Besides, Apache County has an amazing history and it needs to be shared and available. It will definitely be a work in progress - but excited to get started.

So many volunteer opportunities out there.

Family Search Website - Update

Wow! I am SOOOOOOO excited to see the updates to the Family Search website! This is so exciting! I spent several hours on it today creating family albums, uploading ancestor photos & linking those photos to my Family Tree - all for FREE!!! And in the process found a couple of items of interest that other people had posted on my ancestors (some new photos I didn't have). What a blessed time to be alive!!! I LOVE and am SO THANKFUL for what technological advances have done for Family History Research & collaboration! When I first started my research in the early 1990s I would have to order Census films (or other microfilm) from the Family History Library in Salt Lake, wait.....very impatiently I might add.....for them to arrive at the local Family History Center - schedule a babysitter so I could go look at it, and spend hours browsing through thousands of names hoping to find my ancestor! Wow - what a few years & many advances (and lots of VOLUNTEER INDEXERS!) have done! Now I can get on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org and type in an ancestor name and there they are! Print the image, save it to my computer, add it to my tree. What an incredible blessing that I am thankful for every day!

If you haven't seen the Family Search site & the wonderful things that are happening on it(all FREE!!) now is the time to check it out!
Family Search.Org

Also - YOU can be one of those wonderful individuals who help someone else find THEIR ancestor by indexing records! You can do it through Family Search:
Family Search Indexing

Or many project are available on Ancestry.com as well:
Ancestry.com World Archives Project

Strange Happenings

So my mother calls me last week and tells me about a strange phone call she had just received. Some 'research' company had called her and started asking her questions about her relatives, ancestors, etc. Said they were doing "Estate Research" for a distant relative who had passed away, no descendants, no will. My mom checked into it and they are a legitimate company, and what they are doing is "for real". So she may get a few bucks out of this whole thing (the distant cousin did not have a sizable estate & it will be divided among quite a few cousins) - but I am MORE excited about getting in touch with some cousins on a line that I have struggled finding information on!! When the whole thing is settled, they will share with my mom the information they have discovered in their research. I am also asking them to share my contact information with the cousins so that (if interested) they can contact me about Genealogy! I guess we just never know when a door may be opened....or how! I'll keep you posted.


FOLLOW UP: May 25, 2013 - SO EXCITED!! One of these cousins mentioned above found me on Ancestry & we are now in contact & friends on Facebook! So excited to find a new cousin!!! Just beginning to share information - it will be fun to get to know her & other cousins she can put me in contact with!!

More to come....I'm sure!