Attention UJGS members, this Saturday we are having a board meeting. No, we don’t mean for all of you to come, but if anyone wants to volunteer to contribute more to the society, we’d love to have you bring your ideas and join the board. We still have some positions that are available. Don’t worry if you don’t have any specific experience for helping to run a genealogy society, because we’re all still figuring it out as we go along. Let me know and I’ll send you the meeting details.

If you don’t want to volunteer but you have some suggestions, please send them in. This society is here for your benefit. So what is it that you want from the society? What were you hoping to learn from the society? What were you hoping the society would do, or do for you? We want to know so we can try to make that happen. We know that we have all levels of skills among our members, from beginners to professionals, and we want to try to address everyone’s needs.

I’ll also use this post to send out a Happy Hanukkah to everyone!
(Sorry, I forgot to do a blog entry for this holiday.)

As International Jewish Genealogy Month comes to a close, UJGS is having another meeting on Tuesday, November 13th from 7-9pm at the Family History Library.

Our presenter will be Heidi Sugden, a Research Consultant at the Family History Library and a native of Vienna, Austria. She will be speaking about Jewish Research in Vienna and its surroundings.

This meeting will be broadcast as a webinar for anyone who cannot attend in person. Registration is required.

If you’re unfamiliar with the GoToWebinar software, we recommend watching this video so you can understand more about how a webinar works.

We’ll see you next week!

Library Research Night is just around the corner.

To help kick off International Jewish Genealogy Month, we will meet at the Family History Library on Tuesday night, October 16th, from 5-9pm.

(We’ll leave a sign at the information desk so you know where to find us.)

Anyone is welcome to join us, both members and non-members. Come join us and work on your genealogy research. Ask our society experts for help. Want to bust down a brick wall and need new advice? Want to venture into new territory in your research by way of a new country or a new language? Are you just starting out in your family history quest and want help getting started? We will do our best to help you.

Please let us know by comment on the blog or by email (just reply if you get this by email) if you are going to come and what you would like help with so we can be better prepared for you.

So, will we see you on Tuesday?

The next meeting of UJGS will be Tuesday, September 11th, from 7-9pm MDT, at the Family History Library. We will meet in the main floor classroom.

We’ve got a few topics on the agenda for this meeting. The first international IAJGS conference since 2004 was this summer in Paris and we had several members in attendance. In two years, the conference will be coming to Salt Lake City and we are co-hosting; it’s just about time to start some of the planning. We’ve got a society project in the making and we hope some of you will be excited to participate. And our own president spent three weeks in Europe visiting ancestral towns and doing research, so you’re sure to hear about that.

We will be broadcasting via webinar again for anyone who can’t be there in person. You may register at this link.

Watch this video if you’re unfamiliar with the GoToWebinar software so you can understand more about how a webinar works.

Of course, you are free to arrive early to do some research at the library or get some done afterwards. Some of us will be happy to help our members with their research after the meeting. Details and maps about parking are on our web site.

See you there!

After last year’s success at Library Research Night (LRN), we will probably have two or three this year. Our first one is scheduled for June 19th, next Tuesday, from 5-9pm. We’ll have some signs up for you to find us.

LRN is a chance for our members to visit the Family History Library (FHL) together to do some research. The beginner level genealogists can ask for help from those with more experience and we can all share our queries and successes.

For our test run last year, we had one member who had never been to the FHL before and others who hadn’t been back in years. People come from all over the world to research at the FHL. As locals, we should be using it more — genealogists everywhere wish they could be here more often.

LRN is for UJGS members only, but anyone is welcome to join us in order to attend. Our dues is still just $10.

See you next week!

This is a reminder of our upcoming meeting, Tuesday May 8th, 7pm at the Family History Library.

Todd Knowles is presenting The Hidden Treasures of FamilySearch.org.

To register to attend via webinar for this session, please visit this link.

We’d also like to remind everyone who attends the meeting to pay their dues for 2012. The web site is almost ready to accept payments online and the announcement for that should be made at the meeting.

The next meeting of UJGS will be Tuesday, May 8th, from 7-9pm MDT, at the Family History Library. We will meet in the main floor classroom.

Our speaker will be our very own Todd Knowles, presenting The Hidden Treasures of FamilySearch.

Many times, the search for our ancestors leads us to records we either can’t access or are unavailable. This presentation will help open up the hidden treasures of FamilySearch.org and hopefully bring to light collections where the records of our ancestors can be found.

After a successful test run at our last meeting, this one will be our first live broadcast webinar. Anyone may attend. Register at this link. The session will be recorded and made available to members at a later date.

If you have never attended a webinar, or specifically a gotowebinar session, you may view an introductory video online.

See you there!

UJGS is having its first meeting of 2012 on Tuesday, March 13 20th, from 7-9:00pm at the Family History Library.

More location details, including the address and where to park (the museum lot is free in the evenings), are available on our Meetings page.

We’ve been trying to make some changes to the society, so things are still in flux for this meeting. We should get it all figured out in the next week.

Edit: It has been brought to our attention that the Utah Democratic Caucuses are on March 13th, so we have moved the meeting date to one week later.