In light of the warnings about gatherings during the coronavirus outbreak, we’ve decided to postpone the UJGS meeting scheduled for this Monday, March 16th. We’ll be working with the speaker to reschedule his presentation for later this year.
24 Hours of Genealogy Webinars
MyHeritage is hosting a 24 hour marathon of webinars at Legacy Family Tree Webinars, on March 12th and 13th.
The webinars begin at 3pm today, March 12, and conclude the tomorrow.
You can see the list of webinars, the times, and register on their web site. Registration is for the full day, but you can log in for only the webinars you want to see. Additionally, the webinars will be available for free for a week, so if you miss the one at 2am, or even at 2pm, you have a week to catch it before you’ll have to pay to see it.
There are webinars on Swedish, Dutch, Belgian, Australian and New Zealand records, as well as evidence and proof, name-changing ancestors, several on DNA, US census, and more.
Be sure to check out the list to see which ones apply to your own research and don’t miss your chance for more genealogy education.
We meant to send this message out earlier, but even if you don’t make it to the live version, you still have a week to watch.
Call to Meeting – March 16
Our next meeting will take place on Monday, 16 March, at 6:30pm in the main floor classroom of the Family History Library.
Daniel R. Jones, the Manager of The Slavic Research Specialist Team at FamilySearch will talk about some of the things that FamilySearch has that could help people researching in the area. Bring any additional questions for Daniel to answer to help with your research.
We’ll see you there.
RootsTech Live Streaming – Free
You probably already know that RootsTech is this week. Some of our members may be attending. Some are working in the Expo Hall.
But if you haven’t bought a ticket to the conference, you can still enjoy some of the sessions. RootsTech is live streaming, as in previous years, and you can watch from home.
The schedule is on their web site: RootsTech Live Streaming.
The live stream will probably be right on that page, or they’ll provide a link from that page. They will stream all of the keynotes, this year called “general sessions”, along with many other presentations
Be sure to check the schedule so you don’t miss something you might want to see. Also, RootsTech usually shares those videos after the conference, so you’ll have another chance to watch them for free later. (Some keynotes in previous years were not shared later, so try to catch them live if you can.)
Call To Meeting Reminder – February 24
Our first meeting for 2020 is coming up on Monday, February 24th at 6:30pm in the main floor classrooms of the Family History Library.
Daniel Horowitz will present Israeli and European Records Available on MyHeritage.
Don’t forget that dues is due, $10 per person or $15 per couple. We can take credit cards in person as well as cash or check, or pay in advance online by credit card at Square.
See you next week.
Call To Meeting – February 24
It’s almost time for Utah JGS’s first meeting of the year. We will be meeting on Monday, February 24th at 6:30 pm in the main floor classrooms at the Family History Library.
Our speaker is Daniel Horowitz, the genealogy expert at MyHeritage, and he’ll be telling us about Israeli and European Records Available on MyHeritage.
This meeting takes place the same week as RootsTech. Whether you are planning to attend or not, in past years, the Expo Hall has been free to visit, and probably will be again. You can meet with the vendors and learn about the products and technologies they offer to assist with your genealogy research. We recommend a visit one day.
And because this is our first meeting of the year, it’s time to pay your dues: $10 per person or $15 per couple. You can pay in person (cash, check, or credit card) or by credit card online at Square.
See you there!
USCIS Fee Hike
If you have a certain number of genea-friends on social media, you may have already seen this, but we want to inform you about something that is currently going on in the genealogy world.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly the INS) has proposed an outrageous fee increase, raising the fees for a $65 search and the follow-up $65 record retrieval to $240 and $385 — a 492% increase.
What files does the USCIS have?
- Naturalization Certificate Files (C-Files), September 27, 1906 to March 31, 1956
- Alien Registration Forms (Form AR-2), August 1940 to March 1944
- Visa Files, July 1, 1924 to March 31, 1944
- Registry Files, March 1929 to March 31, 1944
- A-Files, April 1, 1944 to May 1, 1951
These are records that cannot be found anywhere else. NARA should have already received some of these files, which would make them easier for genealogists to access, but they have not been passed along as they should have been. And no genealogy organization has access to them or even to the indexes.
The USCIS has provided an opportunity for us to comment on the proposed rule that dramatically impacts the USCIS Genealogy Records Program.
You can read more about the rule proposal at https://www.recordsnotrevenue.com/ as well as see samples of some documents you may get from USCIS.
We encourage all of our members and friends to then follow through and comment on how you feel about this fee increase at https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=USCIS-2019-0010-0001. They have already received over 11,000 comments and you can leave a comment until the end of December.
Call to Meeting Update – November 18
This is your reminder message of our upcoming UJGS meeting, November 18th, 6:30pm at the FHL in our usual room.
This is our election meeting and a good time to either volunteer yourself for a position or volunteer your ideas for what you want our society to do in the future.
And we have a speaker scheduled. (The previous message said we didn’t.) Lindsay Levine will be speaking about research in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
See you there.
Call to Meeting – November 18
It’s November so that means it’s time for the last meeting of the year for Utah JGS.
We’ll meet on November 18th and, as usual, at 6:30pm at the Family History Library in a main floor classroom.
If you want to have a say in the future of our society, or volunteer for a position, this is your chance because it’s our election meeting.
We don’t have a speaker scheduled so we’ll just be talking about genealogy and our society. If you have ideas to improve our society or get more people involved, bring them. If you have questions about your own genealogy, we’re always happy to try to help.
See you there.
Movie Screening – October 2
Announcing a screening of the award-winning film, Children of the Inquisition, followed by a discussion with the film’s director, Joseph Lovett. The film follows people in their journey of self-discovery through genealogy research and the stories of their ancestors who survived the Inquisition. Children of the Inquisition won the Grand Prize for the “Hearts, Minds, Souls Award: Celebrating Films that Reflect the Jewish Experience” from the Flicker’s Rhode Island International Film Festival.
The event will take place at the Gould Auditorium, Marriott Library, at the University of Utah from 5:30 – 8:00pm on October 2nd. It is being sponsored by Friends of the Marriott Library, the Marriott Library Special Collections, and the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library. Free refreshments will be provided.
More about the film and the trailer can be found at: https://childrenoftheinquisition.com/.
There is a parking lot west of the library for $2 per hour, or several TRAX or UTA bus stops on campus. The library provides directions and more information.