The rerun of Who Do You Think You Are? tonight features football great Emmitt Smith and his search for his slave ancestors. It’s on NBC. For me here in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area that means 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. on channel 11.
A press release from Ancestry.com:
World’s Largest Family History Web Site Continues Sponsorship of Critically Acclaimed TV Series That Takes a Personal Look at Celebrity Family Histories
PROVO, Utah, August 25, 2010 – Ancestry.com is pleased to announce it has extended its relationship with NBC for the second season of the “Who Do You Think You Are?” television series.
Ancestry.com worked with NBC on the first season of “Who Do You Think You Are?” that debuted in March 2010. The company provided important family history research for the show, including tracing the roots of the seven celebrities featured, and collaborated with NBC to promote the series. Each episode took
one celebrity on an emotional, and often times soul-searching journey to discover the lives of family members who came before them.
“It is remarkable to work on this series with the leader in the online family history category, Ancestry.com,” said Paul Telegdy, Executive Vice President of Alternative Programming & Production at NBC Universal. “A show of this caliber takes a lot of research and ground work to make the celebrities stories come to life. With the valued collaboration of Ancestry.com, we’ve been able to tell seven amazing stories in the first season, and look forward to even greater family history discoveries to be uncovered in season two.”
“We are excited to continue working with NBC on this series,” said Josh Hanna, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Marketing for Ancestry.com. “The first season of the show has truly elevated awareness around the family history category and we couldn’t be more pleased to be an integral part of a television series that brings excitement to the discoveries people can make when researching their ancestral roots.”
“Who Do You Think You Are?” is produced by Wall to Wall Entertainment in collaboration with Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky for their production company, Is or Isn’t Entertainment. NBC has announced the show will air in the 2010-11 season.
About Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world’s largest online family history resource, with more than one million paying subscribers. More than 5 billion records have been added to the site in the past 13 years. Ancestry users have created more than 18 million family trees containing over 1.8 billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries, including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.
I will be at SLIG. I hope to see you there, too! SLIG provides five days of learning in a chosen course. Then you can walk over to the Family History Library and put your knew knowledge or methodology to work!
The 2011 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy will be held 10-14 Jan 2011 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the downtown Radisson Hotel located at 215 West South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah.
2011 SLIG Course Descriptions: Click here.
2011 SLIG Evening Course Descriptions: Click here.
2011 SLIG Course Instructors: Click here.
SLIG Course Registration fees: $320 by 30 October 2010, thereafter $345. UGA members will receive a coupon for member pricing. All coupons used by members will be verified by membership staff. Includes course materials, an orientation breakfast and the Friday night banquet. Evening classes and additional dinner tickets are extra. To register, click here.
Hotel: SLIG participants are encouraged to stay at the Radisson Downtown using the “UGA” promotional code after selecting the arrival/departure dates. Discounted rooms are limited so be sure to sign up soon!
For more information, visit the UGA Website.
FGS 2010 welcomed more than 1800 participants throughout the week’s activities. Participants included more than 1000 conference registrants, 169 librarians, and nearly 100 volunteers. We were also joined by 500 eager beginning genealogists during Saturday’s Ancestry.com events. Others included 102 registrants at the Association of Professional Genealogists Professional Management Conference and countless area residents who visited the Exhibit Hall. Special events for attendees included “Come & Sit a Spell” with Sheila Kaye Adams on Wednesday evening which drew 300 individuals and Thursday night at the Museum of Appalachia with more than 400 in attendance.
Exciting door prizes offered by conference vendors such as a cruise for two to Bermuda, an IPad, Deluxe Ancestry subscriptions, week-long stays in Salt Lake City hotels, and others brought a boisterorus crowd to
the extended Exhibit Hall hours on Friday evening. The War of 1812 Preserve the Pensions reception on Friday evening was a rousing success. We thank FamilySearch for sponsoring the evening and providing the extravagant door prize – and you for attending and supporting this project.
The bottom line — a very successful conference all around! A round of thanks to our speakers, vendors, and local co-hosts, The East Tennessee Historical Society and the Kentucky Historical Society, and our numerous sponsors and participating organizations including our platinum sponsors FamilySearch and Ancestry.com.
We seek out church records of our ancestors, either in the original format, online, or on microfilm. The records of a family member’s christening, marriage, burial, or the names of parents and witnesses help fill in blank spots on our family tree. For some religious denominations we may only find minutes of a church committee or ruling body. We wish for something more and there is one more resource in existence for many churches and synagogues.
Milestones
Churches often celebrate 50, 75, 100, 150 or more years in existence. A get-together might mark the occasion and a local newspaper might cover the event, complete with a short history of the congregation. Many churches also publish a separate anniversary booklet filled with important details.
The beginnings
Generally a history of the church congregation and buildings is included in such a booklet. The variety of details often include where the early services were held (maybe in your ancestor’s home?), when the first
church was built, and perhaps when it burned and when the new building was erected. This may help you decide in which building your ancestor was actually married. The previous location of the original congregation may be covered, stating that they moved as a group from Hometown, Pennsylvania to Newtown, Iowa.
The information continues
The booklet may list the founders of the original congregation, ethnic connections of the congregation, photos of the buildings, and the names of the pastors and years they served, some with short biographies and these all serve another purpose as part of the history of the greater community. You might find out that your ancestor donated the land for the church or was the benefactor for the church organ or tower bells. A chronology of events important to the church and congregation could be helpful in determining when some family event took place.
Even more possible content
Other components of many church anniversary/history booklets are:
• Notes on the first christenings, marriages, and burials and/or deaths
• Names and sometimes additional information on early families
• List of people who had been members for a significant number of years
• Places where some long-time members had moved
• Stories of who donated each stained glass window and in whose memory
• Info on previous significant church history dates and publications
• Name of parishioners who helped with the building of the actual church
• Names of service organizations such as the Ladies’ Aid Society or youth group
• Early burials in the church cemetery
• Name of members of the church governing body over the years
The compilers
This booklet is an important part of the celebration. Usually there is a designated historian or appointed committee that compiles the history. An archivist friend of mine had the task of the research and compilation of her church’s anniversary publication. I know of fellow family historians who were instrumental in their respective church booklets.
Adding credence to a family story
I was told that a paternal great grandfather founded a Swedish Methodist church. Since he was a Lutheran from Denmark, I was a bit confused. A 100th anniversary booklet for the Swedish Methodist church did say he was one of the founding members along with others, including extended family members. It also gave some details on where some of the collateral relatives moved. Most of these relatives were immigrants or descendants of his wife’s family – the family that was Lutheran in Sweden.
Find the anniversary publication
Check the catalog of a local library, county or state historical society, or special collections department at a local college or university. For example, the New Jersey Historical Society has a wide range of church history and some are in microform http://www.jerseyhistory.org/microfiche.html. Anniversary booklets can be found for the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, and other countries. The growing number of booklets or abstracted information online is a boon to researchers. Some websites that have digitized version of local and state histories, also have some church anniversary booklets – including www.Ancestry.com under the category of family and local histories. The Family History Library www.familysearch.org also has some church anniversary booklets. These are found in the appropriate category of church history. I have noticed church anniversary booklets on eBay and in used book stores.
Check out these websites
In recent years, many religious denominations and archives have shared ideas for anniversary celebrations and the compilation of history booklets.
http://www.baptistparchments.org/celebration
http://www.pcahistory.org/publications/anniversary.html
Online library catalogs list many such booklets and some individual churches have posted their anniversary booklets online.
An added benefit
A number of the church anniversary booklets have a listing of sources used in the compilation. If only all of them did likewise. When you volunteer to help compile an anniversary booklet for your own church, I am sure the sources list will appear in that booklet!
This blog has been suffering from a bit of neglect. The last couple of months have been filled with family, the FGS Conference News Blog, and some client projects. Next week is the FGS Conference in Knoxville and once I am back and caught up on other things you will see more postings here.
If you are a reader of this blog and are going to be in Knoxville for the FGS Conference, please introduce yourself to me.
Over at the Ancestry Insider you’ll find a whole list of FamilySearch indexing statistics. Two of the numbers:
A vital part of this massive indexing project is that each record must be keyed twice and revisited a third time when the first two are not the same. Greater accuracy is the aim.
To view the indexing results click here and here. Those millions of rolls of microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City are getting closer and closer to being all indexed for us by our fellow genealogists. Anyone may volunteer to help and you don’t have to leave home to do it! The website have instructions.
You read that correctly! Today, Sunday, 8 August 2010 at midnight is when online registration for the 2010 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference closes down. The same is true for registrations by regular mail. This also includes registration for special events, luncheons, and the land workshops. Click here to register today. You may also view the entire program at that website.
If Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday (you get the picture) comes and you decide you do want to attend the conference but missed this deadline, we still welcome your registration at the conference in Knoxville. You may write a check or charge it to your Visa, MasterCard or Discover card at onsite registration. Don’t worry, you will still receive the syllabus on CD, tote bag, and door prize tickets. Click here for registration hours.
The Federation of Genealogical Societies along with the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Kentucky Historical Society look forward to seeing you in Knoxville!
Last October I reported on the situation in Tulare [California] Public Library. When the city was building a new library there was no space in the plans for the collection of the Sequoia Genealogical Society that had been housed in the old library. That post is here.
Public reaction to this had a good result — room was made. Today people are using that collection in that new library. Read the update here.