Family History   

Create 1-2 page Legacy Letter as a written expression of your core values, beliefs, life lessons and dreams to share with family members, friends or spiritual community as a way to help inform and influence the future. What do you say in a Legacy Letter? Why create one? Who will receive it? When is a good time to write one? Write a letter or a short, simple booklet featuring your thoughts and photos? See sample letters as “starters” to give you the confidence to complete your project. Janice will help guide your creative process during class periods of reflection and writing.

This class offers a step-by-step process to show how to find ancestors in historical newspapers and books. Several large sites provide data for newspapers or books, but it is often challenging to find the specific data you need. This class shows how to use the "finding sites" so you can readily zero in on the data you need. 

The genealogy online capabilities have grown so much in recent years that it is important to be able to take advantage of all the new features: to help us find our most challenging ancestors and to be sure we are making good use of our time. The emphasis in this class is on the many good genealogy features of the major sites as well as the latest DNA features.

Data for property, wills, taxes, and other "follow the money" records are valuable in finding family data and determining family relationships. The 'money data" often can be found at much earlier dates than vital records or other genealogy data. Property data can be found in all countries and in all time periods, dating back centuries. Emphasis in this class is often finding this data online.

Find more genealogy records and clues for your ancestors, faster, when you use special Google search techniques. Learn how to find your ancestors’ surnames in uploaded documents, books and PDF files; how to find books on specific places, and more. We will also discuss Google Books, Alerts, Images and possibly Google Earth. Be sure to print the handout ahead of class so you can follow along as the instructor demonstrates — live online — the techniques listed.

This class shows how to avoid the 6 major genealogy mistakes: trusting the "old-time" data; trusting family genealogists and family stories; connecting the wrong "same name" people; failing the reasonableness test; trusting the professional genealogists; and trusting all "original" data. Numerous examples are presented.

Develop stories around a central theme in writing, memory books or other art projects. Practice mind mapping to identify and frame your stories. Share meaningful objects to reflect on meaningful people, places, events, traditions, treasures, life lessons and quotations. Multiple handouts provided. 

An unexpected illness, injury, or death unleashes overwhelming feelings both for the individual affected and for their loved ones. In this workshop, you will be guided through the process of assembling and sharing critical information to assist you and/or your loved ones in the event of a hospitalization or a need for extended care. Content delivered in class will be supplemented by interactive exercises and worksheets you can complete at home to document your preferences before a crisis occurs. 

This class presents summary data on the major companies and features of the modern DNA world. Examples are offered regarding the best current DNA features and how those features can best help us with our family history. A number of "how-to" examples are presented to show the best way to navigate the most valuable DNA features.

FamilySearch.org is the largest free genealogy records archive on the internet, a goldmine with more than 7 billion name-searchable records from around the world: vital records, census, military, land, probate, and more. Learn why you need to search Records, Books, the Catalog AND Historical Images. We will discuss the new “All Categories Search” feature. Includes 10-page handout.