[UVTAGG] Press Release for UVTAGG meeting Saturday morning, 18 Feb 2017, Provo (3rd Saturday due to RootsTech in the Salt Palace)
2017-02-08
Journalists and newsletter editors, please run this as a news item and/or in your calendar of events. (This is too late for ward newsletters.) For a shorter version please show the main speaker and topic, give the UVTAGG websites, and say there are classes at all levels of genealogy. If you need further information, please email me. Thanks.
Don Snow -- snowd@math.byu.edu
[UVTAGG] Press Release for UVTAGG meeting Saturday morning, 18 Feb 2017, Provo (3rd Saturday this month due to RootsTech)
The next meeting of the UVTAGG (Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group - Formerly the Utah Valley PAF Users Group) will be on Saturday, 18 Feb 2017, from 9 am to noon in the LDS "Red Chapel", 4050 North Timpview Drive (650 East), Provo. This is a change from the regular second Saturday meeting day due to RootsTech 2017 in the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City on the second Saturday. The main presentation at this month's meeting will be THE BRITISH 1881 CENSUS INDEXING PROJECT: A WINDOW INTO THE PAST by Stephen C. Young, Deputy Chief Genealogical Officer of FamilySearch. This presentation provides a review of this huge pioneering indexing project, the first of its size and scope, and the benefits and cautions of conducting research in this and other 19th century census records. The context of life in the British Isles in 1881 will be considered, as well as some strange and entertaining entries from the actual census. In 1987 executives of the LDS Family History Department met in London, England with the British Genealogical Record Users Committee (BGRUC), an ad hoc group composed of organizations committed to providing access to and preservation of genealogical and historical records. A proposal was made and accepted to index the 1881 census, the latest census released at that time for public research (1891, 1901 and 1911 are now available). On the night of Sunday, April 3rd, 1881 the entire population of England, Wales and Scotland, as well as the inhabitants of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, paused to pose for a collective portrait. The image they left does not record individual countenances, but fortunately for the millions of their descendants, it does preserve equally important features of each person who managed to be included in the depiction. This virtual snapshot in history includes over thirty million people. Queen Victoria was in the 44th year of a 63-year reign; William Ewart Gladstone's second term as a liberal prime minister had recently begun; one in every seven Britons lived in London; a labourer's weekly wage was eighteen shillings (about 90p); compulsory education for children, 5 to 13, had only recently been legislated; and work on the Channel Tunnel was begun at Folkestone but stopped again after only 879 yards. Individual entries discovered in the census can be both amusing and poignant: consider the wife described as “Minds her own business,” the 30-year-old unmarried son of Harriet Faucet, named “Kitchen,” or seven-month-old Mary Cooper “found on a doorstep." Stephen C. Young, AG, born and raised in London, Ontario, Canada, has researched his family history since the late 1970s. He earned a BA in Family and Local History at Brigham Young University (1985), an MA in American History (emphasis in Public History) at Bowling Green State University in Ohio (1990), and completed some doctoral work at Wayne State University in Detroit. An employee of FamilySearch since 1988, Stephen has enjoyed several assignments during this time: in the Family History Library administration, and his four year appointment (1992-1996) in England supervising the British 1881 Census Project (pre-Internet indexing). He is now an Assistant Chief Genealogical Officer and project manager for FamilySearch. His genealogical research accreditation in English Canadian research has been active with ICAPGen since 1989. He and his wife, Michelle, live in Provo and have five children with the last still at home, a sophomore at Timpview High School.
The following classes are scheduled after the main presentation this month. For last minute changes and additions see the UVTAGG website and blog.
(1) Steven C. Young, Q&A on Indexing the 1881 UK Census
(2) James Tanner, The Family History Guide: Examples and Applications
(3) Tony King, Chinese Genealogy: Locating Your Village
(4) Don Engstrom and John Blake, Ask An Expert (Personal Help)
(5) Video of last month's main presentation, Ed Donakey on What is the Office of Chief Genealogy Officer of FamilySearch
(6) Gaylon Findlay, Ancestral Quest
This is the regular UVTAGG meeting, but on the third Saturday instead of the second, due to RootsTech. All meetings of UVTAGG are open to the public, whether members of the Group or not. The meetings have something for everyone, no matter what their level of family history expertise and this includes youth, those just getting interested in genealogy, seasoned genealogists, and family history consultants. The Group has the goal of helping individuals use technology to further their family history and there are usually 70-80 people attending the monthly meetings, many of whom are family history consultants. You can join or renew your membership at this meeting or on the website. Information about the Group, meeting location, current and past presentations, classes, and class notes are available on their website http://uvtagg.org and the press release blog http://blog.uvtagg.org . On the blog you can also subscribe to receive emails of the press releases when they are posted the week before the meetings. The officers are Gerhard Ruf, President; Laurie Castillo, 1st VP; Don Snow, 2nd VP; Eileen Phelps, Newsletter Editor; Don Engstrom and Rayanne Melick, Membership and Finances; Bruce Merrill and Marie Andersen, DVD Library; and Chris Stevenson, Rick Klemetson, Rick Wightman, and Brent Nelson, Webmasters. Several of these will be at the meeting to answer questions, help with membership, distribute the current issue of the monthly newsletter TAGGology, and check out or sell to members the inexpensive DVDs of main presentations and classes. Members receive the monthly printed newsletter TAGGology (and via email, if requested), and access to many genealogy resources through the UVTAGG's membership in the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The dues for regular membership are $15 per year on a calendar year basis and $10 per year for email-only TAGGologies. Gift memberships and DVDs make great presents for family history-minded relatives, friends, and family history consultants. See more information and how to join the group on the websites above. You can also contact President Gerhard Ruf at pres@uvtagg.org (801-225-6106), or 1st VP Laurie Castillo at gengal@comcast.net , or 2nd VP Don Snow at snowd@math.byu.edu .
Don Snow, 2nd VP of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group (UVTAGG), snowd@math.byu.edu
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