Nebraska Genealogy Events for August 2011

Many events are coming up for genealogists in Nebraska during August. If you have an event to add, please email me..

Date & Location	Description
August 6, 2011 7:00 p.m. Homestead National Monument Education Center HWY 4 Beatrice, Nebraska	Campfire Program Series Learn about the first mass migration of Czechs to Nebraska and other Great Plains states in the late 19th century at Homestead National Monument of America's Education Center on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 at 7 p.m. Historian Bruce Garver will explain the causes for immigration and describe the experience of dislocation and consequences of demographic changes in American towns and cities- with emphasis on the years after World War I and the more recent waves of immigration in 1948 and 1968.
August 9, 2011 7:15 p.m. Lower Level Theater Dick Admin. Bldg. Union College Campus 3800 So. 48th St. Lincoln, Nebraska	Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society: An LLCGS "Family Reunion" 35 Years Let's celebrate our heritage. We'll review the genealogy of LLCGS and its membership since 1976. Then we'll do what our "LLCGS ancestors" did in 1976 and take time to find out what genealogical interests and goals everyone has and learn more about our current LLCGS family.
August 13, 2011 11:00 a.m. W. Dale Clark Library 215 S. 15th St. Omaha, Nebraska	Sharing Family History by Blogging presented by Susan Petersen, author of the blog LongLostRelatives.net. The genealogy blog is becoming the fastest and most popular method of sharing the stories and photographs of your ancestors' lives. Learn how to create your own blog.
August 18, 2011 12:00 Noon Nebraska History Museum 15th and P Sts Lincoln, Nebraska	Nebraska State Historical Society Brown Bag Lecture Series: 50 Years of History from the Archives of Nebraska Educational Television Presenter: Ron Hull
August 20, 2011 1:30 p.m. West Nebraska Family Research and History Center 1602 Avenue A Scottsbluff, NE	West Nebraska Family Research & History Center Forum Don Ringle - a discussion about the Homesteader Museum in Torrington and the Goshen Co., Wyoming rural schools
August 20, 2011 2:00 p.m. W. Dale Clark Library 215 S. 15th St. Omaha, Nebraska	Exploring Family Search Get an overview of the leading free site for genealogists! The class will focus on using the catalog to locate and order resources and finding digitized records and indexes using Record Search. Register Online
August 27, 2011 2:00 p.m. W. Dale Clark Library 215 S. 15th St. Omaha, Nebraska	Look Before You Leap! Preparing for a Productive Research Trip  Whether you're traveling to your ancestral home or visiting a research library, this professional genealogist's tips will help you get organized in order to make the most of your research time. Register Online

Capturing Family Stories on Video

Have you been doing all you can do in capturing your family's stories? So many of us genealogists spend so much of our time looking through historical papers, digging through our personal archives or Googling our ancestor's names. Have you taken the time to make use of today's technology to capture your family stories?

As I've been cleaning out a lot of family ephemera from my personal archives, I feel like I'm uncovering a gold mine. So many of the documents, photographs, yearbooks have been stashed away for so long, I'd forgotten all about them. One of the items I discovered recently was an 8 x 10 photograph of my father working at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Lincoln, Nebraska in the 1950s. Before I let him reminisce and tell me about the photo, I grabbed my Flip video camera.

My camera work is a little shaky at first.

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With video cameras built-in to many of today's smartphones, anyone can capture little snippets like this. It's nice to do these in short segments and have some kind of an idea what questions you want to ask. Photographs are a great way to allow your interview subject a chance to tell you about the photo.

As you can tell from the video, Dad thought the interview was over, but as soon as I turned off the video, he talked for another five minutes about the machine, what it did, and pointed out to me that he always went to work with a shine on his shoes!

So, when you do this - keep that camera rolling. You can always edit later.

Czech-Americans in Nebraska at Homestead National Monument

From the National Park Service:


Learn about the first mass migration of Czechs to Nebraska and other Great Plains states in the late 19th century at Homestead National Monument of America's Education Center on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 at 7 p.m. Historian Bruce Garver will explain the causes for immigration and describe the experience of dislocation and consequences of demographic changes in American towns and cities - with emphasis on the years after World War I and the more recent waves of immigration in 1948 and 1968.

Campfire programs start at 7 p.m. and last approximately 1 hour. Guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and insect repellant for comfort. All programs are hosted at the monument's Education Center. In case of inclement weather the programs will be held inside.

Homestead National Monument of America

Nebraska Genealogy Events Updated

The calendar of genealogy events in Nebraska has been updated. The new list includes upcoming Saturday workshops at the Omaha Public Library. I will be speaking about genealogy blogging on Saturday, August 13. Today's Omaha World Herald included a nice article about the upcoming workshops.

Events also include the fall workshop sponsored by the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society. The fall workshop features Paul Milner who will be speaking on Scottish and English ancestors.

Click here for the full list.

If you have an event to add, please email me.

Social Networking at the Land Records and Genealogy Symposium - Part 3

Nebraska State
Genealogical Society Display
Land Records Symposium
July 2011

Sometimes I think that I spend so much time in the virtual genealogy world that I forget how much fun it is to hang out with my fellow genealogists IRL (in real life).

This weekend's Land Records and Genealogy Symposium in Beatrice, Nebraska was an outstanding conference that attracted nearly 100 people from Nebraska and surrounding states and from as far away as California and Massachusetts.

First of all, I want to acknowledge the Homestead National Monument of America and Southeast Community College for the sponsorship of this event. It was obvious how much work went on behind the scenes to present a well organized and informative genealogy education experience.

Kudos to Blake and Kelly

Specifically, I want to thank Blake Bell of the National Park Service and Kelly Morgan of Southeast Community College as well as all of their workers behind the scene. From the perspective of a presenter at a conference, they did everything right - from the initial contact, to keeping me informed, and especially, making sure that the needs of the presenters were met prior to and during the conference. You folks were fantastic to work with and I hope we can work together again in the future.

Networking and Socializing

Upon arriving at the Symposium, I was warmly greeted by Floyd Smith III, president of the Nebraska State Genealogical Society (NSGS). Floyd and I have enjoyed email correspondence over the past few months and I hope that this was the beginning of another genealogy friendship. Floyd is one enthusiastic genealogist and supporter of other genealogists.

I got a kick out of Floyd because he had told several people that I had the Flip-Pal scanner, so I had to bring it with me yesterday. Before I knew it, at one of the breaks yesterday, I had several people gathered around to see it in action. After my demo, one of the ladies told me she thought I was a company representative. I found that to be pretty amusing! But I think that a couple of these are probably going to be purchased in the coming days.

Several people came over and said they read this blog. I also got a kick out of that. As I mentioned in my presentation, many of us bloggers never really know if anyone is reading our blogs or not. So I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet some blog readers in the flesh. Thank you to all readers of this blog for your interest and support. It really does mean a lot.

I loved the opportunity to get to know my fellow presenters - they are amazing people with a vast amount of knowledge to share. I'm really looking forward to continued contact with them.

And perhaps the biggest surprise of the day came as I finished my presentation and a woman approached me and asked, "Are you the same Susan Petersen I knew in my former life?" I looked up, checked her name tag and realized she was one of my Kansas counterparts from my "day-job"! We first met 25 years ago and had some great times at many a regional and national conference over the years. The last time I saw Sandi was in Omaha in 1999. She retired a few years ago and I'd heard through the grapevine that she was doing genealogy. Now I have to do my best to talk her into attending the Family History Expo in Overland Park, Kansas in two weeks! Seeing her again was just icing on the cake.

Homestead Records

Plan on seeing a lot about homestead records on this blog in the coming months, as the 150th anniversary of the Homestead Act of 1862 approaches. The digitization project is extremely significant for those genealogists whose families moved west. I will do my best to keep blog readers informed about activities at the Homestead National Monument of America and resources that are available regarding this significant era of American history.

Read about Day 1 >

Read about Day 2 >