DearMYRTLE - Myrt speaking at Utah Valley PAF 8 March 2006

Providing practical, down-to-earth advice for family historians since 1995, online since 1985.

Myrt speaking at Utah Valley PAF 8 March 2006

NOTE: The following was just received from Donald R. Snow, 1st Vice President of Utah Valley PAF Users Group. All inquiries should be addressed to: pres@uvpafug.org

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For immediate release:

UTAH VALLEY PAF USERS GROUP

The next regular, second-Saturday-of-the-month meeting of the Utah Valley PAF (Personal Ancestral File) Users Group will be on Saturday, 8 Apr 2006 from 9 am until noon in the LDS "Red" Chapel at 4000 North Timpview Drive (650 East), in Provo.

The main presentation will be by Pat Richley on GETTING FROM INDEXES TO ORIGINALS. Pat Richley, better known as "DearMYRTLE" to her readers and listeners, provides practical, down-to-earth advice for family historians through her website DearMYRTLE.com. As Myrt, she has been onlining since 1984 during the old FIDO-net days with a Commodore 64 and a slow 300 baud modem. This year marks the 11th anniversary of her daily genealogy column in AOL's genealogy forum and on the web since 1997. She hosts a weekly Internet radio show where she interviews leading genealogy authors, researchers and software producers, and is the author of "The Everything Online Genealogy Book", "DearMYRTLE's Joy of Genealogy", plus numerous DearMYRTLE "Little Books."

Pat attended BYU and has 3 beautiful daughters that she says (objectively, no doubt) have provided her with the five most brilliant and talented grandchildren in the world. She usually resides in Bradenton, Florida, with her 63 research notebooks, four computers, a cat, and a stack of photocopies yet to be filed from a research trip in 2004, but she is temporarily residing in Salt Lake City.

Her topic on going from indexes to the originals is important since indexes aren't perfect and there could be transcription errors and there might be additional information in the original that didn't fit the indexer's format. So whenever we find references to an ancestor in an index, whether on the Internet, in a book, or on a genealogy CD, we need to obtain a photocopy of the original entry. Pat will explain this process using several real-life research challenges.

Following the main presentation there will be several classes taught concerning technology and family history. As usual, there will be something for everyone at all levels of expertise. Following are the classes currently scheduled for this meeting. (1) PAF 5, by Ralph Hansen; (2) What's New with PAF Insight?, by Duane Dudley; (3) Creating A Family History Website: #3 Images Add Interest, by Robert Raymond; (4) The New Look at NARA.GOV, by Bret Petersen; (5) Recent Internet Information for 20th and 21st Century Research, by Laurie Castillo; (6) Individual Mentoring, by LaRita Evans and Lynell Shock; (7) Video of last month's main presentation by Holly Hansen on Building a Fantastic Map Collection; (8) Q&A: Getting from Indexes to Originals, by DearMYRTLE; and (9) Legacy - Have It Your Way, by Dean Bennett. There will be no RootsMagic class this month.

All meetings of the Users Group are open to the public whether members of the Group or not. The Users Group has the goal of helping individuals use technology to further their family history and there are usually 100-125 attending the monthly meetings on the second Saturdays. Several of the officers, including Gerhard Ruf, President; Don Snow, 1st VP; Brian Cooper, 2nd VP; Kay Baker, Membership Chairman; Lynne Shumway, Editor of PAFology, and Bruce Merrill, Video Librarian, will be there to help with membership, questions, distribute the current issue of the monthly newsletter PAFology, and to check out videos of past presentations and classes to members of the group.

The Users Group offers free weekday classes on several topics when teachers are available, and information about main presentations, classes, and class notes are available on the Group's web site http://www.uvpafug.org and/or on http://www.familyhistorycenter.org .

For further information about the group or its activities see the web site or contact Gerhard Ruf, President, at pres@uvpafug.org and 801-225-6106, Don Snow at snowd@math.byu.edu , or Brian Cooper at vp2@uvpafug.org .