Saturday, May 17, 2008

CGSSD Meeting today - Discovering Genealogical Treasures

I posted the program summary the other day about the Michael Kratzer talk on "Discovering Genealogical Treasures in Attics, Yard Sales, Swap Meets, and Internet Auctions." Needless to say, this was different! Michael is from Orange County and volunteers at the Huntington Beach FHC when he's not hunting artifacts, photos and other treasures.

He started his talk off with "I used to be a normal guy – we took vacations in Hawaii, we rode bikes for recreation, we had friends and family over for fun and games on the weekend, etc." Then he discovered genealogy research, and collecting family treasures. Now he collects other people's family treasures too.

Michael had a number of books, papers, photos and artifacts laid out on the table beside him, while he went through a nice presentation showing some of his most interesting treasures, each of them with a story behind them. He talked about visiting museum gift shops, historical sites or societies,

He does research on the person who is featured on or owned the artifact - and often sends the research to relatives in hopes that more treasures will be shared. Michael has visited many areas of the country in his treasure hunts, visited close and distant relatives, and likes to show his collection at family get-togethers.

This was an interesting presentation that went quickly - the audience received insights into how to find the artifacts, obtain them, study them, display them, and preserve them.

I was late to the first part of the CGSSD meeting, but didn't miss much in the FamilyTreeMaker meeting. Lance talked about organizing your files in directories on the computer, how he doesn't like Microsoft Vista, how he doesn't use FTM 2008, how FTM 2008 looks and feels (he does have it!), and how to split your FTM file to create a file with only part of a larger file.

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