Family History

All Family History articles are collected here.

Growing up Revell

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The first meeting of UMRA’s Family History Interest Group for 2023–24 will feature a presentation by Marilyn DeLong about sharing family stories and learning surprising family connections. 

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Revell family gathering in 1953. Marilyn (DeLong) is fourth from the left in the second row.

Craig Swan

How I learned, this summer, that my great aunt, one of my paternal grandfather’s sister, was included in a fresco at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  As far as I know she is the only relative of mine who is part of a fresco anywhere in the world.

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Family Stories—Open Discussion

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The May 2023 UMRA Family History Interest Group ZOOM presentation was an open discussion and question/answer session that covered a wide range of topics.

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Telling the stories of the living

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Larry Rudnick and Vicki Gaylord shared how they have worked with living family members to gain more information and insight into their family trees. Gaylord and Rudnick explained the processes they used and gave great examples.

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Ways to engage family members in family history

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UMRA's Family History Interest Group (FHIG) met via Zoom for two presentations on ways to engage family members in family history.

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Tracing family history with DNA testing

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The Family History Interest Group learned about tracing family history using DNA testing and tools including Ancestry DNA, 23andMe, and GEDmatch which uses the GEDCOM files generated by those companies to connect across platforms.

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How to use your DNA analysis

Kevina and Lee Munnich

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Kevina and Lee Munnich gave a presentation on "Family History Tourism".  They shared information about 4 different sites and insights into their family's history. 

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Kevina and Lee Munnich

Family History Group covers a range of topics

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On May 11, 2022 the Family History Interest Group met for an open forum that gave participants the opportunity to discuss any aspect of Family History.

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Karen LeBat

Writing family stories

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Writer and teacher Brenda Hudson shared her story-project method when the Family History Interest Group met on April 13.

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Writing family history

Using DNA for family history research

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Doing family history research with DNA was the focus when the UMRA Family History Interest Group (FHIG) met in February.

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Biology of DNA

Learn to scan your family photos

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In this session, we learned how to take pictures (of your pictures) with a digital camera, the pros and cons of fee-based digitizing services, and flat-bed scanners.

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Scanning family photos

Family History: Engaging Family Members with Their Ancestors' Stories

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Vicki Gaylord's engaging presentation on strategies she has used to engage family members with their family history.

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Vicki Gaylord

Family History Interest Group 2021–22 schedule

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UMRA member Vicki Gaylord will share ways she has found to engage family members in the family history work she has done when the Family History Interest Group meets in October.

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Civil War Ancestors

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In June 2021 I talked to the UMRA Family History Interest Group about how I documented the story of my great grandfather, George Swift, who joined the 3rd Minnesota Regiment at the start of the Civil War in 1861and returned to Minnesota four years later after serving as the drummer boy of the Ohio 69th Regiment.

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Civil War soldier

Will Craig

Starting with a short family story from my Grandmother, I traced and documented the Civil War experiences of my great grandfather, George Swift.

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