On The Road Again

For the first time in over a year, the You Go Genealogy Girls are going to be traveling together.  This will be fun and interesting.  We have actually not been together to talk genealogy (other than e-mails and on the phone) for months and months.

I will be leaving for western Nebraska tomorrow afternoon.  Lil' Red will be loaded with my suitcases, genealogy bags, computers, projector, along with boxes of books.  Hang in there Lil' Red, you can rest once I get there!

You Go Genealogy Girl #2 and I plan some research jaunts before leaving on Thursday of next week for the Black Hills.  On Friday we will arrive in Rapid City, South Dakota to check into the hotel and get ready for the Family History Expo that officially starts the next morning.  I will be presenting two lessons ... Prose on the Prairie and Welcome to America; the Immigrant Woman.

We will return to Nebraska in time to decorate graves of loved ones.  I will present the Welcome to America; the Immigrant Woman program on the evening of Tuesday, May 20th at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance, Nebraska.  This is a fantastic museum and research center with excellent facilities for conferences and presentations.

Turning Lil' Red east and heading home two days later.  You Go Genealogy Girl #2 will be arriving at my house to present a program for the North Platte Genealogical Society on Swedish Research.

Oh ... about those boxes of books.  I will be selling books along the way.  Haven't you heard?  I have spent the winter of 2013-2014 writing books.  I couldn't stop with just one.  My book, Iowa Genealogical Research, came off the press the end of January.  I immediately started working on a revised edition of Genealogical Research in Nebraska.  It came off the press on Thursday of this week.  They are both large books with everything you need to know about doing genealogical research in those two states.  The Iowa book contains 416 pages and the Nebraska book contains 537 pages.  They are both spiral bound.  Who needs weight lifting when you can lift and carry those books around to venues?  You can learn more about purchasing the Iowa book on my web site, Genealogy Works.  At the same web site you can learn more about purchasing the Nebraska book.

This is going to be so much fun.  There is the Internet and then there are all the good times of being around genealogists to talk and share ideas.  I am looking forward to meeting old friends and making new genealogy friends ... and particularly seeing You Go Genealogy Girl #2 again.

You Go Genealogy Girl #1 --- Ruby

Behind the Conference Scene

Getting ready for any conference is no easy task.  There is a lot of work for many months to a year before the conference begins.  The planning takes time and a good deal of volunteer help to pull it off.

On July 6th I arrived in Alliance, Nebraska to get things ready for the Civil War Conference to be held on July 8th and 9th.  Instead of going to YGGG #2's house, I went directly to the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center where I found #2 hard at work with staff members and volunteers.  I pitched in stuffing hand-out bags and figuring out door prizes.

The next day we returned to the museum to assist in decorating, setting up displays and vendor tables.  YGGG #2 decided she needed some photographs to display.  We went to the acquisition room in the basement of the museum.  Actually that is more fun than touring the museum.  Don't you often wonder what lies beneath a museum?  While she looked at many shelves of old photographs, I discovered old hats.  Feeling somewhat silly, I decided to start trying on old hats.  I encouraged #2 to lighten up and do the same.  Eventually we each had an appropriate hat.

One of the staff members wanted the horse "Newberry" in the museum entrance lobby to be decorated for the Civil War.  We found an American flag plus an old tattered quilt.  The flag was draped around the saddle horn and the quilt was rolled up behind the saddle.  I must say "Newberry" looked like a typical Civil War horse.

The You Go Genealogy Girls did not look like Civil War matrons, but we had fun pretending.  Putting on our hats, we posed for pictures, pretending that our husbands or lovers had just gone off to war.  As you can see by the photo, I was very sad, but #2 looks like she may have had mixed emotions.  Maybe she's thinking good riddance.  I have not had that much fun since I was a little girl playing dress-up.

Eventually we returned to the serious job of decorating the museum in Union and Confederate flags and displaying old photographs. By late that afternoon everything was in order for the conference to begin the following morning.  "Newberry" looked grand and the hats were back in the acquisition room.  The show was on the road!

Civil War Conference - Alliance, Nebraska - July 8-9, 2011

If you love genealogy and history, this is one conference you won't want to miss! The Heritage Seekers Society and the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance, Nebraska are hosting a two day Civil War Conference on July 8th and 9th. Coming up soon!

Both of the You Go Genealogy Girls will be attending this one and we both will be presenting programs and classes! This should be an awesome conference and we hope to see all our friends there. We are excited to be part of this great Civil War Conference as we support our home town and it's great new museum. Come join us!!!

Titled "Remembering the Civil War...150 Years Later", this will be a premium offer for anyone interested in this part of history. We have been planning this conference for many months and it will be a first for our brand new museum facility. We have one of the finest new museums in the midwest and again, we invite all to join in our conference as we honor the Civil War Sesquicentennial and the memories of those who fought.

We are offering seventeen (17) educational, genealogical and historical presentations over the two days (lunch included both days) and you can attend all classes and presentations, no need to choose only a few. We will have many great prize drawings for attendees throughout the conference as well as huge bags of "goodies" for those attending. (Our first bag has filled all the way up with great giveaways and we are now filling bag two for each attendee--so it's an added free bonus! )  Everyone attending will get great handouts of the classes from several of our speakers so they can study again at home...as the learning never ends with a genealogist or historian! Our 11 speakers are all professionals and well qualified  in their field of study and will offer classes on genealogy researching as well as historical presentations for your enjoyment. This is a top quality conference and we invite everyone to contact us for more information.

To our local residents, your new museum is hosting this awesome event and we encourage you to support the facility and come see what is new!

Here is a sample of what we are offering along with even more...

Civil War research classes

History of the Kansas/Missouri Border Wars

Historical programs on Civil War quilts, along with a quilt show and a local quilt shop will display their wares.

Civil War character portrayals

Classes on the GAR and Lincoln's war time rule

Program featuring firearms of the Civil War........

plus much more! 

We hope to see you all there on July 8th and 9th for a great learning experience.
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For a 4 page copy of our brochure in PDF format, click on the word Brochure below. You can save and print it if you like. It takes a minute to load so be patient!

If the link fails, email me!
Brochure

Email me:   clchopkins@gmail.com  I will email you a copy of the brochure in PDF

Contact for more info:
Knight Museum and Sandhills Center
Alliance, Nebraska
308-762-2384
museum@cityofalliance.net

We are home and planning a busy summer...of conferences

The girls finally arrived back in Nebraska this week after a tiring but fairly successful trip to the Family History Library. Both of us have mounds of papers and digital scans to work at getting organized, some of which will wait until fall when life slows down a bit. We should consider our trip at another time of year when we can come home and hibernate for the winter with all our precious finds, but we will get through it all and organize our treasures as soon as possible. Girl #1 has started going through hers and I simply organized mine so that when I get time to work on my papers I won't be lost as to what is what and goes to whom!

I acquired a wonderful little "bug" while in Salt Lake, so as we made our way home the trip was slightly longer with extra stops but we made it and even managed a couple shopping stops with purchases to add to all our baggage and junk. Both of us came with several new books for our libraries!  Now that we are home we can turn our thoughts to the busy schedule of travel, vacations and conferences coming over the summer.

Civil War Conference, July 8-9- Alliance, Nebraska

  Number 1 will be speaking at several of the Family History Expos during June and July and she will travel with Holly Hansen and Arlene Eakle to those venues. Family History Expos offer educational genealogy classes at reasonable prices and many are planned in various communities allowing for easy access to them. I will vacation with Go Hubby, help with the planning for our local conference and work on my lectures that are upcoming. Both of The You Go Genealogy Girls will be  among the presenters for the two day Genealogical and Historical Civil War Conference that will be held at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance, Nebraska on July 8-9. "Remembering the Civil War...150 Years Later " has been in the planning for many months, with noted academic speakers and genealogy specialists as our featured speakers. We are offering 23 programs and classes over the two days with attendees able to take in every class if they choose. This will be a very special conference for Nebraskans and visitors from surrounding states. The girls are looking forward to a wonderful time during this outstanding conference which will be sponsored by our genealogy/history Society, The Heritage Seekers, and our beautiful new Knight Museum and Sandhills Center.

Join us if you can for any of our conferences, we would love to have you!

For information on the Family History Expos, click here.

For information and a downloadable 4 page brochure on the Civil War Conference in Alliance, Nebraska on July 8-9,  click here.

You Go Girl #2--Cheri

More of Our Celebrating Families Day

After nearly a week of lousy weather and very high winds, we were lucky to get a beautiful fall day recently for our day of "Celebrating Families" in honor of Family History Month. We worked hard all month to put the day together and also celebrated the special month with additional offerings at the museum. Our local museum, The Knight Museum and Sandhills Center hosted the month long celebration which culminated in a day for everyone to show off their family histories and stories. For more information on the wonderful facilities for family research at the museum, please check out the official website for the museum and also the postings here and here on the blog, Nebraska Roots and Ramblings. The You Go Genealogy Girls do try to spend some time at the Heritage Room in the museum doing research each time we are together in Alliance. Our day long celebration was a first for the museum and the nearly 70 people who took part in setting up their displays and attending the evening program, presented by Girl #1, seemed to really enjoy the special day. Showing off collections and talking genealogy or history were the days topics in anticipation of the evening program.

Girl #1, Ruby offered up an interesting evening program that centered on writing about the people we research and often call "family". Her lecture, "Writing About Ancestors, Neighbors, Friends and Murderers" drew nice comments and good questions from the audience. Attendees went away with new ideas about writing family stories and learned the importance of honoring our ancestors.

Through out the afternoon, nearly 16 tables of family memorabilia and genealogy based scrapbooks and researched trees were on display for the public to stop in and see as well as for those who brought their items. Everyone had a great time and it is always fun to see what other historians and genealogists come up with in unique ways to honor their family. Simple book displays, beautiful antique clothing, fancy framed wall charts, heritage quilts, old jewelry, Christmas ornaments, scrapbooks, and even a swimsuit from 1900 rounded out all the awesome and beautiful displays.

We hope you enjoy seeing a few of our pictures from the day, we wish everyone could have been there with us. There are also a few more pictures on our earlier posting at "Celebrating Families".

What a great day we had and what a wonderful way for everyone to share their family with others. Genealogists love to gather and share anyway but when it all comes together in a family honoring celebration it is even better. Learning and sharing should never end and next year will be even bigger and better!

You Go Girl #2-- Cheri

Celebrating Families

On Thursday, October 28th, I was delighted to take part in a celebration of family ... mine and others. It was sponsored by the Heritage Seekers, a Box Butte Co., Nebraska genealogy/history group. The celebration was held in the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance, Nebraska. By late afternoon sixteen tables had been set up to accommodate the displays people were creating in celebration of their ancestry.

There was everything from quilts to ornate family trees. Photographs of loved ones lined the walls and tables and reminded me that they are never forgotten. People proudly stood back admiring their displays and those of others, while cameras flashed to preserve the moment. By early evening people were filing into the museum and the chatter began. One lady found a relative on another's big pedigree chart. Others had fond memories of somebody in a photograph and stories were exchanged.

Do you remember the Blizzard of 1949? If you were alive and living in Nebraska in 1949, you undoubtedly remember the blizzard. Traffic by rail and vehicle stopped, lives were lost and cattle suffocated in the huge snow drifts. There were photographs of the blizzard, some showing children building igloos in the storm's aftermath.

Several genealogists brought scrapbooks of family photographs and memorabilia. They are talented individuals who artistically create colorful pages, making it easy to read and learn about their ancestors. Others brought reunion books, family albums and family recipe books. There was limited time to study and read everything.

As people visited, munched on cookies and drank coffee, the sun went down. The floor to ceiling bank of windows across the back of the room provided a view of the night sky and stars. I was pensive in thought, hoping our loved ones knew we were celebrating them, honoring them ... not just that night but always.

You Go Genealogy Girl #1 -- Ruby

Celebrating Family History, Nebraska Style!

This has been a busy last few days as our museum, The Knight Museum and Sandhills Center in Alliance, Nebraska has been getting ready for Family History Month -now in full swing. At the center of our planning, museum employees and myself have been designing displays and getting set up for our month long celebration. We are in our brand new building this year and are excited to celebrate our families!

The centerpiece of our display is an eleven foot long pedigree chart which hangs from ceiling to floor. It contains the history of the Newberry family, one of Alliance's pioneer families and covers a span of 200 years. What a beautiful chart it is and will certainly get our visitors in the mood to begin their own genealogy research. The Heritage Room is always open and volunteers are there on Tuesdays to help visitors find their records or start their family research. Nebraska Roots and Ramblings has a nice blog all about our ongoing museum celebration and special day on Oct 28th, so be sure to check it out. You Go Girl #1 has showcased our program in fine style.

As an added bonus for us, The You Go Genealogy Girls will be together again later this month as we host local family history displays and present the program for the Heritage Seekers, our museum genealogy and historical group. We will spend a few days together again doing research, presenting our program and working on our new project: learning the wonderful aspects of "Google Earth" for genealogists. We don't seem to have enough to do already so will attempt to become proficient with maps! Lisa Louise Cooke's DVD series, "Google Earth for Genealogy", will hopefully teach these old grannies some new tricks!

If you are in the western Nebraska neighborhood, stop by and join in our Family History celebration at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center. You just might see The You Go Genealogy Girls lurking in the halls or haunting the old sod house which is showcased in the museum. After all, Halloween will be just around the corner after our big night of Family History fun!

A Day At The Museum: Genealogy Style

The past Saturday was our long awaited day to have some fun in the park and tour some great Nebraska museums. The You Go Genealogy Girls were the hosts for "A Day At The Museums" in Alliance Nebraska. Since we both belong to the genealogy society in North Platte, Nebraska and I live in Alliance, Nebraska; we thought it would be a nice field trip to bring the genealogy group to Alliance.

You Go Girl came to visit me and we stayed busy for two days beforehand, getting things ready for our picnic meal and planning the tour for our group. We were anxious to get started and looked forward to seeing our friends on Saturday.

Finally the day arrived. We busily gathered all our supplies with the gracious help of my niece and "Go Hubby". Everyone at my house had to work if they wanted lunch! We arrived at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center at 9 am to set everything up. The museum director was kind enough to let us use the indoor patio facility at the museum when the weather that morning was to exceed 100 degrees! It was very nice and surely did make the long day more bearable. By 10:30 AM our guests had arrived and we were ready to get started. Our group included friends from North Platte and Alliance, with some staff ladies from the museum who very kindly helped out with lunch and our tours.

First stop was a walking tour of the basement, kitchen, storage, and archiving area of the Knight Museum/Sandhills Center. We got a behind-the-scenes tour of their great system for storing all the collectibles and archiving the thousands of family history documents that are housed there. The museum director, Becci Thomas, was very thorough and our group got to see the unique movable shelving systems and see how they integrate into the new museum. The basement tour concluded with a look at the facility's full service kitchen that is used for meetings, weddings, and city celebration parties: all these gatherings can be held on the beautiful indoor patio area that we were using for our gathering that day. Our museum is a complete community facility.

Lunch was next on the agenda! Everything was served buffet style and while the group ate and visited we held our door prize drawings. Several guests went home with small mementos of the day. Immediately after our lunch, the group gathered and split into vehicles for the short drive to the nearby Sallows Military Museum which is part of our overall museum system but housed separately. A few of the genealogists elected to walk the three blocks, passing by our historic city fountain. Once again the director filled everyone in on some of the history of the area and told about the displays in the military museum. That building also houses a small but impressive indoor botanic garden which was an added bonus.

Back to the main museum at 1 PM. There we were introduced to the impressive holdings of genealogical,family history,county histories and vital records which are housed in the gorgeous "Heritage Room" of the Knight Museum/Sandhills Center. The research room was designed and built into our new museum for the purpose of housing those records and anyone is welcome to come and research there. Staff is always on duty to assist patrons and welcomes all visitors to the new facility. From there we journeyed into the new little theater to view a Nebraska Sandhills film which introduced everyone to the main museum. Western Nebraska history from the age of the dinosaur through prairie pioneers, native Americans, soldiers, railroaders and agricultural families is all beautifully represented in the museum. It had been a busy day for everyone but we were not quite finished yet!

Two o'clock brought us all to a museum conference rooms where we were treated to a power point presentation on the new Nebraska Veterans Cemetery at Alliance. The administrator of the facility, Allen Pannell, showed many photos of the project as it has progressed in construction and told about the ways the veterans and their families will be honored. The cemetery is built on part of the land that was once the Alliance Army Air Base. Nearly all the first troops into Normandy during WWII were trained here at this base so it is a special honor for us to have this new facility located here. It is the first Nebraska State Veterans Cemetery. The program was enjoyed by all and we went away with a lot of new knowledge and pride about the cemetery.

A few in attendance took some time to do some research at the days end before the three hour drive back to North Platte. Many said they were surely going to make the trip again and spend more time getting to know the wonderful museum system we have here. The day was long but a lot of fun for all and best of all was that one of the ladies in attendance met a relative that she never knew. Her unknown family had just came to the museum as patrons and in the course of writing a check for a gift shop purchase, our museum director noticed their name as being the same as one of our tour guests. She introduced them and sure enough, they were related and had never met--who knew? That is one of the things that most genealogists dream of! A nice ending to a fun genealogy day in the park.
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My next big outing will be the Family History Expo in Kansas City on July 30-31st. The agenda is available on their website and includes great topics as Southern State researching, Swedish record acquisition, and using Twitter and Facebook. For those who can't attend, we will have daily live updates from the conference--right here!


You Go Genealogy Girl #2, Cheri