THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609250124
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY AMY WU, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 44 lines
Organizers of the second Chesapeake Family History Center Fair to be held Nov. 23 hope that it will attract younger people and online enthusiasts to genealogy.
The attraction this year will include a workshop about using the Internet to trace family roots.
``We did a survey sheet of what people wanted, and 25 percent wanted to know more about the Internet and the World Wide Web,'' said Judy Simpson, co-chair for the fair and a librarian at the Family History Center at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 412 Scarborough Drive.
The fair will include classes on topics such as preserving memories and tracing family roots back four generations. There also will be displays of family treasures found or collected by genealogy enthusiasts. Attendees are encouraged to bring in the names and birthdates of ancestors if they want to do actual research.
The Family History Center in Chesapeake is a research center with a number of computer indexes, such as the Social Security Death Index, and indexes of names from Asia to Eastern Europe. The center opened and held its first genealogy fair in 1992, drawing about 65 to 75 people.
This year, Shirley Smith, director of the center since January, expects attendance to range from 150 to 250. Simpson estimates that about 30 people do research at the center every week, and more than 50 percent come from outside the church. About 300 people come to the center annually. When the center opened in 1992, about half the number of people came in.
Susan Noel, a volunteer for the fair and librarian at the center, expects the Internet workshop to be a big draw for the fair. Noel began doing genealogy research on America Online and CompuServe a year ago and says that going online has brought her much success.
At least twice a week, Noel goes online to chat with other genealogy enthusiasts or to post queries asking for information about her ancestors.
``I've gone back into Germany into the 1400s,'' she said. MEMO: More information about the Chesapeake Family History Center Fair
is available by calling the center at 482-8600 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays
and Thursdays.More information about the Chesapeake Family History
Center Fair is available by calling the center at 482-8600 on Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays. by CNB