Church Records and Our Next Program

If you missed our program on Saturday you missed some good information from Tresa on researching church records. She has researched them stateside and in various other countries so she had some good advice and examples. I have a few copies of her handout with some web sites that might helpful to you. I'll put the copies in the brochures rack of the genealogy department. She also recommended a couple of books on that handout. We own one and I'll try to buy the other. Meanwhile, here are a few tidbits I remember.
1. When you pick up a source, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with how the information was recorded. Each pastor, diocese, or other entity added their own "flavor" in recording church member information.
2. When working with foreign language records make yourself a sheet with the proper translation of your family members' names and keep it nearby when looking at the records so you can spot the names easier.
3. Check for an index, but be prepared to go page by page if you don't find an index, or anything in the index.

Next program - I've just confirmed our next speaker today. John Wylie will be here January 22, 2011 for a morning program. He'll talk about the benefits of using software to keep up with your family research and offer some advice on how to choose the program that will work best for you. 10:30 am is start time. John is a founding member of GENTECH and an active member of Computers in Genealogy subgroup of the Dallas Genealogical Society.