Family ChartMasters Holiday Gift Guide

From our Newsletter.  Something for everyone on your list:

Family history gifts can be some of the most meaningful things you can give your family at this time of year.  Family History is something only you share together.  It strengthens self-esteem, creates resilience and gives your family members a sense of perspective and control over their lives.  Here are some  ideas for everyone in the family: 

For Grandparents and Parents:

Help your parents and grandparents leave a heritage to their descendants and strengthen their relationships with them. 

A Family ChartMasters Custom Chart will:

• Honor your heritage.
• Honor their sacrifices.
• Show them how important they are to you.

Give a gift of a custom chart.  Start with a free consultation and we'll take care of all the particulars. 

The Zap The Grandma Gap Book and Power Up Workbook will:

• Help them pass on their legacy.
• Strengthen their relationships with their children and grandchildren.
• Give them 100s of ideas for passing on the family legacy and values.

Order now at zapthegrandmagap.com

For Children, Grandchildren, Nieces and Nephews:

Strengthen your family relationships and help them forge a stronger self esteem.

My Ancestor Activity Books

• Fun puzzles, activities and stories to learn about their culture
• Resources on how to learn more about your ancestors

Order now at zapthegrandmagap.com

 

Fill in The Blank Charts

• A fun activity for the whole family
• Keep the family history out in front of the family
• Fill in more information as you find it. 

Order now at familychartmasters.com

For the Genealogist:

Creating Custom decorative charts or simple working charts is easy with Family ChartMasters' help. 

Family ChartMasters Gift Certificates

• In $25 or $50 denominations. 
• Good for any Family ChartMasters charts.
• Print instantly from the Family ChartMasters website. 

It is our hope that learning about your family's past together can be a fun and exciting adventure and you will have a happy healthy holiday season.

Thanksgiving Weekend Sale on Zap The Grandma Gap Books

Holiday Deals to Save You Money

The workbooks are here and ready to go under your tree.

We've had a number of people ask about quantity discounts, so we've come up with some Thanksgiving weekend sales to help you save money. 

 

If you order this weekend, on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Sunday and Cyber Monday, any order of five books or more will receive free shipping.  Offer good until midnight on December 2nd. 

And from now until December 9th,

any order of 10 or more books will receive one extra book.  This offer is good for any Zap The Grandma Gap books, including Zap The Grandma Gap:Connect With Your Family by Connecting Them to Their Family History, the Power Up Workbook or any of the My Ancestor Activity Books. 

We'll be taking the weekend off to be with our families, but we'll be shipping on Monday with plenty of time to get them to you for the holidays.
Order now  to wrap up a meaningful Christmas gift that will strengthen the modern relationships in your family.  No special promotional codes are necessary.  Check out excerpts of the books at ZaptheGrandmaGap.com

20 Questions for your Thanksgiving table.

(Crossposted on the Visit Salt Lake Blog and the Family ChartMasters Newsletter.)

No matter where you go, it is always wonderful to be home with family and friends for the holidays. So I have a few ideas for you about how to learn more about your heritage this Thanksgiving. Whether you are with family, or friends or both, here are 10 questions that will get everyone talking.

• What are the most important lessons you've learned so far in your life?
• What was the greatest time of joy in your life?
• Who were your favorite relatives? Do you remember any of the stories they used to tell you?
• What has been your favorite family tradition?
• What personality traits do you admire and how have you tried to develop those traits?
• What was the biggest turning point in your life? Looking back, how would you have dealt with it if you had known what you know now?
• What was your most embarrassing moment? 
• Is there anything you have always wanted to do and haven't?
• How would you describe your sense of humor? What was your all-time favorite practical joke?
• What message would you like to leave your descendants?

(Excerpted from  Zap The Grandma Gap Power Up Workbook: The Particulars About How To Connect With Your Family By Connecting Them To Their Family History.)

Did you know that Friday the 29th of November is the National Day of Listening? StoryCorps, the sponsor of the day asserts that "It's the least expensive but most menaingful gift you can give this holiday season." Here are 10 more questions from the National Day of Listening website:

• What is your earliest memory?
• What are you most proud of?
• When did you first fall in love?
• How did you know they were "the one?"
• What is your first memory of me?
• What were your parents like?
• How would you like to be remembered?
• What was your childhood like?
• Why did you decide to become ______?
• What makes us such good friends?

I think you will learn alot from these questions and maybe hear some interesting stories you hadn't heard. You may want to record the answers for posterity or upload them to the StoryCorps website. Hopefully everyone will come away with a greater sense of everything there is to be thankful for. Here's wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Announcing New Zap The Grandma Gap Workbooks for Youth

I am so excited to tell you about our latest project.  I've been working lately to fulfill a vision of mine and it is finally coming to fruition.

Announcing:

The Zap The Grandma Gap "My Ancestor" Activity Book Series for Youth

The first four books, My British Ancestor, My Civil War Ancestor, My Swedish Ancestor and My German Ancestor are 52 page activity books designed for 6-14 year olds with puzzles, activities, games and recipes combined with questions and learning opportunities about specific ancestors and the culture that surrounded them. Timelines, paper dolls, coloring pages, maps, fairy tales, music, dot to dots and crossword puzzles combine to give youth the full picture of what their ancestors’ lives were like. Check out some of the sample pages:

You can see table of contents and more sample pages at the Zap The Grandma Gap Blog and Website.

I've had the great privilege of developing these books with my sister Amy Slade.  She has spent last 10 years traveling extensively studying folklore, dance and food and culture around the world and recently received her Masters Degree in Folklore from George Mason University.  She was the perfect fit to help me bring these books into reality and I'm so thankful that she saw the vision of what I was trying to accomplish and was willing to let me talk her into helping.  I'm so thankful for her excitement about these books.  And I'm so glad we were able to spend more time together working on them.  Love her so much!
  
My German Ancestor (ISBN 978-09888-548-5-7), My Swedish Ancestor (ISBN 978-09888-548-4-0) My Civil War Ancestor (ISBN 978-09888548-3-3) and My British Ancestor (ISBN 978-09888-548-2-6), (Family ChartMasters Press, $9.95, 52 pages, 8.5x11, paperback) are available for preorder at zapthegrandmagap.com. 
When pre-ordered now, the books will arrive in time to prompt questions around the Thanksgiving table. Or they can become the perfect Christmas gift for children and grandchildren that will create stronger bonds in modern families by encouraging the whole family to learn about their ancestors together.

As always, thanks to Kim and Erin and Lara and Jenn for their support at Family ChartMasters while I have been working on this dream of mine.  I hope they add to our overall mission here to help genealogists inspire their family members with their family history.  We know how important it is to invest your own family in their past, and we're working hard to give you the resources to do that. 

Holiday Deadlines

We've figured out the holiday deadlines for those of you like me who might like to wait till the last minute.  In order to guarantee your chart by Christmas, you'll need to take note of these dates:

Decorative Charts with an online preview:
6th December
Working Charts with no online preview:
13th December

If you don't mind paying rush fees, you can submit your information by these dates:

Decorative Charts with an online preview:
12th December

Working Charts with no online preview:
18th December

We'll try to accommodate any chart orders after these deadlines as best we can, but if you want to get your chart in time for sure, you'll need to make sure everything is submitted before these dates.

Looking forward to printing the perfect chart for your family.

One Week Early Bird Sale

If you are like me, you don't necessarily appreciate seeing Halloween decorations in the store in August, and Christmas decorations in October.  But I do like the peaceful feeling that comes when you have everything ready early for the holidays and you know you can relax and just enjoy being with your family.  So at the risk of jumping the gun, we'd like to extend an offer to all you early birds out there to help you feel better knowing you've saved some money too.

 So for one week we are running an

Early Bird Sale for 20% off any chart 

until October 30th. 

Send in any genealogy file and we'll get started on your family history chart early so that we can have plenty of time to work back and forth with you and make sure everything is perfect before we print.  You can start the process with our free consultation and we'll get back with you with options on prices and sizes for what you are looking for.  Then, if you want an online preview, we'll send you an email and we're happy to collaborate to get your chart exactly the way you want it.  With our new backgrounds, and all of our flexible designs, we are sure we can come up with a beautiful art piece that will help you share your family history with your family and get them excited about their roots.   

Let us make it easy on you.  Sit back and relax and let our designers do the work.  We'll create a stunning representation of your family history that your family will love.  Call us if  you need any help getting started.                                                                             

Sample Charts With New Backgrounds

We've been playing with these new backgrounds and creating some sample charts.  Over the years, we have been getting better and better at displaying your family history in a graceful way.  We've used these backgrounds for a few clients already, even combined with beautiful maps, grayscale or sepia pictures, and with pretty titles, they are turning out gorgeous.  I've even done some new charts for our house with my own family history.  Let us know if we can get started on one for you today. 

New Backgrounds

To get ready for the holiday season, and give you lots of new options for beautiful family history art pieces for your wall, we've hired a designer to create some new backgrounds for our decorative genealogy charts.  We've given them names so that you can easily tell us which one you like when you order.  Take a look:

Victoria
Click Here To See A Large Sample Chart Of This Background

Caroline
Click Here To See A Large Sample Chart Of This Background

Harriet

Audrey

Lydia

Beatrice
Click Here To See A Large Sample Chart Of This Background

Heather

Mary
Click Here To See A Large Sample Chart Of This Background

Annalise

Emma

Elizabeth
Click Here To See A Large Sample Chart Of This Background

Ashley

Any of these designs can be arranged to fit fan, bowtie, left to right or any other format.  This is the Julia background reformatted for different file types.

Click Here To See A Large Sample Chart Of This Background

Julia

So we are ready and waiting to get to work on creating a beautiful chart for your family gatherings this holiday season.  We can't wait to print a masterpiece for you.  The closer we get to the holidays, the busier we will be, so now is a great time to get started.  You can send us your information for a free consultation at http://www.familychartmasters.com/consult. 

Extreme Genes

I haven't been blogging much for a bit here because I'm working on another new project that we are just about ready to release.  But in the meantime, I wanted to tell you about a new radio show all about family history called Extreme Genes.  It plays every Sunday night and you can listen to it tonight over the web at 8pm Eastern at KNRS.com and through iHeart Radio. 
Scott Fisher is a popular radio host that I've listened to for years and it turns out he is an accomplished genealogist.  He has started this new show and I was privileged to be among his first guests.  We had a great time talking about charts.  You can check out this and other podcasts of the show at his website ExtremeGenes.com. And you can follow the program at https://www.facebook.com/extremegenes

Book Reviews and Signings

If you watch me on facebook, you know that last week I got to do a book signing at my alma mater--in the college bookstore.  Sweet.  Throughout my bachelor's and into my Master's in Library Science, I spent many, many happy hours in that bookstore and I own lots of books I bought there.  It was really fun. 

Funny how that signage meant so much to me even when we can create signage like that anytime.  :) 

The book is getting great reviews.  We've updated the reviews page on ZapTheGrandmaGap.com.  Check out all the reviews that have come up about the book at  https://zapthegrandmagap.com/reviews.html.  A few reviews have been added to Amazon.com as well but none have been registered at Barnes and Noble.com.  If you have seen any other reviews that I've missed, or if you would like to add one at either of these sites, we'd love to have your input.  Thanks so much!

Wisdom from My Dad

You know a little about my wonderful Father from the blog posts I've written about the traveling we've done together.  I am really blessed to have a great Dad and I know how extraordinary that blessing is in this world.  I wish everyone could have a Father like mine.  My parents, my husband, my children and my sisters are truly the greatest blessings I have.  That's probably why I work in family history and I've devoted so much time to helping people figure out how to use family history to create a close family like I am blessed to have.  (We drive each other crazy often--but they are still really great.)

Back to my Dad--  He is currently working outside of London which is part of why I was able to take him on his very own Who Do You Think You Are tour of his family's history this year.  While he's been there, he has written us alot of emails--not just your everyday "this is what's going on" emails, but pearls of Fatherly wisdom for my sisters and I and our kids.  Yesterday the email was about family history so I asked him if I could share it with you here.  Then you get the benefit of my great Dad too :)  This is it..

Dear Family:

Printed on the edge of every two-pound coin in England is the phrase "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants."  I think the British are pretty smart to put it there.  It gives us something to think about.  Each one of us stands on the shoulders of those who went before us -- of course our parents and grandparents, but also those who established and fought for our freedoms, our way of life, and our heritage in the church.  We are very blessed by those who went before us. 

The more I learn about history, the more I appreciate that I was born when and where I was born.  I have so many blessings that I did nothing to earn, develop, or create -- electricity, air conditioning, cars, computers, and all the wonders of science and technology.  I also received a rich heritage of freedom and liberty, knowledge, books, literature, music, and chances to go to school and learn about things in the world. Through the gospel, I have been given knowledge of spiritual and eternal truths that I would not have gained on my own, without the scriptures and prophets.  It just makes me thankful.

 

It is a humbling thought that each of you stands on the shoulders of your parents, and your parents stand on the shoulders of their parents.  Your children will also stand on your shoulders.  It is comforting to me to know that you are building strong shoulders on which to stand -- even you grandchildren -- because your children will need a strong foundation on which to build their future.

I just thought this was a cool statement for a coin, 

Love,

Dad/Grandpa

Is he awesome or what?  

WIFFAC--Southern California and Ownership of my own family history

If you've been reading this blog for very long, you know my Mother's family comes from Southern California and I love going back there every June for the Southern California Genealogical Conference.  I've written many times about being able to explore my own family history and being able to take my children back to see where my Mom grew up.
Teenager Update--Family History Trip
Come See Us In Sunny CA
Nama--My Independent Spirit
And most recently about this trip on the Zap The Grandma Gap Blog at Taking My Daughter On A Family History Trip

This time I took my daughter and her friend and we had a wonderful time.  We went down to the Santa Monica Pier three times--an important place in my family's history.  We rode the carousel, and the Ferris wheel and walked around the pier.  We checked out the house where my Mom grew up, her schools, her neighborhood, the church she attended and where my Mom and Dad's reception was, the temple they were married in, the beaches where we hung out when I was a little girl, the Westfield Culver City Mall, and lots of other places important to our history.

But the best part was something I've been talking alot about with my kids and family history.  I wrote a recent blog post about it over at my ZapTheGrandmaGap Blog.  I gained real OWNERSHIP this year.   My phone battery wasn't cooperating, and the charger in the car was cooperating even less, so I had to really figure out the lay of the land without my GPS.  Like I wrote about last year, we had stopped by the neighborhood many times, but my parents were always driving, or we were following them in the next car.  By the time we went back and forth between Burbank and Westchester and Santa Monica several times this year, I was starting to feel like I really knew the lay of the land for myself.  I can't really describe how important that was for me.  I felt ownership of my family history and I felt connected to Southern California like I never had before.  I felt more a part of that history and those people.  I felt empowered to be able to connect them to the future generations.

So there were lots of awesome things going on at SCGS this year, great talks with the other vendors (as usual) my lectures went well, and a great venue and great people.  As always, the Southern California Genealogy Conference was fantastic this summer.  Paula and Leo and Viki and their team do such a fantastic job every year.  Jamboree is a great asset to the genealogy community.   But this year I was really focused making my own family history--having my daughter and her friend there, and getting an opportunity to really invest her and myself in my matriarchal family.  And that is priceless. 

Named to Family Tree Magazine's 101 Best Websites List Again!

Woohoo!  Thanks to Diane and Alison and their team for the love.  Another award to add to the 2011 award they gave us.  Check it out:
http://familytreemagazine.com/article/Best-Online-Genealogy-Tools-and-Trees-2013

Learning to cook like my ancestors did--What I did over the summer

  

This summer my kids and I volunteered up at This Is The Place State Park.  We had a wonderful time and learned so many things about the past.  We volunteered several years ago when the kids were little and I was always so impressed by what you can learn by reliving the past.  My ancestors were pioneers and it really makes their lives become real in so many details.  It is a great way to teach my kids some gratitude too.  I wrote Plan to Visit a Living History Museum recently for Family Tree Magazine.  There are just so many things you can learn from a Living History Museum. 

I've been getting to know this stove. It is a cast iron stove that we've been demonstrating cooking with.  We have made rolls, and cookies and pies.  It has been good food and lots of learning.  But mostly it has been alot of appreciation for what the women before us went through to feed their families.  Besides the kitchen garden, besides cleaning and gutting the animals, besides making everything from scratch, using a stove like this is a big deal, a really big, time consuming, complicated deal. And that's after all the work of collecting and chopping the wood. 

The fire box on this stove was on the upper left and the oven was on the right.  You could feed wood into the side and into the front of the fire box.  Making the fire is really tricky, you have to be sure you are allowing enough air through so that the fire gets hot enough.  And different kinds of wood create different temperatures in the stove.  I suppose if I lived with it all the time, I would learn all of that but it was really tricky to get it to the right temperature this summer.  Once the oven is hot enough the burners on the left are your high heat, the burners in the middle are medium and the burners on the right are lower.  When you bake something in the oven, you have to turn it 1/2 way through so that it cooks evenly on both sides.  Dealing with this oven was like having another child.  It took several hours to heat it up to the right temperature, quite a long time to cook and then once the oven was cool, you needed to clean out all the ashes to make it ready for the next day.  It took two shifts of women all day just to produce a couple of items.  I can't imagine having to make three meals a day on it.  You wouldn't have time for anything else. 

One of the things I really learned to appreciate is that our ovens are insulated and cool to the touch on the outside.  Not so with this one.  It would have been quite a job to keep little kids away so that they don't burn themselves.  And then of course, it heats the house up really hot--which is great in the winter I'm sure, but really hard to handle in the summer.  It was soooo hot.  I don't know how the pioneers ever had cooked food in the summer but I do know why my ancestor's journals talk about the summer kitchen. 
 

It is a huge project to cook in this oven.   And then you have to do the dishes. I really missed the running water.  We had to bring in water from the back, make sure it was heated.  And then we had to wash and rinse every dish by hand.  It worked, but it took all day.  I'm sure it took every bit of energy every day to make the food for their families.  I have a whole new appreciation for women of the 19th century.  We all come from a strong lot. 

New Lectures

I've been teaching alot this year about what I found when I set about trying to figure out the best ways to engage your family with their family history and write my book.  Last week's lecture at the BYU genealogy conference went well and I'm the keynote this weekend at the UVTAGG meeting. Every time I teach it I learn new things and add more about what I've been experimenting with.

Zap The Grandma Gap
The 10 most important ideas to connect to your posterity by connecting them to their past. If they don't like family history you are doing it wrong. This class will take you from snoring and boring to exciting and inviting.

I'm excited this weekend to try out my new workshop too for the second hour of instruction.  This workshop was just accepted for RootsTech 2014 so I'm glad I get to try it out on UVTAGG first so they can help me work out the kinks.  

“Zap the Grandma Gap” Leave a Heritage Workshop 
How do you leave a heritage for your descendants? Based on the book and workbook Zap The Grandma Gap Power Up Workbook: The Particulars About How To Connect To Your Family By Connecting Them To Their Family History, (www.zapthegrandmagap.com) we’ll work together to brainstorm about what will work in your family. Power up with the group and let’s figure out together how to raise the next generation of grounded and inspired family historians. 

And I'm most proud of the fact that my 15 year old son submitted and was accepted to teach at RootsTech too.  He'll be teaching:

Get To Know Your Geezers.   (Apparently RootsTech does have a sense of humor.  He absolutely came up with that one himself.)

Get started in genealogy by visiting the top sites used by professional genealogists.  We’ll explore how to sign up and get started collecting your family history on the three biggest sites, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and MyHeritage.com.  Recommended for 18 and younger. 

 
I've been working this summer on several new lectures.  See the list below.  For a full list of all my current lectures see www.janethovorka.com.  I love speaking to genealogy groups--I always learn so much and make such great friends.  If I can come speak to your group, let me know at janet@familychartmasters.com

Turn Your Family History Into A Coloring Book Workshop--Computer Lab Workshop 
Bring 5 fun family stories, a five generation pedigree chart and a few family images and you can turn your family history into a coloring/workbook for you to share with the younger members of your family. Great for family reunions or for gifts, we'll help you easily tell the story of your family in a fun and engaging way. 

Mom and Pop Culture: Creating A Culture of Family History in Your Family And Your Home 
Teach your family about their family history in a painless way by just breathing it into the life around you. The next generation can learn about their past simply in the way that you live. Give them all the soul satisfying benefits of knowing where they came from and build strong family relationships with a strong family narrative. 

In-laws and Outlaws: The Bylaws of Teaching Youth About The Family Skeletons
Sharing your family history can strengthen your youth and give them scaffolding for the future but every family has a few sticking points. So it is all in the way you frame it. Here are some rules for making sure your family learns from the past and proceeds forward into the future in a healthy way. 

Trip the Tree Fantastic: Intriguing Family History Trips for the Whole Family 
How do you prepare, organize and execute a family history trip for your family members so that they will enjoy the ride? These are the people who should care, how do you get them there? 

The Cool Parts of Family History: Engaging My Teenagers. 
The adventures and pratfalls of how it went when I tried to engage my teenagers in family history. Come be inspired by what might work with your kids. Get prepared to reach the toughest crowd in your family. 

Post It Forward: Lessons To Learn From The Family History Records My Great-Grandfather Left. What happens over three generations to the family history records in a family? And what will happen to your records over the next three generations in your family? My Great-Grandfather did his best to preserve his records for coming generations but he couldn’t foresee the iPad and YouTube generation. Likewise you can’t see into the future but there are measures you can take now to help make sure your Great-Great-Great-Grandchildren can learn about their heritage. 

The Mother of Connection: How my mother turned her children into genealogists and how you can too. 
This class will cover tons of ideas for creating excitement in your family about the people who came before. We’ll discuss activities and give resources for involving all ages. We’ll also talk about how to surround yourself with various reminders of your heritage to encourage curiosity in the family, and give a sense of perspective. You can create a feeling of belonging in your family members by sharing with them where they come from.

I'm teaching a fantastic new genealogy course at SLCC

If you read this blog, you may or may not know that I have been teaching Genealogy and Library Science courses for several years in the Continuing Education Department of Salt Lake Communtity College.  I was recruited by Karen Clifford to teach the Genealogy technology course that she and Lorraine Bourne had already developed.  It is three college credit hours and is taught entirely online.  This was a great fit for me.  I had been Lead Reference Librarian at SLCC before having my children and while there, I was on a multi-university team that wrote the first online class in the state of Utah.  (dating myself there aren't I?). Teaching online and creating engaging curriculums is something I've loved since my years teaching at BYU, SLCC, and then at my children's charter schools.

As I became more busy over the last couple of years, I kept teaching this class, I enjoyed interacting with the students but I didn't have time to do the technical and content updates that I wanted to with the class.  When Karen Johnsson asked me to teach a library course last year, of course I jumped at the chance to use my library skills, but the wonderful Library course developed by Jen Hughes made me want to find the time even more to update the Genealogy course and make it something worthy of this discipline I love and a worthy opening course to the whole Genealogy program.  The program has continued to develop too, with fantastic courses designed to help you prepare for certification, and taught by a world-class faculty with Kelly Summers and Sharon DeBartolo Carmack joining Karen and Lorraine and I.

Finally, this summer, Kelly and I dove in and re-wrote Genealogy 1000 Computer and Internet tools for Genealogy.  It is a fantastic course and I am really proud of it.  Anyone can take it, even an experienced genealogist who just wants to brush up on their tech skills.  The course is really quite brilliant.. It takes you through the basic principles of genealogy research and let's you explore and practice on the new technology by having you start with yourself and completely document and analyze the first three generations in your family.  So a beginner can start here, but even most experienced genealogists haven't usually gone back and really well documented their parents' and grandparents' lives.  It gives you the excuse to go back and do that first part right while you are trying out the new technology.

And the reason I want to take it myself is because of the "Preserving the Past and Present" module.  We go through websites where you can post your family history findings, blogs and social networking, interviewing, scanning and publishing and then your assignment is to pick a project that you have wanted to do and spend six hours working on what is most important in your history. It really is a chance to just spend some time doing what you have been wanting to do.  My sons have been talking about taking the course and  I really think it is a good enough course to hold their attention.  There are lots of videos and it is well organized.  I am excited to see what they would pick for the Preservation project.

I really loved working with Kelly.  We completely saw what needed to be done with the class in the same way, and we brought different skills and experience to the course which made a great combination.  I really respect and love Kelly as a person, and I'm really proud of what we've accomplished here together.

So take a look.... And come join us.  Registration needs to be done by August 16th.  You can take it from wherever you are... for credit or as an audit.  I know you'll learn something and you'll have an excuse to work more on your own family history.

Involving my kids

We've had a wonderful summer around here.  Lots of fantastic family history charts for all the family gatherings going on this summer.  And thanks to our wonderful team here at Family ChartMasters I've had some great time with the kids home for the summer too.  We've had a fun time making some videos about the family history projects we've done.  Have you seen them?  Follow the Zap The Grandma Gap blog for everything I've been learning about strengthening your family by helping them explore their family history. 

Take a look:

So I've been learning about how important the family dinner is for transmission of your family history.  This last project is perfect for teaching at the family dinner table.  Take a look:

I've really been able to tap into my daughter's love for crafts and decorating, we've had a good time together and she has learned alot about her family history in the process.  Win Win Win Win Win.  Let me know if it works in your family.

A taste of things to come.

We have been developing some new chart designs and I just put together a chart for my daughter's room.   We redecorated her room this summer and I put together a chart focusing on some of the ancestors she knows.  Take a look at this new design:

We'll be previewing this and several other new designs this week at the BYU conference.  Stop by and say hi if you are there.  And watch here as we roll out some fantastic new backgrounds to help you illustrate your family history in an exquisite way. 

WIFAAC--How to Archive Family Keepsakes

So there is another book I want to tell you about that I found at a genealogy conference this year.  At the Spring UGA Conference we had Denise May Levenick "The Family Curator" come out to give the Friday night presentation and speak at the conference.  She is a really sweet lady and I am glad to call her a friend.  She was kind enough to leave me a copy of her book: How To Archive Family Keepsakes.  I keep picking it up to blog about it but I keep getting drawn in and ending up reading it over and over again.  It is chock full of resources about what to do with your family heirlooms.  You may have already heard about it if you read the blogs because she did a great blog tour around the first of the year with it.  But I'm going to add my $.02 because it is just a really great book.

I love how clearly it is laid out with checklists and sample organization sheets.  It drew me right in at the beginning with pages on helping you distinguish what your goals are for a collection and creating some objectives about how you are going to deal with things.  I thought that was a great idea and something we don't think about enough.  But having a clear purpose in mind as we sort through and organize and archive helps us keep on track as to how we take care of our family treasures.

When I wrote my book, Zap The Grandma Gap, I was a little nervous about being bold enough to say that you shouldn't keep everything, but you should actually weed what you have so that the next generation of your family isn't overwhelmed.  Denise actually had a list of what to keep and what to not keep on page 48!  Yea!  I wasn't the only one.  She lists things to save, things to skim then trash, and things to trash.  It is a great guide for how to go about getting rid of things.

And I was happy to learn that we are kindred spirits in that we are both "fiend"s for china.  She says she has become the "family china shop" in case any of her family members change their minds about keeping the family dishes.  My grandmother loved dishes and silver too so I come by that honestly.

And I took good notice of her suggestions on page 94 and 95 of how to take care of quilts.  I heard some great suggestions at the SCGS conference about adding the story to my Grandmother's quilt, but Denise's book gives me all the know how on making sure the quilt itself is well taken care of.

The book is chock full of great ideas on how to care for your family treasures for the regular person.  It is a must read for anyone who cares about making sure their family can continue to treasure the past.  Look for it at her Family Curator site. And check out the rest of this review over at my Zap The Grandma Gap blog where I talk about her section on Digital Wills.  Good stuff!