Precious Photo

John Sneed sent us this photo this week.  We loved it and asked that we could share it with you.  He said, "You can really see the joy in her face in the picture - thanks for making that joy a reality!  The chart was a big hit at the birthday [her 90th] and generated lots of great "genealogy" discussions from my family. A real accomplishment since they don't like to discuss the family history."


We are so delighted to be able to help you John.  She is so adorable.  A picture truly is worth a thousand words. 

Come to our demos at NGS

If you are at the National Genealogical Society conference tis week you'll want to stop by our booth at lunch time.  We have a treat in store for you.  Besides my 9:30 class Saturday morning where I'll teach you all about how to "Visualize and Share Your Family Tree" in Pavilion 6, we've teamed up with Loss Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems to bring you there days of great ideas in the vendor's hall that will quickly and easily help you with your genealogy research. 

I'll be teaching these classes:
THURSDAY 12:30 pm 
5 Best Ideas to Involve Your Family with Family History
FRIDAY 1:30 pm
Beyond Scotch Tape: Easy Charts to WOW Your Family Reunion
SATURDAY 12:30 pm
Making Family History Fun for the Next Generation

and Lisa will be teaching these classes:
THURSDAY 1:30 pm 
3 Free Cool Tools for Newspaper Research You Need to Use
FRIDAY 12:30 pm
Turn Your iPad or Tablet into a Genealogy Powerhouse
SATURDAY 1:30 pm
How You Can “Time Travel” using Google Earth!
So at 12:30 and 1:30 you'll know where to be to get the best ideas at NGS!
Booths #411 and #415  See you there.

Two Mother's Day Sales to Honor Your Heritage

We sent out an email today about the Mother's Day sales we have going.  I'll post them here too so that everyone gets to hear about it.  If you didn't get the newsletter, you can sign up here. 

Two Mother's Day Specials That Will Strengthen Your Family Relationships And Help You Honor Your Heritage.

Mother's day is a great time to celebrate the heritage you've been given and we want to help you honor and give back to the mothers and grandmothers in your life.  We've paired up offers from FamilyChartMasters.com and ZapTheGrandmaGap.com for some great ideas to show your love to the mothers and grandmothers in your life.

Our Deepest Discount Ever On Canvas Custom Charts 2 Days Only

If you've been waiting to create one of our beautiful canvas giclee masterpieces, now is the time.  Honor your Mom and teach your family about their heritage with a beautiful expression of your family.  Submit your files by midnight Thursday and get 1/2 off any custom canvas giclee genealogy chart. 
Sale Price: $54.95 - $142.45 Regular Price: $109.95-$285.95 S & H: $11.95Send us your files now.  We'll work back and forth with you until it is just what you are looking for, and have it shipped in time for Mother's Day.  Sale ends midnight May 2nd

Zap The Grandma Gap BooksNew Lower Pricing and Mother's Day Special

Because of the amazing reception we've already had for our new books, we have a new distributor who has allowed us to be able to dramatically drop the prices.   And we've dropped them even further for the Mothers and Grandmothers in your life.  Check out the excerpts and the great reviews.  A quick and easy present to strengthen your family and honor your heritage.
Our Price: $30.00 S & H: $5.00Order now, sale ends May 7th
When you honor the mothers in your life you strengthen those family relationships and create a culture of respect and gratitude in your own life and in the next generations of your family. Let us know what we can do to help you in that endeavor.  We send you our best wishes for a healing, inspirational, wonderful and blessed Mother's day. 

(And don't fret if  you want to take advantage of this opportunity to treat yourself to a chart or the books you've been wanting for yourself.  Your Mom would be proud of you for sharing your family's heritage and for taking good care of yourself too.  :))

The end of my UGA presidency

Another president of the Utah Genealogical Association will be voted in at our board meeting tomorrow night.  As I come to the end of my term as president of UGA I’ve had some time for reflection.  I’ve been so privileged to be able to serve as president of this great organization.  I’m lucky to be the president who has been able to actually serve longer than the maximum 2 years—because of the change in our fiscal year last year, I’ve been able to serve 27 months.  It has been a joy.  I believe strongly in what UGA is trying to accomplish and every minute I’ve spent serving here has been a great blessing to me.  As I wrote about in my last president’s message for UGA's Crossroads Magazine, I’d like to tell you how UGA has blessed my life and why I’m so thankful to have been able to serve as the president. 

1)    I’ve broadened my circle in genealogy.  When I first became active in UGA, I was constantly amazed at how many people I didn’t know who worked in the field of genealogy.  I had been going to genealogy conferences, speaking, and running a company for eight years and I thought I really knew a lot of people in our community.  But I found that there are several circles in this community that don’t see much of each other.  There are the professional genealogists and librarians, the FamilySearch employees, the Ancestry employees, the conference goers, the FamilySearch Center volunteers, the vendors, the hobbyists and the zealots, people inside and outside of Utah who all get to brush shoulders in the activities that UGA sponsors.  I’ve gotten to know a myriad of people who I probably wouldn’t have run into otherwise and they have enriched my life and my research immensely. 

2)    I’ve made dear, dear friends.  Many of the people I’ve worked closely with have become lifelong friends who I turn to when I need support and who know that they will always find support from me.  It is such a blessing to have good friends who are as passionate about family history as I am.  My neighbors don’t always understand my passion, but through UGA I’ve found a network of people who get it.  They know the soul satisfying journey of finding out where you are from and I’ve been so privileged to be able to share that journey with them. 

3)    I’ve become a better genealogist.  The resources that UGA sponsors are tremendous.  We had an amazing week at SLIG this year, as we always do, and it always blows my socks off what I didn’t know.  The Virtual Chapter has been a great resource to our community, and the various other conferences and events UGA holds always teach me something new.  Our conference next weekend is slated to be another world class education opportunity.  Committee meetings and emails back and forth with volunteers have even taught me amazing things that have helped my research.  The more active you become in UGA, the more brick walls will just seem like research you didn’t know how to do.  I promise. 

4)    I’ve had an opportunity for service.  It is very easy in today’s fast world to become concerned only about your own world and how things affect you.  Volunteer service is important to help you become less selfish, to be able to clearly see the needs of other people, and to keep a broad perspective on things.  I love this  quote by George Bernard Shaw :
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of being a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

I really think my service in UGA has softened my heart, helped me see areas of myself that need improvement and helped me care more about my fellow man.  My time in UGA has been a refining experience and I am better for it.  Some might ask if spending untold hours working for UGA might have been better spent on something else—perhaps something that would bring in income.   I’ve spent much of my time at UGA actually paying employees for doing things I should be doing.  But I honestly feel that the sacrifice of my time here has brought great blessings into my family, my company, and my life.  And I am very thankful for that.

So while I'll have more time for blogging again, I know I will continue to take full advantage of all the great education resources UGA offers.  And I hope to see you there as well. 

Zap The Grandma Gap Workbook Press Release

I won't do this very often, but I'm really excited about this new workbook.  So this article is cross posted from my new Zap The Grandma Gap blog.  I hope you are reading about all the fun activities we have going on over there.  So much to write about on both blogs.  :)

Most parents and grandparents would do anything and everything to raise the youth in their family to be successful adults.  There are play groups and preschool lessons, music and dance, sports, tutoring and youth groups, the right schools, the right nutrition, etc.etc.  However, many people miss one of the most basic and foundational things that can set a child up for success in life—teaching their child about their family’s history. 

So we’ve created another unique resource that looks at family history in an engaging and youthful way so that anyone can easily engage the youth in their family with their history.  In conjunction with my corresponding lectures at the RootsTech conference this week, we have released the new  Zap the Grandma Gap Power Up Workbook: The Particulars About How To Connect With Your Family by Connecting Them To Their Family History, a hands-on book with step by step instructions, procedures, templates and resources that will help teach the next generation to love their heritage.  In the fill-in-the-blank book you will find:
•    Brainstorming activities to spark ideas
•    Suggestions for travel
•    Checklists and invitations for parties
•    Outlines for children’s books and activity books
•    Templates for games
•    Designs for recipe cards and ornaments
•    Surveys of the best websites
•    Ideas for incentives
•    Lists of interview questions
•    And instructions and templates for many other activities
This book discusses many ways to combine a family’s specific heritage with the specific interests of their youth.

The workbook is a companion to the book Zap the Grandma Gap: Connect With Your Family by Connecting Them To Their Family History.  This new book has already inspired families throughout the world about the importance of family history in connecting today’s families.  In it parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles can learn:
•    How to prepare for further curiosity by infusing their surroundings with their history.
•    Why plugging into the net is the easiest way to plug their family into their past
•    How to utilize your talents to teach their family about their history
•    Why discovering the surrounding history together makes their progenitors come alive.
•    How to pull their posterity close by carefully creating and recording today’s history.
•    Why it is important to simplify their family’s story their family can appreciate the past.

I come from a family that practices the principles found in this book.  As a librarian, I helped people at the BYU library with their family history research but was completely uninterested in my own. I inherited a large amount of genealogy from my mother and grandmother, both wonderful genealogists who lived family history in a way that was attractive and inviting.  Eventually I woke up to the soul satisfaction of learning about my family’s past.  Most recently I have found great joy in encouraging my  teenage children's genealogical interests. The pre-release of the workbook was well received this last month while I was speaking at the Who Do You Think You Are Conference in London, and the North Florida Genealogy Conference.  I gave several lectures about engaging the next generation with their family history.  Among other topics, I will be speaking this weekend at the RootsTech conference on “The Cool Parts of Genealogy: Engaging My Teenagers Case Study.”  Please come say Hi at the Family ChartMasters booth if you are planning on attending. 

Zap the Grandma Gap Power Up Workbook: The Particulars About How To Connect With Your Family by Connecting Them To Their Family History by Janet Hovorka is available now at www.zapthegrandmagap.com, at bookstores and by calling 801-872-4278.  A 24 page excerpt of the workbook and a 28 page excerpt of the book are available for free on the website along with downloads of other supporting materials.  Sign up on the homepage for a free 52 week e-newsletter with even more ideas on how to engage the next generation with their family history.

About the Author:  Janet Hovorka received a B.A. in Ancient Near Eastern History and a Master's degree in Library and Information Science from BYU.  She and her husband Kim Hovorka own Family ChartMasters (www.familychartmasters.com) —official, award winning printers for most of the genealogy software and database companies.  She is currently serving as President of the Utah Genealogical Association and teaches courses in library skills and genealogy at Salt Lake Community College.  Janet writes the The Chart Chick blog (www.thechartchick.com), has written for numerous genealogy publications, and has presented 100s of lectures all over the world to help people learn more about their past. 

Media kit available upon request. 
Zap the Grandma Gap : Connect With Your Family by Connecting Them To Their Family History by Janet Hovorka.  Published by Family ChartMasters: Cedar Hills, Utah, 2013. Paperback, $23.95 194pp.  ISBN 978-0-9888548-0-2.
Zap the Grandma Gap Power Up Workbook: The Particulars About How To Connect With Your Family by Connecting Them To Their Family History by Janet Hovorka.  Published by Family ChartMasters: Cedar Hills, Utah, 2013. Paperback, $23.95 103pp.  ISBN 978-0-9888548-1-9.

Heirloom Registry Scavenger Hunt

I recently registered an item using The Heirloom Registry™, which is a new product from Houstory®. The online registry allows users to preserve and share the stories behind family heirlooms and precious belongings. You can see the Heirloom Registry sticker on the bottom of my teacup in this picture. 

This piece of Royal Doulton china is indeed precious to me.  This teacup was part of a set owned by my great-great-grandmother Ethel Amelia Williams Schwendiman  She was born on the 15 February 1880 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She had a set of Royal Doulton that was separated upon her passing and each of her grand-daughters got a piece.  When I married, my mother passed this teacup down to me and I keep it in my china cabinet along with the rose painting by my great-aunt Bernice Houser.

I don't remember Grandma Schwendiman but as  you can see I did meet her when I was a little girl.  In this photo my mother is holding me and my grandmother Eila Dana is with us as well.  Missing is my great-grandmother Viola Thomas.  These are the women of my matriarchal line, my mother, her mother, her mother (missing from the picture), and her mother.  I don't remember Grandma Schwendiman but millions of little pieces of my family come from her--from her faith and work ethic to her recipes and traditions.  Just like I talk about in my new book Zap The Grandma Gap, whether or not I recognize all the little pieces of me that come from Grandma Schwendiman, they are there.  She is part of the nature and the nurture that has created who I am.  And the little piece of her that I have in this teacup is precious to me. 

This blog post is also to participate in the Heirloom Registry scavenger hunt.  As part of the hunt, hunters will need to find the “clue” hidden in the Heirloom Registry record listed below. 

*  If you’d like to start the scavenger hunt now, I suggest you first go to The Houstory Hearth blog’s special Scavenger Hunt Page. There you’ll find information about the hunt, the prizes – and most importantly the list of the other three blogs you’ll need to visit today. 

* If you already know what you’re doing, here’s the Heirloom Registry ID Code you need to obtain my secret word: FPGW-820-726-1535-2011

* If this is your final stop for Hunt No. 3, be sure to submit your entry form with your secret words before Sunday, March 10, 2013 at midnight PST. Good luck – and happy hunting!

A fantastic time at Who Do You Think You Are Live

We've crossed the pond to the world's biggest family history conference. I gave my "Grandma's Bullet Proof Vest" lecture this morning and talked to them about some of the new ideas in my book. I think it went really well. It is really a universal principle that family history is an important part of raising a well adjusted secure adult. And the adults who are teaching children all care deeply about doing everything we can to raise happy and healthy children. It is just so vitally important.

We're having a great time.


There is a great focus here on making sure the next generation is grounded in family history so that the history is preserved. When the next generation doesn't get involved early enough the older generation dies off and history is lost. It all just works so much better when the whole family can preserve their history together.
Cheers.

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