Mark Your Calendars - UVPAFUG Meeting!

UTAH VALLEY PAF USERS GROUP MEETING AND NEW LOCATION

The next regular, second-Saturday-of-the-month meeting of the Utah Valley PAF (Personal Ancestral File) Users Group will be on Saturday, 14 Mar 2009, from 9 am until noon IN THE EDGEWOOD/RIVERSIDE LDS CHAPEL, 3511 North 180 East, Provo, Utah. Note the Group has moved from their old location to this new LDS chapel which is behind the Jamestown shopping plaza on the east side of University Avenue in the Provo "River Bottoms". You get to it by going on 3700 North east from University Avenue and then south on 180 East. There is a map showing the new and old locations on our website given below.

The main presentation will be by Marcy Brown on WELCOME TO ROOTS TELEVISION! Have you discovered all the terrific, free genealogical programming at Roots Television yet? Did you know that you could tune into all the Ancestors episodes that were featured on PBS? Or a whole channel of genetic genealogy shows? Or an impressive collection of programs on Irish roots? And those are just three of the 20 channels! Whatever your interest, Roots Television has something for you! Come learn how to navigate this site, contribute your own videos, and watch what you want when you want!

RootsTelevision™ was launched online in late 2006 and already provides more than 1,000 videos –- free, on-demand, and 24/7 -- for family history enthusiasts around the globe. In its first year this Internet-based channel won four Telly Awards for its diverse programming. For more information please visit Roots Television.com™

Marcy Brown is an award-winning independent media producer and a co-founder of Roots Television, a ground-breaking Internet television network. Marcy has written, produced and directed documentaries and television programming in diverse world-wide locations, on topics ranging from family history to competitive sports to religion in Africa. She has had a long-time presence in the family history community as a creative partner and Executive Producer of the award-winning PBS Ancestors series, which continues to air on public television channels across the United States.

In the LDS Community, Marcy is a writer/producer/director of the popular documentaries Pioneers of Africa, Beyond The Dream: The Story of The Polynesian Cultural Center, and Eternal Man: Reflections on the Life and Thought of Truman G. Madsen. She also developed scripts and content for BYU Television's new Real Families, Real Answers series and produced and directed the Real Families, Real Answers Studio episodes which will begin airing nationally on public television stations in April of this year.

Most recently, Marcy co-founded the Talk Story Foundation (www.talkstoryfoundation.org) whose mission is to capture, preserve and share oral history documentaries in video and other new media formats. In addition to the Foundation's flagship film on Truman Madsen, other Talk Story projects currently in development and/or production are Remembering Matthew Cowley, My Icelandic Heritage, Swiss Pioneers of Santa Clara, and The Rescue Continues: Descendent Stories of the Martin/Willie Handcart Companies.

Marcy holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Film Production and has experience working with television stations and film studios in the U.S. and with the BBC in England. She believes strongly in the power of media to wield a positive influence in peoples' lives. After spending hundreds of hours capturing the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people, she is convinced that there is no such thing as an uninteresting life. Everyone has a story to tell. Every life has a message worth sharing.

Following the main presentation there will be several classes taught concerning technology and family history. As usual, there will be something for everyone at all levels of expertise. The classes currently scheduled for this meeting are the following:

1. The Value of the Pedigree Resource File, by John Blake
2. The New Search at Ancestry.com, by Kendall Hulet
3. Beginning US Census Research, by Jerry Castillo
4. Q&A: Welcome to RootsTelevision.com, by Marcy Brown
5. Video of last month's main presentation: Avoiding Pitfalls in Your Research, by Jake Gehring
6. Legacy 7, by Joel Graham
7. RootsMagic 4, by Sue Maxwell.

All meetings of the Users Group are open to the public whether members of the Group or not. The Users Group has the goal of helping individuals use technology to further their family history and there are usually 100-125 attending the monthly meetings on the second Saturdays. Several of the officers, including Gerhard Ruf, President; Brian Cooper, 2nd VP; Beth Ann Wiseman, PAFology Editor; Kay Baker and Gerry Eliason working with finances and membership; and Bruce Merrill, Lynne Shumway, and Marie Andersen, working with the DVD & Video Library, will all be there. They will help with membership, answer questions, distribute the current issue of the monthly newsletter PAFology, and check out DVD's and videos of past presentations and classes to members of the group. Information about the Users Group, main presentations, classes, and class notes are available on the Group's website http://uvpafug.org and the press releases are at http://blog.uvpafug.org/. For further information contact President Gerhard Ruf at pres@uvpafug.org (801-225-6106), VP1 Don Snow at snowd@math.byu.edu, or VP2 Brian Cooper at vp2@uvpafug.org.