Mark Your Calendars - UVTAGG Meeting!

The next meeting of the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group - UVTAGG (Formerly the Utah Valley PAF Users Group - UVPAFUG) will be on Saturday, 08 Aug 2015, from 9 am to noon in the LDS "Red Chapel", 4050 North Timpview Drive (650 East), Provo. This is the regular second-Saturday-of-the-month meeting. Information about the Group, meeting location, main presentations, classes, and class notes are available on their website  http://uvtagg.org   and the press releases are at  http://blog.uvtagg.org . On the blog you can subscribe to receive the press releases via email when they are posted the week before the meetings.

The main presentation this month at UVTAGG will be by Donald R. Snow and his daughter, Linda Snow Westover, on THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE:  FREEWARE FOR FAMILY HISTORY.  There are many free or inexpensive computer programs that are very helpful for family history. This presentation will discuss several of these, including:  EVERYTHING - a free program that finds files on your computer quickly and easily; Q-DIR - a computer utility program that helps move, rename, delete, or copy programs in various ways;  PDF-XCHANGE EDITOR - a freeware program that reads and edits pdf's and does OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on them; GOOGLE DOCS which has office programs for text, presentations, and spreadsheets. is online so you can work on your files wherever you can get to the Internet, and allows collaboration with others on documents; and OURTIMELINES.COM - an free online database that allows you to form timelines of world events occurring during the lifetime of an individual. The notes for the class are posted on  http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html , along with a set of Freeware Supplementary Notes which give information on more than 60 free computer programs that are helpful in things like genealogy and databases, text and office programs, graphics, sound, and general computer utilities.  

Don Snow is a Californian by birth with Snow ancestors from Southern Utah.  After retiring from the BYU Math Faculty, he and his recently deceased wife, Diane, served four FH missions, including being Directors of the New York Family History Center in Manhattan, in the Illinois Nauvoo Mission on a FH project (http://earlylds.com ), and in the London Family History Centre in the Hyde Park Chapel.  Don has been a VP of the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group since the 1990's and is a frequent speaker at FH venues.  He has 6 children and 30 grandchildren.  Linda Snow Westover is Don Snow's daughter and has been a family history enthusiast for the past 25 years.  Ward family history consultant and associate director of the Lindon (Utah) Family History Center, her friends call her the ghost-whisperer. She enjoys helping others and traveling to research her family and is also a frequent speaker at many FH venues. Linda works in the Registrar’s Office at BYU and has 5 children and 6 grandchildren.

After the main presentation the following classes are scheduled.  See our website for last minute changes and additions.

1. Freeware (Continuation), by Don Snow and Linda Westover
2. Facebook Your Genealogy!, by Sue Maxwell
3. Where There's a Will, There's a Probate: U.S. Probate Records  by Beth Taylor
4. Ask An Expert (Personal Help), by Don Engstrom & Finn Hansen
5. Video of last month's main presentation, Copyright Law for Genealogists, by James Tanner
6. Ancestral Quest, by Gaylon Findlay
7. RootsMagic, by Bruce Buzbee

Notice that there is something for everyone no matter what their level of family history expertise. This includes youth, those just getting interested in genealogy, long-time genealogists, and ward family history consultants. All meetings of UVTAGG are open to the public, whether members of the Group or not. The Group has the goal of helping individuals use technology to further their family history and there are usually about 100 attending the monthly meetings, most of whom are family history consultants.  The officers are Gerhard Ruf, President; Laurie Castillo, 1st VP; Don Snow, 2nd VP; Liz Kennington, Newsletter Editor; Don Engstrom and Rayanne Melick, Membership and Finances; Bruce Merrill and Marie Andersen, DVD Library; and Chris Stevenson and Rick Klemetson, Webmasters.  Several of these will be at the meeting to answer questions, help with membership, distribute the current issue of the monthly newsletter TAGGology, and check out and sell to members of the Group DVDs of past presentations and classes. Many members don't live close enough to participate in the monthly meetings, but pay the $10 per year online dues to belong so they can receive the monthly newsletter TAGGology via email and purchase the inexpensive DVDs of the presentations and classes. Gift memberships make great presents for family history-minded relatives, friends, and family history consultants. Membership is on a calendar year basis. See more information about the presentations, classes, class notes, and how to join the Group on the websites above. You can also contact President Gerhard Ruf at  pres@uvtagg.org  (801-225-6106), or 1st VP Laurie Castillo at  gengal@comcast.net  , or 2nd VP Don Snow at  snowd@math.byu.edu .