“A group of people stood among the gravestones in Red Apple Cemetery on Tuesday watching a man hold two L-shaped metal wire rods over the sites of buried bodies.

A mixture of the curious and the interested, the people were attending a meeting of the Boaz Chapter of the NorthEast Alabama Genealogical Society (NEAGS).

The man holding the slender rods was Rodentown resident Wayne Gregg in the midst of a demonstration on the art of grave dowsing.

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Exactly WHAT is an Ancestor Swap Meet

People who love to do genealogy also LOVE to share genealogy. The swap meet is NEAGS' way of SHARING information & knowledge not only to our community but state-wide for a week of focused activity.

The swap meet is a way of MEETING new people who have like interests -- perhaps in the same surname or in the same area of the country.

The swap meet provides LEARNING opportunites. This year's speaker is outstanding. J. Mark Lowe is special to all of us at NEAGS. We value his knowledge, his humor, his teaching. Learn via other events [free] earlier in the week too!

The "Swap Meet" is on Saturday, April 20th -- but don't miss the Workshop the night before. Exact topic is being decided. [Personally, I'm pulling for a specific one.] And a whole week of free activities are planned.

See the flyer for  more information.
Save the dates on your calendar & Register now.
Come join us for a great "genealogy experience".

Being focused when doing genealogy research is a good thing -- except when that focus costs finding an important clue.

When looking at a census record, we tend to focus on one person or one family & do not look at the other families on the page. In assisting someone (from out-of-state, btw) in Nichols Library Thursday, we found when we looked at the WHOLE page that the person in question owned a sawmill.

SHE, yes--a woman, employed one person from her household. As head of the family, it also suggests she was widowed.

But, 

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Nichols Library does have some great Alabama research but we have books, documents, newsletters, microfilm that go far beyond the state of Alabama.

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I'm not sure but I think those of us "into genealogy" always have resolutions every New Years. Mine always seem to be around the same theme -- getting better control of my "genealogy mess".  This picture hardly gives a real respresentation of what I face. Those are big piles but they are *neat* piles. :-)

Hard copies from many many different resources. Pictures galore. Scans to be done. Scans done to be labeled. Computer files with names that are not consistent.

Anyone else say -- THIS YEAR I RESOLVE TO FIX THIS! 
Stay tuned. Help is coming!

Today (Nov 1st) a member came on her lunch hour to the Nichols Library. She has found a fascinating bit about one of her female ancestors.

Our research was able to obtain the marriage license for the lady in question & the expected spouse. *BUT* surprise!

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& How you can help

Society members are working on several cemeteries in Etowah County:

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Wouldn't you like a simple single piece of paper that provide the bare basics of how to source your references?

FamilyTree Magazine has provided such a sheet here. Make sure you set your printer to "landscape" when you print.

Does this have everything you need to know? Absolutely not!

It's not THAT simple.
Sigh!