ANCESTRAL ENDEAVORS A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE LAFAYETTE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY www.nettally.com/lgsla Volume 2004 Issue 3 The Minutes of the April 15, 2004 Meeting The regularly scheduled meeting of the Lafayette Genealogical Society was called to order by Acting President Earl Gates at 6:30 p.m. in the conference room of the Lafayette Public Library. We had 28 people in attendance. After a moment of silence in honor of our veterans and their families, Earl led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Eula's progress, unfortunely she had therapy 3 to 5 days a week and can no longer drive. Program: Our guest speaker was Regina English, on organizing you Genealogy Files. Disorganized stacks of papers are the true hallmark of a genealogist spending hundreds of hours doing research. If we can not find what we are looking for all that time has been wasted. 1. A filing cabinet or file boxes with lids. The boxes need to be strong, preferably plastic, with horizontal inner ridges or grooves for letter-size hanging files. 2. Colored, letter-size hanging file folders in blue, green, red, and yellow. Look for ones with large tabs. 3. Folders should have slightly smaller tabs than the hanging file folders, and should have reinforced tops to last through heavy use. 4. Labels for file folders should have blue, green, red and yellow strips along the top. Once you've assembled your supplies, it's time to get started with the file folders. Use different colored file folders for the lineages of each of your four grandparents - in other words, all folders created for the ancestors of one grandparent will be marked with the same color. The colors you select are up to you, but the following color choices are the most common: BLUE - ancestors of your paternal grandfather (father's father) GREEN - ancestors of your paternal grandmother (father's mother) RED - ancestors of your maternal grandfather (mother's father) YELLOW - ancestors of your maternal grandfather (mother's mother) Using the colors as outlined above, create a separate folder for each surname, writing names on the hanging file tab insert with a black permanent marker (or printing inserts on your printer). Then hang the files in alphabetical order in your file box or cabinet by color (i.e. put the blues alphabetically in one group, the greens in another group. etc.). If you're new to genealogy research, this may be all you need to do. New Business: Family History Center new hours: Tuesday 9-6 and 7-9 p.m., Wednesday 7-9 p.m. and Saturday 9-1 a.m. Old Business: Rayne's Genealogy seminar September 25, 2004 with volunteers Brenda, Cindy and Regina. Copies of Ancestral Endeavors will be abailable at the meetings for members who do not have e-mail. Those that are not picked up will be sent by snail mail. Our meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m. and refreshments were served. Our meeting was considered very productive and closed.