Bus Trip to Oklahoma Historical Society

August 2, 2010 - Midwest Historical and Genealogical Society plans a bus trip to Oklahoma City - Oklahoma Historical Society. Leave MHGS Library at 7AM, Arrive Oklahoma Historical Society at 10AM, Leave Oklahoma Historical Society at 5PM, Dinner TBD, Return to MHGS Library approximately 9:30 PM. Contact Sara Jones at 264-3611 for more information.

Veritage Car Show

Sending A Special Invitation Your Way!
Midwest Historical and Genealogical Society announces its Julyapalooza 2010 — A Read, White and Blue Event on Saturday, July 10th from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at 1203 North Main in Wichita. A select display of antique and vintage cars will be featured along with food,fun, and an interesting array of genealogical books and materials we've never offered before for sale as well as tours of Midwest's own library. Julyapalooza is a first-ever, don't-miss, bring-the-entire-family event open to the public at large — but the welcome mat is especially out for you as our member. There is no admission fee and ample on-street parking is available. Drawings will be held at noon, 1:00, 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. Keep July sizzling by getting out and extending your celebration of fun, food, and wholesome family fare at Midwest. The more, the merrier, so please join us on Saturday, July the 10th!

Kansas Council of Genealogical Societies Conference

June 19, 2010 - Kansas Council of Genealogical Societies Annual Meeting and Conference, Co-hosted by Sumner County Genealogical Society. Wellington High School, 1700 E 16th St, Wellington, KS. Speaker will be Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective.
A Spokesperson with Credentials and Media Presence

For public relations professionals who need the perfect spokesperson for their genealogy or photo-related product, brand, or launch, Maureen Taylor is an ideal solution. She has a wealth of experience as a genealogist, historian, and photo expert. Plus, she has a face for TV, a voice for radio, and numerous interviews with top-tier media to her credit.

Maureen knows photographs. As the Photo Detective, her focus is photography—from the little details that date a 19th-century picture to dealing with digital overload. As an author, sought-after speaker, and corporate spokesperson, Maureen shares her photo expertise with all who want to learn more about preserving their past.

Her interviews, books, and articles reach millions each month. Her passion for photography and genealogy resulted in Maureen researching Meredith Vieira’s family tree for a segment of The View and Timberly Whitfield’s family for Hallmark’s New Morning Show.

In addition, her numerous television, radio, and print media interviews include Better Homes & Gardens, The Boston Globe, Claritin’s Moment of Clarity, Creative Memories Lasting Moments, Dear Myrtle, DIY:Scrapbooking, Life Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, MSNBC, PBS Ancestors,and Satisfaction Magazine. She also shares her tips and techniques in energetic lectures on family history and photography that encourage participants to ask questions about a wide range of concerns from finding their roots to caring for great-grandmother’s scrapbook.

In 1999-2001, Maureen represented Genealogy.com. In 2003, Maureen acted as a consultant for Picasa, Google’s software for organizing and sharing photos. Her work as a national corporate spokesperson on marketing campaigns has included:

• Satellite TV and radio media tours
• National and local television appearances
• Interviews with national magazines

Midwest Historical & Genealogical Society

The Journals on the 2nd floor of the library are a rarely used treasure. Anyone can tap into this rich source of specialized articles. Find out how to "treasure-hunt" family histories, county and state histories and "how-to" articles from the best, most experienced genealogical researchers around.
Margaret Lucas, Tuesday Librarian presents "How to Use Journals to Accelerate Research" on Feb 13, 2010 (second Saturday) at 1pm at the MHGS Library, 1120 Main. St., Wichita, KS. The class is open to the public, but limited to the first 10 applicants. Call 264-3611 to leave a message, or sign up at the MHGS front desk.
The class will consist of a 15 min presentation followed by 30 minutes of supervised hands-on. Please bring your laptop and some research questions that really "bug" you. Punch and Valentine cookies provided.

Member Society Programs

A reminder to all member societies! Please submit your planned programs for 2010 ASAP for publication on KCGS "Calendar of Events". It is important that you not only include the speaker and subject for the program but where it will be held and the time it will start. It would also be helpful if you supplied a contact e-mail where further information can be sought.

National Family Health History Day

Submitted by Janeice Crossen, KCGS President
Just a note to alert you that several of the larger genealogy information repositories in the country are going together to make their data available online, such libraries as the Midwest Genealogy Research Center in Independence, and Ft. Wayne in Indianapolis, plus the Family History Center in Salt Lake City and others. It is an exciting time for us. You know also that the National Archives is working in tandem with Ancestry.com to digitize their records.

What I wanted to talk about today however:

Thanksgiving Day has been designated as National Family Health History Day, by the U.S. Surgeon General. What that means is you are asked to take the opportunity to create a health history for your family as you get together to visit and have a good time. Americans know that family history is important to health.

Such diseases as Macular Degeneration, Alzheimer’s, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Autism, Brain, colon, endometrial and skin cancers, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers, clotting disorders, diabetes, heart disease, Huntington’s, Muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s, Sickle-cell disease, Tay-Sachs, are health issues with ties to genetics. Early detection may help alleviate problems later on.

If you will go to The website that is highlighted on the page https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/

You will find the Access the My family Health Portrait Web tool.

There is a questionnaire for you to complete right on the computer, asking for your personal profile, name, age, height, weight, diseases, when diagnosed, etc. Then you are asked to number your siblings, uncles, aunts, parents, grandparents.

On the next section you are asked to fill out the questionnaire for each of the people you have listed. There is a pull down menu that lists possible diseases and a place to add any that are not there. If you aren’t sure what Grandpa died of, perhaps somebody else at your gathering will know.

When you have completed the answers, the computer will print out a nice chart for you that graphically illustrates your family’s health history. Why do we need this? Make a copy for each of your children and give it to them. They will be able to take them to their health care providers when next they go. Doctors will be delighted to see such a history as it will help them formulate treatments and preventive measures to prescribe for their patients.

Those of you who are reluctant to have your health data “out there” can be assured that if you don’t save your work it will disappear from the computer. All you will have is the printed copy which you can revise and edit if need be.

If you are not a computer user yourself, enlist the help of a grandchild and make a nice Thanksgiving activity for you both.

Then the latest I have found is this genetic problem. A UCI study has turned up evidence that bad driving may have a genetic basis. UCI neurologist Dr. Steven Cramer, who studies brain repair after stroke and brain remodeling, published a study suggesting that bad driving may in part be genetically based. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it. About 30 % of Americans have the variant.

The study was published in the journal Cerebral Cortex. You might want to google it.

Message from KCGS President

Dear members,

I have been thinking about how we can make your state society more useful to you. Your KCGS board is always open to ideas that will help us become more viable.

Do your societies post or publish or both the obituaries from your area? Do you use your websites to post indices of your publications? Do you solicit queries for research? Do you take advantage of the free websites Helen will help you set up?

We have this KCGS website with this blog for members to use. Helen, our webmaster asks us to send her our contributions so that she can get them posted correctly. Responses are welcomed as well. We would like to post obits and other news of our members, for example. Here is an opportunity for idea exchange and so on. Not only would we like everyone to read it, but also to contribute to it.

We also have a space on Facebook that we encourage members to join. We are encouraging all societies to go digital as much as possible. Newsletters can be sent that way and websites can be used for soliciting research requests and for advertising the publications we have for sale. I am not comfortable with journals going digital because there are still genealogists who do not use computers or who have slow internet connections and who would rather have a hard copy to read that they do not have to download and print, but the increasing cost of postage and printing may make that necessary, too.

As president I would like to attend some society meetings for feedback and to bring communications. I need dates and places ahead of time so I can plan my trips.

I put out the newsletter whenever there is something to communicate and we are publishing the Review as well. Both Ruth and I would welcome contributions to those publications from our readership. My supply of society newsletters from which I can draw information, has diminished severely. I do not know if that is because fewer are being published or perhaps just not being sent to us. What I receive come mostly from the same societies located here in the eastern part of the state. Our newsletter should be a place where members can get the word out about new publications, special programs, and projects, etc. Putting out newsletters electronically is cost free and can be done as often as we need to. If you would like to email me yours, my address is jcrosson@wamego.net

We have learned that we cannot continue to advertise in the national journals as our funds are limited. We would like all member societies to help us advertise our Forgotten Settlers project in their own publications. A camera ready ad can be had for the asking. This project is not so much for earning income for the state society as it is for advertising to the world our Kansas heritage, for encouraging those with Kansas ancestors to be able to give them recognition.

Please feel free to give us any feedback and most of all ideas of how we can become more of a helpful entity.

Sincerely,
Janeice Crosson
President KCGS