(19-1) BEGINNING GENEALOGY CLASS

Winter 2006 Beginning Genealogy Class
VERA ZIMMERMAN

There were 46 students in the January 12 to February 16 Beginning Genealogy Class. Students come from all parts of the county and include complete beginners and experienced genealogy researchers. Betty Eichhorn and I have handled most of the teaching duties with Frank Bryan, Joan Bullard and Patrice Green teaching segments.

The students have been enthusiastic and I feel like I have learned a lot. There is no better way of learning a subject than having to distill it into digestible portions for students.

Many old members of BGS are taking the class and there are many new researchers as well. We welcome them to BGS.

Once again Anthropology and Genealogy intersect. In a recent Central Florida Anthropological Society newsletter I read an item that might be of interest to anyone having Swedish ancestors who arrived in Illinois about 1846. Eric Jansson was born in Sweden in 1808. Around 1830 he decided that he was the Second Messiah and gathered a following of believers. In 1846 Jansson and about 1200 followers moved from Sweden to Illinois and set up a Utopian community at Bishop Hill. In May 1850 Eric Jansson was murdered. After four days his followers buried him and the community slipped into oblivion. Today Bishop Hill is a small village of about 110 residents but it has five museums. Since 1970 the State of Illinois, anthropologists, archaeologists and history professors have been rebuilding the village of the Wheat Flour Messiah.


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Louisiana Information


Currently, Louisiana VITAL RECORDS REGISTRY is undertaking a new project to ELECTRONICALLY PROCESS all La. birth certificates. Due to Hurricane Katrina, we are using microfilm copies of documents to update the electronic files. Please carefully review our document for accuracy. If spelling errors are noted or if you had a recent correction to your document and the document does not reflect the change, please return your document with a letter stating what the errors are and mail to;

VITAL RECORDS CORRECTIONS UNIT
VITAL RECORDS REGISTRY
PO BOX 60630
NEW ORLEANS LA. 70160

received by Barbara Maloney 2/15/2006