For %%emailaddr%% July 20, 2006 I'll never forget the family reunion on a great-uncle's dairy farm, when my young cousin yelled "Look what I found!" in the middle of our prayer service. Everyone turned to see him waving around a board-stiff, flat-as-a-pancake, long-dead cat by what was left of the tail. Did you have a particularly funny (or disturbing) family reunion moment this summer? Tell me about it—I'll share the best tales in an upcoming E-mail Update. See this newsletter's Tip of the Week for some excellent reunion-planning advice. Speaking of kin: For the August Family Tree Magazine's installment of All in the Family, we're looking for photos of your relatives' most, um, unusual hairstyles. If Great-aunt Edith's beehive had its own ZIP code or Grandpa George spent his youth looking like he stuck a fork in an outlet, e-mail the photo to ftmedit@fwpubs.com and you could win a free 8x8-inch album kit courtesy of Chatterbox (http://www.chatterboxinc.com).  To be eligible, photos must be high-resolution (at least 300 dpi) and you must include your name and snail-mail address with your entry. And don't embarrass living relatives unless you want to end up like that poor cat. —Diane Haddad, Newsletter Editor ftmnews-editor@fwpubs.com P.S. Make sure you don't miss a single issue of your E-mail Update! Add our address (familytree-newsletter@fwpubs.com) to your email-address book—your software will recognize the Update as an e-mail you want to read.   Enter our August Issue Quiz and Win! Where to Gopher Historical Photos Flood Controlled AncestorNews: Get Thee To A Library Tip of the Week: Fun and Games Worthwhile Web Sites Identifying Family Photographs: A Photo Riddle Speakers' Schedule Advertiser Special Offers Enter our August Issue Quiz and Win! OK, Family Tree Magazine readers, get out your August 2006 issues and limber up your page-turning hand: It's time for our August issue quiz. The first three people to send me the correct answers to the following five questions will win Melinda Kashuba's Walking With Your Ancestors: A Genealogist's Guide to Using Maps and Geography (Family Tree Books, $22.99). Please note you MUST include your mailing address to win. Send your answers to ftmnews-editor@fwpubs.com. 1. Where did the US government relocate 203 Midwestern farming families during the Great Depression? 2. How can you find your ancestor's name in a Web site that doesn't have a search engine? 3. Which well-known American football player traveled to his ancestral homeland this summer—and what is that homeland? 4. What surname was Alan Alda born with? 5. What year did the US Congress legalize contract labor (indentures) for immigrants ? Where to Gopher Historical Photos More than 50 Gopher State historical societies and other cultural heritage organizations have united to put 5,000 historical images online at The Minnesota Digital Library’s Minnesota Reflections site (http://reflections.mndigital.org). Browse or search the photos by keyword, or click Advanced Search for more options. You even can narrow your search to images from one or more participating institutions. I searched on church and got 268 photos, including church buildings, choirs, students, members of religious orders, even a school football team. Select an image to find out more details, such as a description, the date and place, and the holding institution. Click on the icon resembling (albeit remotely) an X-Acto knife to open the image in another window, where you can crop portions and save them to your computer. The images aren’t high-resolution, though, so you can’t zoom in much before people start looking pixilated. Flood Controlled The National Archives and Record Administration (http://archives.gov) reopened to researchers yesterday—albeit with limited hours—after a three-week closure due to water damage and electrical outages. Until further notice, research hours are Monday through Friday from 8:45 a.m. until 5 p.m. in a temporary ground-floor room. The usual evening and Saturday hours will resume when the electrical system is operating at full capacity. Watch this newsletter and the National Archives Web site for updates. The Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom—home to the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights—opened last Saturday with normal hours. After record-breaking rainfall flooded the building June 25, emergency crews began round-the-clock recovery efforts, which included removing standing water, installing dehumidifiers and repairing electrical feeds.  The William G. McGowan Theater, which received extensive damage, will be closed until further notice. Get Thee To A Library I haven’t spent much time researching my Brooks family because I never knew anything more than the name of my fourth-great-grandmother Rachel Brooks. But on a recent trip to the library, I was reading through a microfiche about people in Bureau County, Ill., and I stumbled upon a reference to Rachel’s family. Continue reading at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ancestornews/current.html. Hendrickson is a family historian, freelance writer and the author of the book Finding Your Roots Online, on sale now at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/store/display.asp?id=70583. Browse the archive of her AncestorNews columns at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ancestornews/previous.html. Fun and Games This week's tip comes from Jeanne Fuller of San Antonio: We're celebrating a relative's 90th birthday and decided to have a family reunion at the same time. In our weekly newsletter, we're having a contest among the families of the five siblings.  We print "Guess Who?" stories about some relative's life and "Who Am I?" photos, and family members who write in correctly win points. (We tease the groups to outsmart each other, and we award freebie points when someone does a reunion-related task such as offering to bring a cake or mail invitations.) We'll tally points until the reunion. We're having a great time and are hearing from some relatives who haven't been very "connected" until now. Do you have a great idea for discovering, preserving or celebrating family history? E-mail your tip and your mailing address to ftmnews-editor@fwpubs.com with "TIP OF THE WEEK" in the subject line. If we publish it, you'll win a free copy of the May 2006 Trace Your Family History, a special issue of Family Tree Magazine, available for purchase at  http://www.familytreemagazine.com/mags/display.asp?id=1767 Overwhelmed by the number of family history-related Web sites popping up? FamilyTreeMagazine.com sorts through them all—whew!—to bring you only the very best. We recently recommended the following as Sites of the Week: • Irish Newspaper Archives http://irishnewspaperarchives.com Browse this site to see which historical Irish newspapers the site covers. After you find a title and thumbnail image of the paper for the date you want, you can register and purchase credits for viewing the actual pages. • San Francisco Genealogy http://www.sfgenealogy.com This site's newest transcriptions include the 1893 city telephone directory, lists of 1862 firefighters, and names of early-1900s high school graduates. • Historical Timeline http://www.historicaltimeline.com Keep track of major historical events during your ancestor's life. • El Paso County Clerk Death Records Search http://www.co.el-paso.tx.us/clerk/deaths.htm Results to your searches here display the name, date of death and microfilm reel number for the original certificate. A Photo Riddle What’s old, made of glass and found in a photographic case?  See if you guessed right—expert photo historian and author Maureen A. Taylor  shares the answer at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/photos/current.htm. If you have a family photo mystery for Taylor to solve, check out our Submission Guidelines at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/photos/photohelp.htm. Lufkin, Texas Emily Anne Croom July 21-22 Angelina College Genealogy Conference  Topics: Location, Location, Location: Using Maps in Genealogy Lost in 1890? What to Do When the Census is Missing It's Not a Brick Wall Until... Gooly Girl and Fryed Ham: Building Your Case—A Genealogist's Tool Kit For more information, see http://www.angelina.edu/genealogy.htm Newport News, Va. Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak August 5 Tidewater Genealogical Society Seminar   Topics: Trace Your Roots With DNA For more information, see http://www.rootsweb.com/~vatgs. GenSmarts Automated Genealogy Research - "the best genealogy add-on software " says Eastman's Newsletter. Only $24.95 at http://www.GenSmarts.com/ftmagDeals.asp RootsMagic Genealogy Software - "An excellent choice for any genealogist" says Family Tree Magazine. Get a free trial copy at http://www.RootsMagic.com PUBLISH YOUR FAMILY HISTORY. Preserve and share your precious family research. Personal coaching. Many options.  www.GatewayPress.com Get Family Tree Magazine back issues at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/mags. Explore Family Tree Magazine E-mail Update past issues at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/newsletter/archive.html. Get free Family Tree News Service articles for your genealogy newsletter or Web site at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/ftns-subscribe.asp. Sponsor This Newsletter For information on sponsoring this newsletter or to receive a rate card, e-mail kworkman@longshoremedia.com You have received this e-mail because you expressed interest in receiving updates about genealogy and genealogy products from Family Tree Magazine and Betterway Books by e-mail. Thanks for your subscription! 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