2017 Annual TXGenWeb Meeting
Rob Yoder hosted the meeting with a little help from the meeting coordinators, Patsy Vinson and Betsy Mills, and Jane Keppler and Shirley Cullum.The 20th Annual TXGenWeb meeting was held in South Fort Worth (Burleson), Tarrant County, Texas, on April 22. The meeting was chock-full of great information and, like last year, the weather was very nice. Twenty County Coordinators and 1 special friend attended the meeting.
The weekend began on Friday with lunch at the Villa Diana Italian Restaurant. After lunch, some attendees went antiquing and the rest just hung out at the hotel. Dinner was at El Fenix Mexican Restaurant and everyone enjoyed their favorite dish. It seems that Mexican food is a staple of the TXGenWeb Coordinators.
Saturday's meeting was co-sponsored by the Fort Worth Genealogical Society and everyone was allowed to select an item from the book table as a gift from them. Books were available for purchase at reduced prices and the attendees certainly took advantage of the great deals.
The presentations included "Finding Graves" by Faye Elder. She demonstrated the use of grave dowsing rods and Rob Yoder, our resident skeptic on the subject, once again expressed his thoughts on how "the rods shouldn't work but do." Samantha Dodd, Archivist at UTA, followed Faye with information on holdings in the UTA Archives. Many of those were previously unknown to us and several coordinators plan to visit the Archives for research. Sandra Crowley, then presented information on how we could identify potential projects and organizations to partner with to help achieve our goals and how to draw attendees to the combined event. The title of her presentation was "It Sometimes Takes Two: Partnering with Other Organizations or Societies" and some information would not benefit the TXGenWeb but some of her suggestions would definitely be something to look into. Paula Perkins finished up the presentations with "Locating Records for the Civilian Conservation Corp." Information included names of men, biographical sketches, camp assignments and work projects, and photos. A very interesting presentation and a great way to end the meeting. The Saturday evening meal was at Spring Creek BBQ and we once again enjoyed the time spent just visiting with everyone and were not disappointed with the food.
The 2018 Annual TXGenWeb Meeting will be held in Waxahachie and will be hosted by Sylvia Smith. "We can't wait for 2018!"
Shirley Cullum
Rob Yoder's 2017 and 2018 Videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tarrantcountytxgenweb2766