FamilySearch.org has been busy making enhancements to its website. The goal is to have as many items free and available online as possible. In addition there are learning centers, community groups, activities to involve the whole family and new ways to add sources to Family Tree or to merge individuals. We will discuss the changes and some of the upcoming changes to FamilySearch.org.

 

Betty Franklin, a volunteer at the Westlake Ohio Family History Center, is a retired preschool special education teacher who loves helping others research their families. She has a bachelor of science in education degree from Northern Illinois University and a masters degree in curriculum and instruction from Cleveland State University.

 

She has volunteered in the Westlake Family History Center for twenty-five years and loves seeing pedigree charts and family group sheets grow. Her own research has taken her back to the early 1600's in Germany. She recently has broken down walls on her husband's Swedish and United States lines. The covid 19 isolation has afforded extra time for researching and updating family records. She loves turning the names and dates into remarkable people by using the records to read between the lines.

 

Betty has presented workshops for local conferences and genealogical organizations on beginning genealogy, FamilySearch, FamilySearch Wiki, FamilySearch Family Tree, state census records, German research, reading old handwriting such as early American and German script and working with the various premium sites available at Family History centers.