Have you voted yet? Yes, I know the Congressional elections are over, but I’m talking about the Society elections. It’s time to choose who will be managing the society for the next two years and you also have a say in some of the changes to our society’s Constitution and Bylaws. If you haven’t voted yet, visit the Ballot page at SAGS Support today. You will find instructions for voting and submitting your ballot. Approval of the Constitution and Bylaws will be made by our members at the November meeting.
In addition to the new members of the board, the society is also looking for volunteers to help our society grow and improve support for our members. Here are the positions currently open:
First Vice President – Programs arranges programs for our monthly general membership meetings.
Communications Chair prepares and publishes press releases for both electronic media and print distribution to our members and the general public.
Research Chair serves as a research consultant to our members, provides content for society publications and social networks.
Facebook Coordinator works as part of the Publications committee to maintain the society’s Facebook page.
Want to learn more? See any member of our society leadership for more information.
This week’s member meeting will be the last one for this year. Traditionally our December meeting is a holiday luncheon. This year we have a special treat for our members. Our holiday luncheon combines a fascinating family history with delicious local dishes. Of course we’re talking about Aunt Kate’s.
For more than one hundred years the Usina family has entertained both locals and visitors from their location on North Beach. During the Flagler era, they offered excursions to the Usina Pavilion. Visitors could enjoy a day at the beach along with delicious traditional Minorcan dishes.
Aunt Kate was Catherine Evans Usina, the wife of Frank Usina who at that time they were married was a carpenter working for the FEC Railroad. When a yellow fever epidemic left Frank without a job, he and Catherine decided to stay on North Beach and cater to St. Augustine’s winter guests. Their business thrived and continues to this day as a delightful place to enjoy a taste of local history.
Aunt Kate’s today
This year’s luncheon will be different in a number of ways. There are no up-front costs or entree decisions to make ahead of time. You will choose what you want from the menu and you will be responsible for your check. However, we do need to give them a head count no later than November 23rd. We will have a sign-up sheet on the check-in table at Saturday’s member meeting. You can also email us anytime upto the 23rd at sags.publications@yahoo.com.
If you want an early look at the menu, you’ll find it at https://aunt-kates.com/menu/.
Map to Aunt Kate’s
Some Obituary Goodness at FamilySearch
FamilySearch has added more than 34 million obituaries from GenealogyBank to their Historical Record Collections. These are fairly recent obits – dating from 1980 to 2014 and come from thousands of newspapers across the country. According to FamilySearch, “Whenever possible, FamilySearch makes images available for all users. However, rights to view images on our website are granted by the record custodians”. Visit the FamilySearch Wiki GenealogyBank Obituaries page for details.
Capture the Holidays
Both Thanksgiving and Christmas offer opportunities to capture and preserve photos and stories from and/or about family members, favorite foods and holiday traditions. Don’t let these opportunities get away from you. It’s not that difficult, all you need is a journaling app on your mobile phone. One good choice is the Day One journal app. It is available for iOS and Android devices. With Day One, each time you create an entry the app will also capture the date, time and place where that entry took place. Using the camera built into your phone, Day One makes it easy to add photos to your journal entries.
You will be surprised how easily you can capture precious moments. Many of us – especially the younger generations – are never far from our mobile phone. As a result, it’s easy to grab photos and add notes describing everyday events that will one day become treasured memories.
There is often a story related to a special Thanksgiving dish or a treasured Christmas tradition. With Day One you can photograph that dish and add a few words describing its history. Ornaments and decorations often have stories related to them. Once again, a photo and description could become a treasured bit of family history to future generations. As you see in this example, one short paragraph is all that’s needed to tell the story of one very special ornament.
Want to learn more about journaling apps? Zapier has posted a very good review of the best journaling apps including features and prices.
Final Notes
Each new post published at SAGS Support is automatically emailed to member subscribers and/or delivered to their newsreader. Research Notes is published every Monday morning and other articles are posted during the week. Subscribers have the option to control how often these updates are delivered. Look down at the bottom of this message and you will find a Manage Subscriptions link in the fine print as you see in this example. Click it and you will be taken to the WordPress.com Subscription Management page. Use the Delivery Frequency column to change your delivery options from “Immediate” to either “Daily” or “Weekly”.
Sample of the “fine print” at the bottom of each post.
Also down at the bottom of each delivered post is a Comment button. If you would like to comment on something discussed in a post or ask a question, just click the Comment button and you will be taken online to the comment section of the post where you can share your thoughts and read what others have shared.
To learn more, download a copy of the SAGS Support Guide.
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