A Taste of Our FHC AND Please, Don't Toss Those Yearbooks!

Our annual Family History Conference on Saturday, 3 May 2025, was a huge success, thanks to dozens of hard-working volunteers and more than one hundred curious participants, both in-person and online. For the first time since the pandemic, we had an almost-capacity live audience, and our three dynamic speakers captivated everyone with the endless possibilities that artificial intelligence and DNA analysis bring to genealogy. If you couldn't attend on Saturday, we have a treat for you—all the lectures were recorded, and they will be available for viewing for the next three months. Here's how you can access them . . .

If you have already registered for the conference, you've received an email with a link to a page on our website that contains the electronic syllabus. Links to all seven of the recordings are now posted on that page, and you can watch at your leisure any time between now and 3 August 2025.

Not registered yet? No problem. The Family History Conference page on our website has a link to our secure online store where you can register for the conference. Once you are registered, you will get an email with a link to the page on our website with the digital recordings and the electronic syllabus. We know you will enjoy every fascinating minute!

Here are a few photos so you can see a bit of the action. We hope to have more for you soon!

Steve Little, our featured speaker, got the day off to a great start with a lecture on how to begin using artificial intelligence (AI) in genealogy.

Representatives from the Missouri State Archives, both in Jefferson City and the St. Louis branch, the Missouri Historical Society's Library and Research Center, the St. Louis Public Library, and the St. Louis County Library all were on hand to chat about their holdings with attendees.

Most everyone enjoyed the chance to visit with friends, make new friends, and talk with each other at lunchtime, especially since it was cold and raining outside! 

(All photos by Ilene Murray; used with permission.)

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Please Donate Your Unwanted Yearbooks to a Repository!

As a treat to self after the Family History Conference, your blogger spent a few hours at the annual Greater St. Louis Book Fair at Queeny Park. With my canvas tote loaded with more books than I needed, I took a cruise through the genealogy section, where I discovered at least a dozen college and high school yearbooks that had been donated but were still sitting on tables after four days. The volunteers at the fair assured me that they would contact a suitable repository to donate anything that wasn't sold and would not chuck those unwanted books into a recycling bin. 

So, as an appeal to you, and please spread the word . . .

If you still have yearbooks you don't want, please donate them to a library or archive. Most of them are digitizing those old books and putting them online, offering the chance for photos and other information to be publicly available to researchers.

If you aren't sure where to start, if you have St. Louis or Missouri-related books, our friends at the Emerson History and Genealogy Center at the Clark Family Branch, St. Louis County Library, are in the process of growing their collection. 

The Missouri Historical Society Library and Research Center and the Missouri State Archives will also accept yearbooks. If you have them from other states, reach out to repositories in your area to ask if they are interested in your books. Even if you must pay a bit of postage to mail them, it is surely worth it to know you are helping someone see an ancestor as a teenager and learn more about their life as a student.