Jay School Visit in February

This visit by 58 Students, 20 parents and 4 teachers was a thrill for everyone. The included album here has some of the children singing along with the church organ play. We hope more classes of all ages will take advantage of the museum. Older students will enjoy more in depth information from our archives and from our artifacts. IT is fun for all ages !

Click for the full album

LDS Visits to educate on Genealogical Tools

Wayne Cook

The February meeting of the Historical Society featured a presentation by the local LDS genealogical FAMILY SEARCH, a user friendly site with free access. Just sign in with a username and password and begin searching for family ties. After entering only a few of your recent family tree it is likely much more of your tree will fill in quickly. From there you can begin to do some very intensive genealogical research and you will have a great point from which to begin.With their efforts the organization was introduced to "Famly Search" and assisted with account set up.

Frank Wilsona and Sally Simpler

The meeting was opened by Wayne Cook and quickly the team was introduced from the LDS Church.  Frank and Lorna Wilson of "The Wilson Family Farm" (frankwilso@gmail.com). Frank and Lorna have homegrown raw honey, eggs and bees wax products.

Others helping were Sally Simpler, who counts many marines among her family, Sister Pau'u and Sister Viola. While Sister Pau'u is a native of Tonga, her mastery of valley speak from California exposes the primary region of her residence youth and education.  Sister Viola is from Ohio. Both young women appreciate history and love learning about our region.  A brief discussion on local history pointed them to the origin of the name
of "Murder Creek" in Brewton, and the massacre at Fort Mims, and the Creek Wars and the War of 1812 among other things.  Sadly their missionary status will not allow them to use the internet for two years. By that time it will probably no longer exist since it is obviously a fad anyway.   But if they could, the links above would be of great interest. Sister Viola was informed it was her "Ohian native", of the Shoshone Tribe,  Tecumseh and his brother the prophet, Tensquatawa, who brought ideas of murder and blood to the underappreciated "red stick" Creeks - leading to the massacre at Fort Mims among other sad consequences.  But, other Ohioans - since the "late unpleasantness" of 1865 anyway, have been quite civil  among the people of Northwest Florida.

Sisters Pau'u and Viola

The lesson on genealogy continued by helping several of the society members with account set up and some basic family research.

The Museum has been seeking local volunteers to help organize items in the museum, scanning documents and photos and archiving many of our items.  Sally Simpler suggest an

Marshall and Dot Diamond

organization called JUST SERVE that helps organizations find volunteers to help with projects like that.

SO -- now we know.
 This was a valuable and much appreciated meeting.

You should know that volunteers from the LDS and Family Search will gladly take time to visit with you and help you start your own account.

It is a valuable service.