FamilySearch Booth at a county fair

mikeanthonyschofield1

Anyone have tips or advice for sponsoring a FamilySearch Booth at a county fair?

Lawanna Dalley Casto

A couple of years ago our ward sponsored a booth at our local festival (4 hours in the afternoon at a local park). The EQ Pres took the reigns and did a nice job. He had kid friendly family trees for kids to fill out with 3 generations. My favorite conversation was when when a kid came up and knew who her parents were and when asked "and do you know what your grandma's name is?" Her response: "Abuela!"

Then at another table we had a couple of laptops with FamilySearch up. The idea was to invite community members to get an account or ask a consultant questions. The kid side was way more popular. Only got a couple of people actually let me talk to them with the computers.

Now, last summer I was in DC near the 4th of July and visited the Folklife Festival on the National Mall. FamilySearch had a booth that was well staffed by local volunteers and at least one person who works for FamilySearch. They had a bunch of laptops and were helping people create accounts and find their family. While I was there, one woman had just been helped to find her grandparents. In the chaos of the event, I could feel her excitement and see the Spirit of Elijah working - right in front of me.

mikeanthonyschofield1

Thank you. . . . We have been planning to have those interested, perform a search on the opening screen without an account and create a profile of a deceased ancestor (preferably a grandparent where records were more prevalent). We would print out a profile for them, let them study it and ask them if they would like to set-up an account. Once signed in on an account, I'm not sure you can access the profile form again without signing-out and then performing the search on the opening screen?

I was just curious about approaches others may have used for public gatherings. May a FH worker print a personal profile of a guest while signed into the FH worker's account? We have found a fairly high degree of interest in the booth and would like to spend 5 minutes to print out an deceased ancestor's profile during peak traffic times and spend additional time with those interested during slower traffic period. We are thinking the ancestor profile would be sufficient for a quick response. Is there another tool we might use?

Thanks again.

Lawanna Dalley Casto

Haven't used any guest features FS might have, so I guess it depends on what your goals are for the event.

When I work with Scouts (formerly called Boy Scouts) I have them fill out a basic pedigree chart and then we start looking for a record. If they have created a FamilySearch account we attach that record to their family member. Had the most success lately looking for WWII draft records and 1940/1950 census records for the kids grandparents. From here some Scouts are perfectly happy to have completed the requirement while others get excited (admittedly sometimes because of my excitement of what we find) to go and look for more records. We look at all the cool parts of the census (love the occupation part), the street address, siblings, etc. and see what excites the kid. Ooo…here's your great uncle Larry. Did you know he was only a year older than….., wow your great grandparents were farmers in West Virginia and had 12 kids living at home at once, or hey cool…check this out — your grandpa was working at age 15 as a gas station attendant.

ProbstJanee2

Did anyone ever pay for a booth? How much do they generally run?

donnajoearlcolyar1

I'd like to know about this as well, how to sponsor a "booth" or table at our community expos as a nonprofit, free resource. We don't want to pay the $600 they usually charge. We think it would be a hit with our senior population here in Sun City, AZ.

LarryB

I am a Director of our FSC and also the community outreach spokesperson for the local genealogical society. After giving my talk about the society and its resources, I discuss several genealogy websites including FamilySearch and ask if anyone would like to see their family in the 1950 US Census. People really enjoy this and are amazed at how easy it is to view an online record. It usually leads to more of the audience wanting to find their family in the census or just do an ancestor search from the home page. (One person was amazed to find her line went back to the Mayflower!)

I've also done this at fairs and the society's open house which resulted in attracting people to the FSC to learn how to use FamilySearch. Don't overlook networking with your local genealogical society! We are hosting a luncheon and open house with the society at our meeting house to introduce it to our FSC and Discovery Activities on FamilySearch.

mikeanthonyschofield1

Thank you Larry. The 1950 Census will be one of our primary tools. It will cover many of our visitors.