Dian Darr
The Robson Ranch Genealogy Club will help you close the gap between the present and the past. Our goal is to facilitate family history research through our informative programs and one-on-one research assistance given by members who share their expertise during monthly Help Sessions.
It is important not only to research our ancestors, but also to tell their stories. To accomplish this, our club produces a volume of stories each year. Volume 1 of the booklet Argent (named after the Latin word for silver and the acronym A Robson Genealogy Tribute) contains stories of our grandparents, while Volume 2 consists of stories of our great-grandparents. The third edition will have stories of ancestors who have served in the military. Members are now working hard to discover family members’ military service, even from the Civil War or the Revolutionary War!
The emphasis of many of our club activities for part of this year will be on military records and how to discover all we can about them. Several of our monthly meetings have focused on this theme. In February, award-winning author and Robson Ranch genealogist Dale Spaulding presented an informative session on his book Fortitude: Preserving 400 Years of an American Family’s Faith, Patriotism, Grit, and Determination. He gave some great hints on doing family research. The March 5 meeting focused on U.S. Revolutionary War case studies, and to continue our study of military records, several members traveled to Waco to attend an all-day workshop entitled Tracing Patriots: Researching 18th and 19th Century U.S. Military Ancestry.
One of the most exciting projects for our club for the first half of the year will be to celebrate our veterans’ stories as we join the Library of Congress and their Veterans History Project. We will be training members who will then interview Robson Ranch veterans. These first-hand video accounts of military service will be sent to the Library of Congress and join the thousands of recollections of service to our country that are in the collection. Future generations hear directly from our veterans to understand what they experienced.
All Robson residents are invited to join us. Whether you are new to genealogy or are an experienced researcher, we would love to have you come visit. Meetings are on the first and third Tuesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and Help Sessions are on the second Monday at 2 p.m. in Room 104 at the Creative Arts and Technology Center. Dues are $20 per person or $30 per couple. For more information, please contact us at [email protected]. Look for our column “Genealogy Notes” in this edition of the Pioneer Press for specific program descriptions for April.