Butler-SSclass

I would also like to mention more about the weekly family history Sunday School class taught by my wife as another item which could be shared at some point. When Janet was called as a ward consultant almost three years ago, she was not prepared. She had compiled records "manually" as a young woman, but had not been introduced to all of the new resources. We attended the BYU Conference together. She attended many classes at the FH Library and regional seminars. We also attended a Fred Christensen PAF and Temple Ready class series. Janet also went through the PAF lessons and read manuals. Then, with this background and her experience as a professional teacher, she set out to format a class which would take people from where she had started to the point of being functional in all basic research skills. The result is a class which takes approximately nine months to teach (given the limited Sunday School time slot) and a manual of just over 100 pages with not only explanations, but step-by-step "how to's" so that people don't have to remember all the details or search through an unfamiliar reference text to be able to get started with a function. There are hands-on exercises for attendees to reinforce what has been presented. She also utilizes a projector so that she can demonstrate the online functions which can't be easily tried out in the teaching center since we have only one PC online. I realize there have been many manuals written by individuals over the years, but I have not seen an effort like this to cover such a broad spectrum of basic functions.

About our teaching center, we have the luxury of using a former extraction center as a family history teaching center. When I was called, I asked our stake about converting it into a full-fledged, staffed family history center, but they felt we had adequate resources available in the area. The adjoining Wasatch Stake has a FHC. We are also close to the Cottonwood Creek and Union Fort FHCs.