THE GENEALOGICAL FORUM’s Thursday Evening E-News Edition December 27, 2018

Curious about the status of your GFO Membership? We’d love to have you as a GFO Member!

For more information visit www.gfo.org. Contact us at info@gfo.org or 503-963-1932. Be sure to check the complete GFO CALENDAR. Also, don’t miss the current issue of The Forum Insider

Best Wishes for 2019!

Please Act Before the Year Ends

We Need YOU to Help Us Reach Our Goal! The new year is just days away and the GFO needs your help! We are just $2094 away from reaching our year-end fundraising goal. The GFO asks for your financial support only once a year. Donations fuel our very operations. Member dues don’t come close to covering our budget. This once-a-year appeal for contributions makes all the difference in our being able to keep the library open every day. The amount you spend to buy lunch out could make the difference. Even small gifts help us tremendously when many people come together. You can make it happen! Please make your tax deductible donation to the GFO today! Thank you for your continued support. Preserving and Sharing Heritage since 1946.

Give Today

The GFO belongs to the Oregon Cultural Trust. We have a Gold rating for transparency on GuideStar. Please check with your employer on possible matching donations, especially through Benevity. Thanks for all you do to keep GFO going strong!

A Serendipity Moment

The Oregon State Regent for DAR, Rebecca Taylor, came into the GFO recently to pick up some books that we were clearing from our shelves. She is not a genealogist. Rebecca told us of a book about her family, Lafollette, and that she had not been able to locate a copy anywhere. Just for fun, our Research Assistant on duty checked the GFO catalog and found L’histoire de la familie LaFollette en Amerique. This was the exact book she was looking for! Rebecca was ecstatic, thrilled to find the book and will be back one day soon to sit and browse through it. Check our catalog. You may find your family on our shelves, too.

Own This Piece of History

During our recent inventory, we discovered we had two books about a piece of American history many have forgotten. On Dec. 30, 1903, fire swept through the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago. More than 600 perished, making it the deadliest fire in a single building in U.S. history. Since we don’t need two copies, we are selling “The Great Chicago Theater Disaster, The Complete Story Told by the Survivors.” If you know a theater or Chicago history buff, get this book for just $25. Contact booksales@gfo.org if you’d like to buy it. As you can see from the photo above, the binding is damaged and has been repaired but all the pages inside appear fine. This this 114-year-old “Memorial Edition” was published in 1904. Don’t forget to check out all the hundreds of surplus historic books we have for sale online.

Deadline Soon to Register for Boot Camp

Our popular quarterly class is filling up! Registration closes January 3rd for Beginners’ Boot Camp on January 8th. Join Laurel Smith to learn how to get your research organized and the best techniques for finding family records. This is an all day lesson, even during lunch! Beginners’ Boot Camp is FREE for GFO members, $20 for non-members.

Sign Up Now!

GFO Volunteers: Please Report Your Hours

We’re all volunteer. That means we don’t have to track payroll. But we do need to track how many hours people contribute to keep the GFO running. If you volunteer during the month, please remember to tell us how many hours you generously give us. We’ve made it easy to report on this handy online form.

This week at GFO …

MONDAY, December 31 Library Closed TUESDAY, January 1 Library Closed WEDNESDAY, January 2 Learn & Chat 10 a.m. – noon Jan. 16. It will not meet next week. At Learn & Chat some of the learning comes from speakers with particular expertise but most of it comes from the sharing of experiences and knowledge of attendees who have developed methods that work for them. Join us to talk about your genealogy questions and help provide support to others. Facilitated by Jeanne Quan. DNA Q&A 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Lisa McCullough will be available to help answer your DNA questions, whether you are new and just getting started or have more involved questions. Questions? Email her ahead of time. Library Open late to 8 p.m.