COGenBlog

Grand Junction’s Museum of Western Colorado will present “Images of the Past,” their 2006 genealogy seminar, on 11 February 2006, featuring Dr. George K. Schweitzer. The event will be held at the Whitman Educational Center at 4th and Ute in Grand Junction. Dr. Schweitzer is a popular speaker known for appearing in costume to illustrate the themes of his presentations. His topics will be:

• Finding Your Ancestor’s Parents
• Military Genealogical Research
• Rivers to Trails to Roads to Canals to Trains

For more information, see page 6 of the Museum’s current newsletter at
(http://www.wcmuseum.org/NEWS2006/JAN2006NEWS.pdf)

Thanks to Bobbi King (president of Council) and Dennis Jenkins (member of Mesa County Genealogical Society) for providing this information.

Mary Wolff has continued a long time tradition in her family. She and her family have been saving their correspondence for over 200 years. About 75,000 documents are stored in 200 boxes in the family home in Boulder. The letters and essays are a glimpse into historical events from a middle-class family’s perspective.

To read the entire New York Times article, “In 200 Years of Family Letters, a Nation’s Story” go to
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/national/29letter.html?_r=1

A shorter version, “Family’s archive is one of nation’s largest” can be found in the Denver Post at
(http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3448800)

Leland Meitzler’s Genealogy Blog describes a new “Colorado Springs Cemetery Search” which is hosted by the city. According to a 17 January 2006 article in Colorado Springs Gazette, the data was furnished by the Pikes Peak Genealogical Society. The same data has been available for some time at El Paso County’s USGenWeb site, as well as in print and CD-ROM formats published by the Society. This new city database may be more accessible to non-genealogists.

The Denver Post has reported that Jefferson County District Judge Brooke Jackson has closed probate and divorce files to the public. The action was taken after a state directive was issued by the Colorado Supreme Court regarding 23 specific information items that cannot appear in the records. Judge Jackson claims that he does not have the staff to remove the information, therefore the records will be closed to the public. It is unknown whether other counties will adopt similar policies.
The genealogical community will continue to monitor the situation.

To read the story “Judge closes probate, divorce files” from the Denver Post, go
to (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3372188)

This item was sent to us by Kathleen Hinckley, CG.

Summit County cemetery, Dillon Cemetery, is part of Ancestry.com’s database “U.S. Headstone Photos.” The database has approximately 140 entries from Dillon Cemetery which lists the name, years of birth and death, and an image of the headstone. The states that are currently represented in the database are Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington, DC.