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Welcome to our Blog

 The Fresno California North Stake is located in the San Joaquin Valley of California half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  We have been decicated for many years to training our Family History Center staff and Ward Temple and Family History Consultants. This blog may evolve but it's initial purpose is to provide a place for us to publish links to the videos of our recorded classes and the PDF files of the PowerPoint slide decks for these presentation. Our presentation are housed at YouTube in our channel - Fresno North Stake Family History Center Trainings.  These are PowerPoint presentations and PDF documents of these slide decks are located here for your convenience. All work hosted here is created under the copyright of Robert Givens.  The material is free to be shared as long as credit for it's creation is retained.
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All Good Things Must End One Day (November 12, 2026)

As Chad and Jeremy sang in the song A Summer Song in 1964 - "...all good things must end some day" - it is time for this series of classes to come to an end.  For the past six and a half years it has been my pleasure to serve all of you through providing you hopefully helpful and educational content related to family history and FamilySearch specifically.  Do to so serious health issues I need to voluntarily close this project down, though I will leave this blog up so you can locate both the videos and the PDFs of the slide decks. As I said above, it has been a pleasure to serve you and I hope you all find happiness and joy in finding your ancestors and helping others do the same. " 
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The Reservation Process Today (Where we are and how we got there) (November 12, 2026)

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  This week's class was "The Reservation Process Today."  I always like to end the year with something on temples and the reservation process.  This year the presentation is a little different.  This class covers a little about how the Brethren plan for the future - including temples and proxy temple work.  We focus on how the reservation process changed when new.familysearch and the FamilySearch Tree were introduced including issues that came from this new reservation process.  We also cover policies that had to be instituted to control over zealous submitters and the rules as they stand today.  Finally we briefly cover ways to find relatives who need temple work.  Link to the Video Link to the PDF of the Slides
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Source Linker on FamilySearch (October 28, 2026)

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Fill in Your Tree Using Newspapers (October 14, 2026)

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This presentation - Fill in Your Tree Using Newspapers - provides help in using this great genealogical resource. Researching your ancestor in newspapers can be a very rewarding experience.  Many details of your ancestor's life can only be found here.  This class will discuss the many non-vital record details that can be found in newspapers, explain where newspapers can be found, discuss general search techniques for online sites, describe the biggest online newspaper sites and how to use them, and finally dive into the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) showing what it is and how to best use it for newspaper research. Link to the recorded class   Link to a PDF of the slides    
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U. S. Census Research - Getting the Maximum Value From It (September 23, 2026)

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"The U. S. Census" covers the topic of what is on each of the various census enumerations from 1790 to 1950. It also covers what is unique on each census, the on-population schedules that were taken from time to time, and even takes a peak at state census records. Search strategies and how to use the census to track a family over time is discussed. This is a great chance for you to learn what you need to know to take the full advantage of what can be found on the U. S. Census. Link to the class video Link to the PDF document of the slides  
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What are User Trees at FamilySearch? (September 9, 2026)

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  FamilySearch has finally provided useable alternative option to their collaborative focused FamilySearch FamilyTree. This project is recently been renamed User Trees and provides an experience that is very similar to that found at the other major genealogy sites on the web. This class will explain exactly what User Trees are, where they are located on the FamilySearch web site, how to create a User Tree and finally how to use it. Link to the recorded class Link to a PDF document of the slides for this class
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The Improved Merge Experience at FamilySearch (June 24, 2026)

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Over the past couple of years FamilySearch has made several improvements to the merge experience with the goal being that the system will help us do a better job of merging duplicates and not merge non-duplicate people. This class presents a short history of merging at FamilySearch, describes the basics of merging, describes the tools FamilySearch has developed to help with merging, and finally walks you through 3 merges and one case where a bad merge needs to be reversed. This is a valuable lesson for all of us to view. Link to the Presentation  Link to PDF of Slides  
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