Quilt stories will celebrate centennial

By Sharon Burns

Published: May 29, 2006

Oklahoma's centennial celebration features many projects by individuals, organizations and communities to record our state's historical events and preserve original records.

Judy Howard, author of "Heavenly Patchwork -- Quilt Stories Stitched with Love" and "Heavenly Patchwork II -- Quilt Stories to Warm Your Heart," recently conducted a state centennial quilt contest that featured 22 quilts created by children and adults to show their pride in Oklahoma's history.

Howard is writing a book, "Centennial Stitches -- Oklahoma History Seen in Quilts," which will feature the winning quilts as well as historic Oklahoma quilts and stories. She stated that contributions include the Methodist Women's 1914 Signature quilt made as a fund-raiser for Carrie Nation and many other quilts that document our state's history better than any history book.

Readers who wish to contribute their historic Oklahoma quilt photos and stories about their ancestor's journey to Oklahoma and other historic events can call Howard at 751-3885, e-mail Heavenly

Patchwork@cox.net or go online to HeavenlyPatchwork.com.

Family history project
The Southwest Oklahoma Genealogical Society has announced a family history centennial project that is important to Oklahoma's state history and for family history researchers of the future.

The project is about preserving vital records, inventories of museum collections, old photos, original historic manuscripts, copies of old newspapers, town ledgers and other valuable resources that can disappear forever when a natural or man-made disaster occurs.

Oklahoma communities and counties are encouraged to take the initiative to safeguard the state's important documents as their state centennial project.

The society encourages genealogical and historical societies to help by determining if their city, county governments, museums and newspapers are safeguarding their records. They suggest these steps:

Determine what local governments are doing to secure their records. Are computer backups done every day? Are they stored in a secure area? Are documents and photos being scanned?

Ask if local governments need volunteers to assist with scanning records into a computer database to be stored in an offsite facility.

Recognize local governments that had the foresight to understand the importance of duplicating and securing records.

Inquire if the local newspaper(s) and museum(s) are safeguarding their records by backing up data files and scanning original documents. If needed, volunteer to help duplicate records and inventories of collections.

Inform the media at the beginning of the project and explain why this is an state centennial project. Keep the media informed of the progress during the centennial year. At the end of 2007, publicize what has been accomplished.

For more information, contact SWOGS at P.O. Box 148, Lawton, OK 73502-0148 or go online to www.sirinet.net/âlgaris/swogs.

Genealogy notebook
The Oklahoma Genealogical Society meeting will be at 6 p.m. June 5 in the Chesapeake Event Center in the Oklahoma History Center, 2401 N Laird Ave.

La Nell Shores' topic will be "The Scots in Early America: The Ancient and Modern Clan Systems and How to Find Your Clan." Part of the presentation will include a timeline of incidents in Scotland that caused the Scots to immigrate to America.

The meeting is open to the public. Volunteer genealogists will be available at 5 p.m. to help with research questions.

For more information, call Billie Fogarty, society president, at 286-1190, e-mail okgensoc@aol.com or go online to www.rootsweb.com/âokgs.

"Introduction to Passenger Arrival Records" will be presented from 2 to 3:30 p.m. June 17 at the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library, 300 Park Ave.

The program will demonstrate how to search for an ancestor's passenger arrival record on the Castle Garden and Ellis Island Web sites.

For more information and to register, call 606-3856. For parking information, go online to www.metrolibrary.org.

If you have a question, event, idea or an experience you wish to share, e-mail Sharon Burns at sburns@ oklahoman.com.