AncestorNews: Family Reunions

Last May, I wrote about the Boozell Family Reunion that Phyllis Quarg (former president of the San Diego Genealogical Society) had planned in York, Pa. At the time, Phyllis showed me her reunion notebook, the e-mails she had sent to all the Boozells she could find, and the exciting plans for touring the family home and church.

I remember being impressed with her organizational skills, and surprised at what was involved in planning a family get-together. As a kid, my only memories of family reunions were bunches of people showing up at a park with picnics. Things have changed! The Boozell reunion, for instance, involved a pre-reunion trip to York, meetings with people from the visitors and convention bureau, a solid budget, arrangements for a bus tour of the area and a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dinner.

I had lunch with Phyllis last week and heard how successful the reunion had been. Before going, she even had hardbound books printed about the family’s history, and almost all had been sold to the family that gathered in their ancestral home. All the hard work had paid off—and now she has connections to relatives that will probably last a lifetime.

Do you have the bug to reunite family? If so, it’s not too early to start planning:

• Thinking About a Reunion?
www.genealogy.com/genealogy/32_reunion.html

• What Should We Do at a Family Reunion
www.genealogy.com/genealogy/34_reunion.html

• Family Reunion Software
family-reunion.com/organizer

• Family-Reunion
family-reunion.com

• George Morgan’s Tips for Planning a Family Reunion
www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/george/848.asp

• A Family Reunion Planning Checklist
www-instruct.nmu.edu/math_cs/kiltinen/web/checklist.html

• Get-Together Goodies
www.familytreemagazine.com/articles/aug00/reunion.html