The Down East Seniors Club held its June 1 meeting at the Blind Center of North Carolina in Washington. President Ed Hamrick led the meeting. Jim Hackney played for the singing of “God Bless America” and Charlie Mike Smith gave the invocation. Dick Paul provided humor.

James Lupton introduced Russell Tyson who spoke about genealogy. Tyson has been an amateur genealogist for a number of years and has traced his family’s American history back to 1639 on the eastern shore of Virginia. One’s genealogy begins with himself and proceeds back to earlier generations. The purpose is to learn family history, in addition to who the family members were. A good start is to talk to all living family members to obtain what they know about previous generations, then go to a library and study census records, obituaries in old newspapers, cemetery books and books about genealogy. American census records started in 1790 and were updated every 10 years. From 1840 on, they listed names and ages of everyone in a household. The 1890 records were destroyed by fire. Birth certificates (beginning in 1912 in North Carolina), death certificates, marriage licenses, military discharges, property deeds and wills can be found at the courthouse. Another good source of family information is the internet with sites like Ancestry.com.

Gene Schwartz won the 50/50 drawing.