Reminder

The next meeting of the Intermountain Chapter of AHSGR will be held Saturday, April 17, 2010, at the American Heritage Retirement Community Clubhouse, 3040 Homecrest Street, West Valley City, Utah. The board will meet at 12:00 noon, with the general meeting to follow at 1:00 P.M.

Check It Out

Visit the Warenburg, Russia post from February of this year. It has been edited to include more information I just recieved.

Warenburg Church

Sharon White contributed these two pictures of the Warenburg Church. The bottom one was taken in August 2003 by Sharon. It was the pride of the village when it was built. The roof has collapsed. There is no longer a floor, and animals now wander through it. The bricks were once white washed or painted. The first Warenburg Church was a wooden structure. It was replaced by this brick building that was built in 1902 or 1904, and seated 1200 people. It was built in the Kontor style which was chosen by the Saratov Kontor, the Office for Administrating the Colonies which dictated the style and plans.

Natural Disasters and Geneology

I recently read an article in Family Chronicle that talked about the natural disasters that left well-remembered landmarks in the lives of many of our ancestors. It got me thinking about a significant disaster that is part of my family story. My grandfather, Joseph George Burghardt, traveled to the U.S.A. from Russia via Germany. His arrival in Galveston was shortly after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. His first introduction to this country was helping clean up the bodies from that disaster. Over 8,000 people died in that hurricane which destroyed most of the Texas port city. It has definitely been a landmark for me. Because so many records were destroyed, I've never found any record of his arrival on a particular ship. (I'm still looking.) I believe that many of our family stories are related to some sort of natural disaster. Below I've listed some sites that might be helpful in filling in details of our ancestors' stories.

www.tornadohistoryproject.com
This site has 52,000 tornado maps of storms dating from 1950 to 2008. Search by date, state,and county.

www.erh.noaa.gov/aly/Past/WINTER.htm
This site lists major winter blizzards beginning in 1888.

www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/doctor.htm
This is the site map for Weather Doctor, and its Weather Diary lists notable snowfalls and extreme temperatures over the past centuries in the US, Canada, and the world. It is arranged chronologically and sorted by month.

www3.gendisasters.com
This site gives an overall listing of disasters. Browse for reports by date, type of disaster, and state or Canadian province.

www.cyndislist.com/disasters.htm
This site has a collection of links regarding natural and man-made disasters.