What to expect at the Santa Cruz Family History Center
Your visit to the Family
History Center will be more fun and productive if you come
prepared to take advantage of the resources available here.
Our center is non-profit,
however, we do charge our expense costs for microfilm and
microfiche order and for copies. It's a good idea to
bring a little change in case you find something you'd like
to print to take home. Copies are 15 cents each,
microfiche is 25 cents and microfilm orders are $6.50 each.
Our staff is entirely
volunteer and individual staffers have varying degrees of
experience with genealogy research. We will help you
to find and use the resources of the family history center,
but we will not do research for you or refer you to
professional genealogists.
You are welcome to use any of
our available equipment, including our desktop computers and
printers. We do not have wireless access available in
the family history center.
If you are using a computer
database to record your data, it would be a good idea to
bring a copy of your file on a flash drive. If you are
using one of the many commercially available databases, such
as Ancestral Quest or Legacy, you should bring a GEDCOM
file. Most genealogy database software includes and
"Export" function which allows you to create a GEDCOM file
from your database.
If you have not started a
computer database, bring your pedigree charts and family
group sheets.
You may want to bring a
notebook and pencils or pens for taking notes.
If you wish, you may bring a
digital camera in order to record research materials for
your private use. You are also welcome to email
digital copies of information to yourself if you've
forgotten your flash drive. Many email providers limit
the size of attachments to 10 MB which may easily be
exceeded by a few Census Pages or photographs.