Utah Student to Receive Genealogy Grant

The Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant Committee is pleased to announce that Paul Woodbury, a Brigham Young University senior from Provo, Utah will receive $500 from the Freeman Memorial Grant program and 3-day registration to the 2014 Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank, California from SCGS.

Paul will attend the SCGS Jamboree June 6-8, 2014 and use the grant funds toward genealogy research and education. This is the fourth year that the Freeman Student Genealogy Grant Program and SCGS have partnered to offer a student genealogy award.

Paul works at the campus Center for Family History and Genealogy and recently participated in a community seminar in Washington D.C. In 2013 he joined a student study abroad program and visited the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome — that’s quite a genealogy research trip!

The new SCGS Jamboree DNA Day is a special attraction for Paul who is majoring in Genetics and Biotechnology and plans to pursue a career in genetic genealogy. He is excited about the great potential of genetics to help reunite families separated by adoption or abandonment and locate lost ancestors for family historians.

The Student Genealogy Grant was founded in 2011 following the unexpected death of my mother, Suzanne Winsor Freeman. She was an enthusiastic fan of the SCGS Jamboree and an ardent GeneaBlogger follower who worked with student volunteers for many years in her capacity as Director of Voluntary Action Centers in Orange County, California and in Arizona. Mom was hopeful that DNA would solve a long-standing brick wall problem in our family tree, and we may get through it yet!

Past recipients of the Student Genealogy Grant include Anthony Ray of Palmdale, Elyse Doerflinger of Lomita, A.C. Ivory of Salt Lake City, and Mike Savoca of New Jersey.

Please join me in congratulating Paul as the 2014 recipient of the Suzanne Winsor Freeman Student Genealogy Grant, and be sure to welcome him when you see him at Jamboree.