everybody and thank you for joining us again for another Wednesday reveal. We have Michael Lacapo again below me and then we have Karen who was his amazing captain for this week. Good to see you all. Okay and to begin with I'm gonna go ahead and give just a little bit of information about wiki tree and then we're gonna dive right in because I'll tell you what this team just went crazy getting everything done this week they were incredible incredible up to the last minute so for anybody that is new out there wiki tree is a community of genealogists who are working together on a single family tree so in other words we collaborate to make an accurate global tree that connects us all and it's free now the wiki tree challenge has been our year-long event and part of our year of accuracy where we have taken a guest star every week and we've had our team members work on their tree to make them as accurate and complete as we possibly can and hopefully more so than anywhere else so once again we have Karen as our captain this week and she's going to give you a little bit of information about well a lot of information really about Michael's tree that's right we had some fun this week it was we're proud of our collaboration and our international team but this week it really showed well I'm a mutt so you got you got Italy you got Switzerland you got Germany you got like so I knew it was a choose from you were actually called NATO at one point this week yes and it you know it wasn't intentional but we're highlighting a couple of countries here because it was really fun to watch a little bit of the race between the Italian experts and the German experts they were kind of sprinting past each other one would get ahead and they were knocking down brick walls just like champions so it's fun to see whether the whether we were finding more there you know with the Germans or the Italians and so we looked at each of your eight great grandparents and kind of that's how we keep ourselves organized and with the lack of pose in the which were the Italian part of your tree branches there were some new parents found for Camelo Romeo and in the marriage record she married Francesco Trion Berry and it lists her parents were Bruno and Elisabetta Caruso who were both alive when she married Bruno we found was born about 1764 and he lived all the way to about 80 which pretty impressive for that time period his wife Elisabetta Caruso was 72 when she died so those were two new ancestors we found there and we really did go nuts with with the lack of pole lines they they kind of exploded outward Chris Ferriolo and our Italian project they got to flex their muscle and show off all of their research skills and we find ourselves with 17 new ancestors in this part of your tree and when you wander through the branches you'll see several lack of pole lines with all of this family coming out of garage it was we knew we were going to find common names common ancestors and we learned that 10 years ago there were only 1043 people in garage and places like San Giovanni de garage where most of the lack of pose were coming from there were only like 577 residents there in 2004 and unlike other parts of Europe with all of the net migration the population is just is not going up in this area and we just learned a little bit about a garage that it sits on this conglomerate of kind of a rocky shaped plateau and had big harbor walls and was all enclosed in like a fortress with with a castle dominating the northern area and all of these artifacts of the noble buildings that are out on the main arteries and in the squares of the city there are just majestic portals with coats of arms of the house that's engraved and just lacquered by balconies that open up into open courtyards and gardens and churches so we all want to go to garage now to see the churches and the palaces with all the windows and portals made by the stone cutters and and all the tangling streets and LA's and it was just neat to learn about how you've got all this urban texture and just centuries of history history being embraced but still being a modern city yeah and they they they didn't wander away they you keep there in Georgia from you know early early early and they just continue down that line so it's great for genealogists you much too much right yeah because the history is there and maybe some of the children have to move away but but the families still are there yeah so that power of that single place so when we're researching sometimes this was a week of like but wait let's think about this again when we limit ourselves to just a week instead of a lifetime of research we make discoveries but then we look at a branch again and we change it and go in a different direction we found records that made it look like we had some paternal grandparents for a dominico lagapo and Anna Maria let it's ya putchi and this would have made different parents for dominico Micaela and Dominic Michael than what you had and then like 17 ancestors on that line and then further research supported Pasquale la copa and Maria Teresa la copa la copa as the correct parents yeah so then the original line attached went back to Nikola and and then we found that we had some descendants from a different child that wasn't your Dominico wasn't your ancestor but we still wound up with 10 new ancestors and Mindy do you have any more even last minute updates or thoughts on this since it's been changing you know really there's there's just some incredible work once again done by the Italy project and Michael both lines have actually been documented now that second line that was initially thought to be Teresa's grandparents is actually a descendant a cousin's descendant coming off of Nikola higher up yeah I've got three or four different la copa lines and the two of them come from Nikola yeah right you have four of them and you know we thought we had it narrowed down to three so they were kind of excited about that part you know and then they went oh wait a minute but now we have these records so I think he was right and we need to put it back but you know that happens I mean that you know that's just part of researching and lots and lots of la copos and not a lot of originality of names all Antonio's and Giuseppe's yeah that there they can be tough to sort out but that's a lot of work in a week I mean I mean even though you're in the same place it's like you find one marriage it means you have to go back to the births and then you have to go back to the death you go back to marriage and like it's a lot of back and forth that's fantastic yeah there were hours and hours spent looking through these through these records so pretty amazing yeah fantastic sure and and on the same line we know we were looking at Teresa and your second great-grandmother her last child was a daughter Katarina who was born in 1903 in Gorache her birth was reported by a midwife because Bruno Antonio was in America at the time he traveled back and forth so you know a lot of times to America and so he rarely was the informant for his other children you know and last two or maybe the three he was in America so yeah he came back that's enough to you know make a new child I know and it was surprising though to see the mother's name on the records you know the midwife as you know was for the youngest daughter but the other ones they had the mother as the informant and you're like wow okay why is the woman why is the woman's name in there so many times yeah I did the count on one of them I was looking at some of the Italian projects work in Chris's work Chris Ferriero he's been just awesome this week it's we see people talking about in the chat and I went okay so wait a minute Chris how often did he go back and forth because when he went to America on that trip ten months later his child was born so I guess he hopped hopped back and went back you know I mean it's all documented so and that was common for Italian immigrants they were they were called birds of passage they went back and forth mostly to make money and even looking at Dominic in the in the south bend papers he was you know up to the outbreak of World War one he's like oh I'm gonna open a store and I'm in a wholesale spaghetti and olive oil direct from Italy so you know they were going back there all the time and bringing products to try to introduce so we left as while everyone was going nuts on Lockapo we looked at Helen Marie Warner's lines and just in the last day we have proven parents for Christian Wolf your fifth great-grandfather and found that his father was Peter Wolf and his mother Elizabeth Riezer so that's that's an error that's been recopied over again yeah because it's Peter's nephew Peter married in Elizabeth Kaiser and that is a misreading for the wrong Peter in a wrong record so that's been but it's been written over and over and over and over again okay so so we did the same thing you know we almost find ourselves doing it with other branches and and so that will be interesting and it'd be great to be in dialogue and collaborate in and go well here's to look at where you turn that aside you know it went in a different direction and what made you choose not to accept Peter and Peter and Elizabeth yes it currently Elizabeth's maiden name is unknown so okay do not know who she is but I know it's not research so I know where that went wrong because a cousin of mine wrote a book and she mis misrepresented or misinterpreted a record and it was actually for the nephew Peter who married a Kaiser which is a script which she read as Riser so you know I know how that domino effect happens so so do we have so the Peter from 1740 in Bethel Township yeah he's your guy one who lived in Pitt Township in Allegheny yep yeah yeah yeah so we've got the five five children on the will and then what we should get together on is is Elizabeth and how she turned up and whether we can convince you that we've got it or whether like no no that needs to be dismissed and that's the fun of burning through all this in a week yeah yeah we've got some great volunteers who transcribe wills for us and enjoy doing that which boy looking at some of the handwriting we saw this week that's not my favorite so we know that when his will was proved and so we know obviously he died before probate probate and we've got that full transcription on the profile so so we can go and look at that so we on the Ruth Sats line how do you say it Ruth Sats yeah so this is where we talked about our international experts and Dieter Lieberins is certainly a great one to have on the German lines and he went full steam ahead on on this line which is reaching all the way to Johann Heinrich Hohmann born before 1743 a six great-grandfather his son's marriage record it was pretty hard to read but it was clear that his father was Johann Heinrich and that the wife's father was oh his wife was the oldest daughter of of Heineken there's and so here we've got 13 new folks that we've added in Germany to this line so that was really fun and I love that the German records sorry I love that the German records mentioned stuff like that you know that's not something you find in the US records like where they'll say second son of or you know the the oldest daughter or things like that whether the parents were living those extra bits of information that kind of help you understand the family dynamics and I've worked with those church records in Bergdorf and they are horrible to read well it looks a little clearer when we left Ruth Sats and Ruth Sats and looked at swarm on clear as line and now am I skipping a slide no there we go and and here we had some breakthroughs on a Swiss line so we found the baptism of Katharina Charlotte Moser who became Mrs. Nussbaum and her parents were Johannes or Jean on the French side Moser and Katharina Hommel Jean and Katharina had six children and they were always on a mountain it seemed like they were in the mountains or observe the day and then they were in the mountains of Perry Sortenheim Bevelard where we've last found them in 1811 so we know Johannes died after 1811 and on this line we were looking at the Nussbaum's from the mother we had connected Mary Emmeline Nussbaum's parents pretty early in the week but not very solidly proven and so that came as we kept digging in and we we you know we we knew that that it was felt that it was Christian Nussbaum and Rhoda Leida who were the parents and we're able to prove that and that Christians parents were Jacob and Catherine Moser and and then we proved Catherine's parents the Mosers and then we have some possible parents attached to Jacob that that Johannes and Anna Lehman that we'll have to look more closely at no that's all right yeah cool yeah so at least we agree or work we're we're both right or both wrong together and on the Schwarm side we looked at Frederica Caroline the wife of Heinrich and she was born in all sense in 1803 and that's called Rhineland Falks now the Rhineland Palatinate and Frederica was the daughter of Friedrich Schwarmann he was a shoemaker and Christina Weinal was Friedrich's wife and Friedrich's grandfather was also a shoemaker and he was the godparent at her baptism and the the unknown there the on the back side so David Winnell's wife was Anna Marguerite the Schwarm so Schwarm's been old Schwarm's been old so it's like it's like the Lockebo family like they just keep intermarrying yeah so you feel that you've got Schwarm on both sides there Schwarm's made Schwarm's and Winnell's marrying Schwarm's and Schwarm's marrying others so yeah it's yeah I'm deeply inter-interconnect connected to myself nice I redoubt a dirty we didn't we didn't really smash walls here we enjoyed learning about your great aunt Lillian and her notability that her authorship of this series of books that she traveled and lectured read for Lighthouse of the Blind many other things like myself she was a member of Mensa and and that so did you know her well so she lived it was actually a kind of a joke because my my grandfather would he would say oh you know Lillian was a member of Mensa and I'm like yeah you mentioned before he goes well I thought I would say it first because she says it every time she talks to someone that's hilarious yeah I'm like I'm kind of like the member of the club that I don't know why that they let me in but I'm a member too and I got it my essay so it's like it was just yeah sneak in really really easy so right yeah if you did well when you were 16 whether we're still smart now we looked at William Timmons and and you told us we were gonna find criminals there was some criminal element but it was the victim so Ada Young Keeser who was your great-grandfather second wife Josiah second wife she was murdered so she took a lover named Martin Greiner after Josiah died and Martin was had a whole dump you know murder suicide planned for for Ada and himself he did shoot himself in the head but lived on for several days after after the attempt I gave a lecture once and just randomly I had a descendant of Martin Greiner in the audience oh wow and he was featured in your lecture so we we went on to the Timmons branches and really struggled to add and find sources there we spent some time on the Dawson's and we we were going down the garden path again we you know latched on to that idea that he was in that 7th Pennsylvania and then we were like but wait but no he really only he signed an oath of allegiance which is how my DA our Patriot joined from southern Indiana a Frenchman who who signed an oath of allegiance in Vincennes and and so Edward and we believe his father is also Edward and they both signed the oaths of allegiance in Washington County Maryland in 1788 and that's documented and sourced on the profile from those revolutionary records of Maryland that that I've just blanked on the names of the two two folks that edited those and we wrote up his migration to Ohio on the profile where they sold their land in Ohio and then moved on to what to you know County there by Purdue right for just just a couple of years before Edward passed away so that confusion again you know confusing that Edward Dawson was it Dawson was it Davidson was the soldier no Dawson was the one who supported the cause by signing the oath and and we looked at you've got 16 cousins in DAR from Edward because you don't have to fight to be a Patriot and in these organizations one of the the DAR members under Edward Dawson is the late mother of one of our wiki tree members named Jean a fifth cousin of yours okay yeah so so and Jean's a DNA tester so so we don't match that many of our fifth cousins but maybe you'll you'll match up with yeah it's a good point because many for a long time he was considered a soldier in the 7th Pennsylvania line which was based on 1930s DAR application right Aronius so I actually spent a lot of time writing up a paper disproving that's who he was yeah and and now when you look on the on the DAR records for him they don't read the word about Pennsylvania I actually submitted it to the National Society so they could fix it yeah that's part of genealogy too is fixing yeah and luckily since he signed that oath they didn't have to kick those I felt better about that I didn't want my old lady storing my house so right or or not so old ladies like me yeah and we looked at Eddie Knowles and and the and we looked at the Knowles in the few gates really closely scrutinizing them this week and we found that that a great great aunt Sarah Knowles Yeoman and and your fourth great-grandfather John Knowles were were heavily involved in founding Rensselaer where St. Joseph's College was and the St. Joseph's Church is probably also connected with the Indian Normal School that was there for many years and so so we found you know that the Knowles and Yeoman's were were pioneers of and organizers of of Rensselaer yeah David David now is supposed to be the first white child born in Jasper County and the name of this town got what became Rensselaer because I think it was Steven Van Rensselaer one of the van Rensselaer's came from New York with a land patent that was on the land the Knowles were squatting on so the Knowles got kicked off the Rensselaer's took it over and so it's not called Knowlesville yeah that was about halfway to Purdue from from my house yeah well those are the the eight great grandparents and all the family lines we looked at it was a big week with a lot of participation so Mindy is the queen of the fan charts and she can tell us about what your tree looks like now at the end of the week on wiki tree and how all our wiki trees did all right and before we do that I'm going to touch on just briefly and of course Michael you mentioned how difficult some of the records are you already know from here's a research on your family but for those that didn't this is what you know they faced as far as some of the Italian records and with any research there's often challenges deciphering these you can see one on the upper left that it actually doesn't show as much there but it's pretty legible but there are other ones that were really they had big ink blotches they had water damage they had sections of the pages missing and you know our people will get together so several of them sometimes and change the contrast doing everything they could you know I'll get together and chat about it that collaboration part coming together and I'm sorry there's some in there are half eaten by rats like there's half this thing yeah yeah so and of course with that area we can't just go to family search or go to this or go check on ancestry or check somewhere else you know you either have Antonati or you have nothing and so if you go to Antonati and it's all you know blotch up water damaged or what not you know then you don't have those other records like the church records to fall back on to try and look though that information up so my hats off to all of our researchers yeah and then actually Karen I'll let you do this one before I do the fan charts yeah we really enjoy learning our history and that always includes military history so so we like to document those who served or landed aid to the cause you know so we saw the Daniel families in Virginia and again like we looked at Thomas Daniel and there's definitely a Virginia seaman from Virginia serving on board ship and there's a Thomas Daniel who made a public service claim that he should be paid back for the over $500 of supplies that and services he made to the cause so so here comes I do the dog to participate she said so well you know need to look at like like we believe that that Thomas rendered aid to the revolution and that his son Charles provided supplies we know and again Edward Dawson and and at the elder Edward both took the took the O's and we found the Jacob Beavers at your fifth great-grandfather serving in the war of 1812 and just the sheer numbers of people involved in the the Civil War you know that that Jacob Warner serving in both Pennsylvania and then also being affiliated with an Indiana unit a bit later in the war Andrew Wolfe third-grade grandfather serving out of Ohio and lost a son no lost a brother George who was killed in action near Raleigh in North Carolina John Stover died from typhoid the deaths from disease and an infection and illness you know took took so many as well a cousin who served out of Indiana from the Yeoman family and William Laquat we did died at the Marine Hospital at Mobile Mobile in Alabama and then coming all the way into World War one with Dominic and noticing how he had to go register for the draft even though he wasn't even a citizen you know he had had even been naturalized and it but then he did serve in 1918 I think from June or July and and then was discharged like four days after Armistice Day he never went overseas and he got his naturalization easier for aliens of naturalized based on military service so in 1922 based on a service he got streamlined passage to naturalization right which was great but then 20 years later just imagine the fear of them coming back out you for the old man's draft you know and and so so he had to register in 1942 and and wonder you know are they really gonna come after the 47 year olds to serve when when World War two was lingering on yes so so everybody gets gets the little we call them stickers you know when you're making a note about someone being a patriot according to a society or a member or or service or just their ethnicity highlighting roots from Germany or or Italy or Switzerland we enjoy highlighting all of these historical notes on our ancestors on the tree well how did we do with the great big tree chart Mindy we did pretty good we started out now this is what I used for reference of course I have to have something to mark where the available brick walls are so according to Michael's own research everywhere that you see the yellow portions out there most of it out on the ninth generation so his research is you know really solid I'm getting out up to eight every one of those yellow spots is in possible brick wall ancestor now we have added ancestors beyond that point on many of the lines but we only count the very first one on each line as an actual brick wall ancestor and then as you can see in the pop up out to the right what all those little dots are on there or that's where I've marked it so a lot of the discoveries were focused on the paternal grandfather side of course and in that first one fourth of the tree but you know people worked so hard this week on all of it it just really was incredible to watch and for everybody out there I'll show you this is what we started with this week so now there are the great grandparents that we talked about we don't work we never on the challenge work closer than that than the great grandparents for privacy reasons but that is what we started with sometimes we have a guess they come on a little bit of their trees already on wiki tree we started fresh which is kind of nice and then this is what we ended up with so once again you can see you know the explosions of work on the paternal side of the fan chart but also in all kinds of places over on the maternal site and you know I'd like to thank our researchers this week because we had some incredible help from the Italian project once again and then you know we talked about how amazing our German help was and behind the scenes though there was also really really great research done on Michael's mother side and you know that isn't reflected as much on the brick wall chart as what a bounding point would be you know our brick wall ancestor but people spent hours and hours this week researching some of those that you know Michael's already researched but we wanted to see if we could just push it even one generation beyond and one of the great things about wiki tree is we have that beautiful white space on the profile so you know Michael you'll see where people have left extensive notes on some of these so that you know where they looked what they're you know how they determined something if they did make a decision on anything but each one of these profiles that you see on this chart represents this total amazing effort this week and you know hopefully some of those notes will help you take down even more brick walls in the future who's the Italian guy Chris Chris Ferriero I'm kidnapping him and we're gonna go to Italy and get the cheer trackers from that sounds good I think you have a couple of people from the Italy project which would love to go to they're all gonna be climbing into the suitcase I really want to call my father come from a common ancestor and I want a wide DNA study but I already have too many DNA studies pending I'm like spent I spent all my money on books and DNA so right and of course the civil registration didn't start until 1809 which is really quite late as far as research goes and so you just don't have those unless you can get back there and actually go in the churches and look at the registers and hope they're intact the nice thing I think Chris saw from what I saw on the chart is that you know the when they got married they had to have permission from the father's if the father wasn't alive they had to prove his death and if the if the father's died they had to get permission from the paternal grandfather he's died he died to prove his death too so really even though the record start in the early 1800s you can really get those little hints back to the mid 1700s so you know those records are fantastic but yeah you need to break in those church records and I have too many loco pose I need to unravel so yeah I'll tell you what we were saying the same thing and Chris definitely was saying the same thing it was just the curiosity was just getting to him this week he says I want to be able to connect all these lines and you go for it but you know unfortunately we only got so far just like you only got so far they got back as far as the available online records would let us really fun I know I learned a lot in you know trying to decipher I learned how to decipher who the parents were and what some of the terminology was and really you're our first guest all year amazingly enough that has this strong Italian ancestry so it's something to do yeah so you know this was the Italian team yeah this was our first opportunity to actually learn about the Italian records and you know watch that project and action and it was really great it was a lot of fun I know they worked you know some of them are on the clock and I know there are a few of them that are going to continue this week since we will be having a break week and they're really excited about being able to push those lines just a little bit further even though they aren't going to get the points for it which will lead us into the next topic and that of course is our collaboration and scoring so collaboration is key during the challenge and really that's what wiki tree is all about anyways but it's great to see people galvanized and see it in action now when you get 25 or even up to 40 or 50 people working on a tree you know a set of branches it's really easy to trip over somebody or research something that's already being researched and you know when your efforts can be best bet elsewhere so on the left you see the spreadsheet we use and that's where we go in and hopefully put the profile we're working on when we move up to the parents or move down to the children whichever way in our research we try and change that so other people know not to work on that specific profile on the right you see the g2g post and Michael you will get a link to this as well as some other stuff and that's where we claim bounty points and you know other discoveries or questions unfortunately not a lot of it went into that this week but there are some great comments and some good information out there so it it's really good and then discord now this is our big way this is our live chat platform that we're using right now and I tell you what it has just been an incredible thing for us this week an incredible tool to use since we are a global site we have people that chat in the challenge rooms around the clock there's always somebody that's up in the world somewhere researching and so you know you can come in in the morning and sip your morning coffee and read back and see what the England people were doing or you know the German experts we're working at and kind of catch yourself up now you know we also do things like ask for help in there you know we may want a will transcribe one of our members Steven is so awesome at those will transcriptions really patient and you know we may be looking for an article a lot of it this week was looking at those old records and people would go okay now everybody this is the one I'm trying to read the name on what's the spelling you know and six people would jump on it and put in their input and then you know try to come to a consensus on what it might be and so you know there there's nowhere else in the world that you have that kind of a resource available that that we have with this challenge and it really makes a huge difference to be able to reach out to you know 10 people at one time and and just go okay everybody stop what you're doing and help me and they do just really amazing now of course while it's not all about the points we do have a point system that not only helps keep us motivated but it also gives you a way to kind of track your progress and see how you're doing and it's really been interesting to see over the year how that balance is kind of changes depending on what the challenges are for that specific tree now we have two ways to earn points we have once again those bounty points that's the big one that's for the first brick wall ancestor we get to on any line and the person that discovers that and creates the profile improves it gets 10 points for that person we also have the individual points and some weeks that was really out of you know I didn't see that as much in your family branches as far as in the Italian and the German ones you know you didn't have the big like 10 15 kids like like we've seen some weeks and while Dieter is just amazing at finding the German children I know of the Italian records they really really had a hard time because they'd sit there and have to flip through you know 20 years of registers to see if there were any more children and you get all the way through that and you have like okay he had three kids and then you go to the next couple rinse and repeat you do the same thing all over again so very time-consuming and much harder I think for the people that worked on the Italian branches to get those those individual points and you know that on top of it as Karen had mentioned we had that really fun kind of back and forth between the German experts and our Italian experts so you know Germany was ahead for most of the week Italy kept sneaking in there and they leapfrog over and they'd be like aha we just got you know four new ancestors woohoo and then pretty soon Germany would quietly come in and go okay so did we so it just was amazing and you know I look at two things when I do this I look at the top five and I'm gonna go ahead and read those off of course Dieter Lieberens is our German expert and he was in the top slot this week all week pretty much him and Chris Ferriero now as far as bounty points though they went back and forth and I have to say the last time I checked they were actually tied which was amazing and all of that happened like right at the last hour before the live cast started so it just was incredible to watch them continue you know to plug hard at those lines now Kathy Ravenstein worked on also worked on some of the German lines and worked on some of the United States research and did a great job out there Melanie McComb of course is a prior guest and she has just been awesome as a participant and she was up there with the top five and then the fifth one would be our Maddie Hardman who's just amazing it seems like no matter what location we throw out or Maddie can get in there and do something with it and so now I'm gonna go ahead and we're gonna take a look at what those scores actually wound up being so the first column for total points and of course there you see Dieter and Chris at the top now the total points Dieter nobody was catching him this week he was just he was the man total points though for entire participants was 920 points now we also had things that they didn't get points for so you know there's a wonderful space page that's that's linked that had kind of a mini one named study done with some really incredible research and you know there's peripheral relatives that people looked at you know just to make sure they could rule something out or to try and figure out why somebody was in a household they shouldn't have been you know trying to connect cousins they don't get points for any of that what they get points for are those bounty points and those direct ancestors and then the just the nuclear relatives so within one step you know children siblings if you add those you get a point so at any rate we had 920 total points now we had 400 and what was it 441 on the total ancestors and 175 of those were direct so those are all direct ancestors to you now of course Michael had some of those on the tree on your own tree to begin with but you know we count everything that gets added from the start of the challenge just to keep track of where we're at and then 305 of those nuclear relatives so I mean once again I know there's a lot of people working on it but that many profiles created in a week it just blows your mind to think of how much work goes into that you know and actually sourcing them and then the next number is the big one now course bounty points and you see the Deeter and Chris are tied at the top 130 each so that's 13 brick walls they each took down and then all together we are at an amazing 440 and another unique thing that we had this week is that we actually had 12 different bounty hunters this week and I know that doesn't sound like a big number you know but once again a lot of our participants are backfilling stuff some of them are filling out those lines that we already knew about some of those are working on space pages some of those are doing things like the transcriptions you know there's a lot of things that get done that aren't bounty points that people are doing and it takes a team you know just like it takes a village it takes all of them and it's all equally important so the fact that we had actually 12 of them that pushed through those boundaries and hit brick walls it was just really really amazing they did a great job and then the lot final two numbers we had 796 unique profiles were edited so in one week's time it just crazy and then overall when we go in and we work on a profile and we add a date we add a source we fix a name that's called a contribution on on wiki tree in our system automatically keeps track of that and you know this is only for the ancestors that counted so those direct ancestors or nuclear relatives this isn't even counting the edits on everything else and still people made over 3000 edits to your branches so you know that every time I think that they they can't impress me anymore than what they already have then they do something like this again you know it's it's just amazing so how do you feel like we did that's an incredible amount of excuse me an incredible amount of research and information in a week especially even you know like the Italian lines you know that I've spent hours pouring over those those civil records and it's it's a lot of work to extracting those especially you know even though you're working with us you know a single record set in a single location like I mentioned it's like there's if I look at my database I've got like something like you know 27 Domenico a lacquapose and like 15 Michelin and you know and like 14 Giuseppes and it makes your head completely you're just like I need a break it's like I need to stop because I'm see my head spinning and then like you know the German right I mean it's a lot of work in a week so that's really impressive yeah that's fantastic and I think having all those collateral relatives in there is great cousin bait you know to have a tree that you can just send someone one URL and they can look at it and you don't have to sign up for anything you know and and and you can see how how it evolves so it's it's peer reviewed research basically and being able to tie in the the DNA testers really fun for those of us who are and to just find like oh I didn't realize that there's a why tester on my Dawson line you know I there's a Mr. Dawson you know on wiki tree and he's his tree connects to your Dawson branches and so then you get to know the why DNA hopefully of an ancestor who didn't give you your wife so yeah yeah that's fantastic yeah I can't I can't even count anymore in the time I've been on wiki tree how many cousins I've had reach out to me you know and they'll say oh I see your name was on this profile that I haven't even looked at in like three years and they're like how are you related this is how I'm related hey let's exchange notes and you know it's just a great way to get that kind of information and draw those people in without even having to do anything you know those right there or on a bbs like in the 90s going lock a bow swarm yeoman does anyone have yeoman from Nebraska yeah no it's fantastic that's just it's an amazing feat so that's I'm really appreciative of that it's fantastic okay and unless we have anything else from the audience I think we've I'm sorry I minimized I had to put the full screen on so I haven't really been watching the chat so why I noticed Steven wanted to know what was going to become of the discord channel I mean we've moved to our main wiki tree discord now and and we've even got a general so there we go we've even got a general chat for the challenge itself so what more can we tell them about that well you know we we talked about it and there has just been such an invaluable amount of research in that discord channel that we were using before on that server that you know we don't want it to just go away so you know if you want to leave the server that's fine we are not using it actively anymore at all but we will not be deleting or getting rid of that because there's just hours and hours and hours of conversation and records and links to stuff you know that are in those old rooms all the conversation of course is occurring now on the main wiki tree server if you are not on the main wiki tree server I definitely recommend it it has just been such a huge help with collaboration it makes a really big difference and then of course you know our challenge is is I can't believe we've only got a few more guests left we have three after you Michael that's it yeah so everybody was you know even though it's a holiday for many people coming up people are getting in there working on your week they're like no we're almost done we got to help these people um you know all the Europeans and Australians saying well what are we going to do this weekend and sleep off our turkey and give our staff members a break I'll just have to eat my things doing dinner at my computer so I can go over all the stuff on there I know that is one thing that that we've had a lot of the guests say in the past is they're like they had no idea until they really started looking through it how much time they were going to need you know to actually be able to stop and look at every profile you know and you will get a few documents by email but for the most part everything is linked on the profile or it's actually uploaded to the profile so that you can go ahead and take those and add those to your own records you know and and have that excellent a lot to look through though hey that's what geniality is about lots of digging and shuffling and rifling through new stuff okay well I think I'm going to let's go ahead and wrap this up I want to wish everybody that is having dinner with our family tomorrow a happy Thanksgiving or a happy holiday and for those of you that aren't you could still go on a discord and chat with each other it'll be there I know I know some of them are already still planning on you know working on some of Michael's branches and that room is still accessible feel free to go ahead and use it and the following week you guys will come back and rejoin us and we will have Mary Roddy as a guest and so that should be a lot of fun I want to thank everybody that works so hard on Michael's tree this week once again you guys are amazing you just blow my mind every week it's so great and you know thank you Michael for letting us traipse through your branches and you know look at it all it really is you know we we love doing this it just is so so much fun and I think we will say good night everyone well thank you very much and happy Thanksgiving everyone


1947 was the epochal year for India. India's struggle for freedom was spearheaded under the legendary leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. The Mahatmas' visionary but simple and humane strategies were based on truth and equality for all that unified India's multi-religious communities, galvanizing them into an unstoppable non-violent movement. The emergence of India and Pakistan in 1947 was a result of the division of Indian subcontinent advocated by Pakistan's father of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. But Jammu and Kashmir assumed greater importance for Pakistan because of its strategic location and the rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chinab. Under the guise of Jihad, an invasion on Jammu and Kashmir was launched on 22 October 1947. When the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir was informed of the invading force and finding the situation beyond his control to save his state and people, the Maharaja declared the accession of Jammu and Kashmir State to India on 26 October 1947. Nehru discovered that a British commander in chief in India, General Lockhart, had full information on tribal invasion and he did not part with this information to his Indian counterparts. But instead of falling into the communal and neocolonial trap, India followed the humanitarian path resolving the dispute based on Gandhian philosophy and on 1 January 1948, India lodged a formal complaint with the Security Council. On 13 August 1948, the United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan stated that Pakistan being aggressor must withdraw its regular forces from Jammu and Kashmir. Thereafter, India must withdraw bulk of its forces, maintaining minimum force for the maintenance of law and order and safeguarding peace, human and political rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Further, the resolution stated in part 3. Once the above preconditions are accomplished, then the future status of the state will be determined by the will of the people. But Pakistan never withdrew its forces from the occupied areas of Jammu and Kashmir and a plebiscite never took place. During August 1965, the United Nations military observer, General Robert Nimmo, reported the mass infiltration by the Pakistani army in Jammu and Kashmir. For the success of this invasion, Pakistan relied heavily on the anticipated support of the local population through revolt against the Indian government. But Pakistan failed miserably in its attempts. Pre-empting major Pakistani assaults, the Indian army launched successful attacks and captured important passes and strategically imported forward defenses in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Under international pressure, both India and Pakistan signed the Tashkent Agreement on 10th of January 1966. Pakistan began exploiting the unemployed and disgruntled youth of the Kashmir Valley. Over 20,000 youth were taken to Pakistan and trained in handling small arms in about 100 training camps located in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 onwards. By 1994, Pakistan's Army Intelligence Wing, better known by its acronym ISI and Harkalt Ul Ansar recruited and trained a large number of Afghans and Pashto-speaking Pakistanis from Jamat Ul Ulma-e Islam, which ran madrasas in Pakistan's northwest frontier province and Balochistan. This constituted a new militant outfit, the Taliban. To sustain terrorism, the youth were abducted from remote villages and taken across the border for training in handling arms and explosives at gunpoint. The role of ISI is clearly seen in providing logistical support to more than 30,000 Taliban supporters who have been allowed to settle in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, where they're running well-organized terrorist training camps, further vitiating the atmosphere in the region. India has proposed that proper representation of the people must be allowed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Growth of democratic institutions in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir would assist in creating a friendly environment that would lead to the development of mutual assistance and cooperation with India in the field of tourism, agriculture, environment and water management. The need is for ushering peace in the region and it is specifically relevant for the people of Jammu and Kashmir who have suffered so much and for so long.


What's up guys and welcome to trendy updates, now onto the trending news today is the deputy president Rigi G and wife of Pastor Dorcas who are in Botswana attending the Forbes under 30 summit in Botswana. Of course they are seen hanging out with the Kenyans there and also hanging out with musician Davido from Nigeria and of course we can see they are having quite a great time but you have to trust Rigi G when it comes to having a good time. Of course we see Rigi G dancing quite well with Pastor Dorcas and they are even doing some moves. Now we all know Kenyans have to react to what Rigi G is doing and they definitely had something to say in regards to that dance. But before I read to you this particular comments that they have reacted to Rigi G, South is all was honored to be part of the under 30 summit of the Forbes and they were really excited to be performing in the third summit. Of course they broke the news last week and today we can see that they really did perform at the summit and they took to their social media platform to say so honored to be part of the 2023 Forbes under 30 summit of Pan-African welcome celebration. It was an unforgettable experience to share our talent with so many incredible young minds, entrepreneurs, innovators, leaders, game changers from around the world. Thank you Forbes. Of course that was opposed from South is all after performing at the Forbes under 30 summit. But of course we all know that Forbes under 30 is a set of list of people under 30 years old issued annually by the Forbes magazine and some of its regional editions. Now this is the American list recognizes 600 businesses and industry figures with 30 selected in 20 industry each and of course it's quite a big deal this is where we see so many artists across Africa are attending this summit that is ongoing in Botswana and of course back to people reacting or other Kenyans are reacting to deputy president Rigi Tiji with a docus past the docus Rigathi in Botswana. These dancers got them quite a reaction. This is black Cinderella and trust the Kenyans to have reactions and then then come on guys and then Rigi is full of surprises clearly Kenyans have a lot of reaction regarding deputy president Rigi Tiji and a pastor docus having a good time in Botswana and of course when they met Davido as well it was quite all smiles as you can see from this picture and Carlos experienced a liaison with a scared Davido lands a government job in deputy president's office. Come on guys but let us know down on the comments section what are your thoughts about this dance from Rigi Tiji and pastor docus let us know down on the comments section but in the meantime keep it trendy updates hapa SPM buzz


One of the outstanding performers this year has been China which moved into number 25 position in the Global Innovation Index. Now that is quite an extraordinary achievement for a number of reasons. First, there is a great deal of stability and there has been a great deal of stability in the top 20 or 30 countries in the Global Innovation Index because innovation is a long term game. It requires a significant effort and contribution over a long period of time. So movement is not quick and China has been making steady progress and it's the first middle-income developing country to break into these top ranks. It's entirely in line with the strategy that is being followed in China at the moment of emphasizing innovation as an extremely important transition for the economy away from mere manufacture towards also consideration of the intellectual contribution to production and distribution.


Yesterday was dope Summertime tickets definitely Nobody was being super super cocky in the sense Michael wait a minute. You're just getting all these Lip I I Must not on the tip You want to go Yo, I never see that


Okay, I'll go ahead and repeat what I said earlier and that is that we are going to use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen and just about 10 minutes will start allowing people maybe 10 or 15 minutes will start allowing people to answer questions or ask questions rather. And so we'll ask you to use the Q&A function, which is at the bottom of your screen. If you do need to use closed captions that isn't able so you can use the closed caption function, which is also at the bottom of your screen. And so what we're going to do is first we're going to go really quickly over some basic tips to help you through the process. Then there were several of you who actually submitted some questions ahead of time we're going to go over those, and then we're going to head into some live questions and answers from you. So again, use that Q&A function, and we'll start getting to your questions. One thing that I do want to say is some of you had some very specific question. And for those questions that are specifically about your project that we won't be able to get into tonight. What I want you to do is email us at blackchurches at savingplaces.org so that we can help you more directly. We'll either help you directly at blackchurches.atblackchurchesatsavingplaces.org, or we might direct you to our office hours for one of our staff members through our 30 minute sessions, which again, you can sign up through blackchurchesatsavingplaces.org. And I'm still seeing people filter in so again, you can start putting in your questions at our Q&A function. And we will either answer your questions right there or we will go ahead and answer your questions out loud. The other thing that will start to happen in the chat function is for some of those questions that were pre submitted, we're going to start answering those questions in the chat function. Those pre submitted questions we're going to start putting those in the chat function. And I'll mention to that as well. This meeting and the chat will be sent to you. So this meeting is being recorded, the chat is being recorded. So both the chat and the meeting will be sent to you in the next few days after this meeting ends. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Elastin McInnis, who's going to start us off with tips and tricks. Hello everyone. As a quick introduction. It is so good to have all of you in the space tonight to discuss preserving black churches. I am Alaska McInnis and I am the director for the national grants program. You just heard from Leslie, who gave us this lovely introduction. Give me one moment. Our senior manager of preserving black churches. We're all here with us this evening we have Tiffany Tolbert, who is the senior director for preservation here at the national trust via the action fund myself, and also Kelly Gibson our senior manager for the national grants program. And today I just wanted to quickly go over some tips to remember. First and foremost, we'll be referencing this often throughout tonight's webinar. We really want everyone to become familiar with the guidelines and the eligibility information on our website. We'll be dropping the link for that in the chat, you'll be able to see that. And also on the frequently asked questions. On each page, we have a prerecorded informational webinar that is incredibly helpful in that we actually go through each question on the application to explain exactly what the question means and what we're looking to learn from that question on the application. So it's an incredibly valuable resource something we took a lot of time with and wanted to make sure it was a valuable resource for you. So please take the time to take a look at that webinar and get familiar with those resources as some of the questions really did link back to the information that was included there. First tip to remember, August 23 at 1159 local time your time is when these applications will be due. So please make sure that then information the application is completed and submitted by August 23 in order to be considered, it would need to be submitted via email. Unfortunately, we're not able to review any applications that are submitted via email. We will make that PDF of the application available, but that wouldn't be something that we would be able to take and assess as a part of the application pool. Additionally, we want you to make note of the fact that spaces count when you're filling out your applications in the character count. So each question where they're at they're asking for a little bit of information, a little bit of narrative. And there's maybe 500 characters as a limit. Every space does count for that 500 number. When you are submitting your application and there's a, we're asking for the main contact for the grant process. Please note that this is the person that we would need to engage with about the function of this grant not necessarily your church leadership. If those are the same people, great, maintain that and submit that information. But if say senior leadership is not necessarily the person that would be managing the ins and outs of this grant, please put the individual who would essentially walk this process through to the completion as the main point of contact as they will be receiving emails and even follow ups to make sure that we have everything we need to ensure that this grant is paid out in full, or even just help completing any questions that we may have on the application itself.  Instead of like trying to create a new profile altogether, please be in touch with us at action fund grants at saving places.org so that we can work with you to actually figure out what's going on and reset the password or figure out what your login issue is, as opposed to creating a new profile to make sure. Also, another note is that every question that has an asterisk, it is a required question so please take the time to make sure that all of those are addressed because if they're not, you won't be able to submit the application. So, a lot of information that we're going to be sending out or any questions that we may have clarity that we need, they will be coming from one of these emails essentially. So make sure that these email addresses are saved, and that you're able to receive the emails from these three locations this is action fund grants at saving places.org black churches at saving places.org, and the grant management system that we use will send notifications to the third one which is administrator at grant interface calm. All three of these are emails that you would want to be on the lookout for. If you have questions about your specific project, please email black churches at saving places.org. And if you'd like to make an appointment for office hours. Same thing. Email us at black churches at saving places.org. We have a question about the system. So any kind of login issues or kind of questions around the process of applying reach out to us at action fund grants at saving places.org. And we can help you navigate this process, as best we can and get you to a place where you've successfully submitted your application. We've reached the point where we're going to start with the Q&A portion. This is a reminder that we will be monitoring our live Q&A kind of section that link at the bottom of your screen where it says Q&A you would want to utilize that for questions that you have. Also, please watch the chat. This is where we'll be dropping questions that were submitted via the registration process that we have answered for you. So please don't add any additional questions to the chat as that's not necessarily what we're going to be able to manage that discussion for at this point given the volume tonight, which is lovely. I just want to center all of the questions in the Q&A section on Zoom. So with that, we're going to go ahead and answer some of the more specific questions that were submitted via the registration process. And I now turn it over to you, Leslie. Thanks, Alaska. So now I'm going to start with some of the questions that we got that were pre-submitted. So the first one is, are for-profit companies who purchased a black church eligible to apply for the grant? The answer is no. For-profit companies are not eligible. Eligible applicants include historic black churches, 501C3 nonprofit organizations, and public agencies. Check out our website at savingplaces.org backslash preserving black churches guidelines for more details. The second question is, we have two capital projects with two different addresses. Can both be submitted as separate projects? The organization will be the same, but the addresses are different. The answer is no. Eligible applicants can submit one application under each funding category. However, if selected, only one application can be funded. The next question is, does a black church need to be on the historic register to qualify? The answer is no. It is not required for properties to be formally listed or designated as historic to apply, but a special emphasis will be placed on sites that have had a prominent physical and or historical place in their community. The next question is, I'm looking for additional information to determine if our historical church meets the eligibility requirements. This is, again, one of those situations where this is a specific question about a specific project, and I'll remind you that for specific questions about your project, please contact us at blackchurches at savingplaces.org. There was also a specific question about whether we can provide a PDF of the grant application by email or by posting it on our website. I would note that our application is actually available on our website, and we're going to drop that application form link actually into our chat now. The next question is, if an organization is awarded a grant from another source for the same project submitted in this grant application, can the organization revise their application to cover another phase of the overall project? What would happen in this case? What I would say is you can potentially make some revisions to your scope of work, but my suggestion would be to contact us if this happens before proceeding that we can figure out what the best course of action is. So you really want to avoid a situation like this without actually contacting us. Always contact us when there's a major change like this before proceeding. The next question is, are salaries and operating expenses allowable costs? And the answer is, yes, preserving black churches provides funding to support organizational capacity building and operations. The grants are intended to support creation of new staff positions that directly support the preservation and stewardship of historic black church buildings. Funding cannot be used to support clergy or religious staff. The next question is, if my church was denied in an early application, should we consider applying again? The answer is yes, churches that were not selected for funding in the first round are welcome to apply again. The next question is, could funds be used to expand building growth? The answer is, costs associated with planning for or constructing new buildings or structures are ineligible. The next question is, there have been some questions about what type of letter is required from a particular denomination. As each denomination has a different governing structure, we really want all of you to make sure you are following whatever procedures are appropriate to your denomination to make sure that it is okay for you to submit this application. It would be helpful for us to have something in writing that shows that this application and the proposed project are approved for submittal. The next question is, does this grant opportunity apply to different types of Christian ministries? There have been various questions about whether various denominations are eligible. We could not list all of the different Christian denominations in this application. The best way to look at it is whether your denomination is located in a historic black church and connected to the culture of that historic black church. The next question is, are church cemeteries also included for grant consideration? And what I would say is capital projects involving cemetery restorations are ineligible. However, under the project planning category, the development of planning documents, guides and assessment studies for historic black cemeteries are eligible. Note, the cemeteries must be owned by and continuously connected to historic black church. The next question, if the historic church is in need of extreme repair, does it have to be in operation or in use for service? Does the church need to have a nonprofit organization in place to accept funds? The answer is, non-active churches are eligible as long as they are historic black churches. If the church does not have nonprofit status in place, they can use a fiscal agent. Now, this includes, we also got this question about if churches are currently applying for 501c3 status, as long as you have 501c3 status, by the time you turn in your application, you are okay, but you just need to let us know, keep us, let us know what's going on. There's been questions about personages, about whether they're eligible. And personages can be potentially eligible if they are attached to or directly behind an historic black church. The personage must also meet the eligibility requirements for historic black church. For more information about auxiliary buildings of this type, I encourage you to please contact us at blackchurchesatsavingplaces.org. There was a specific question that has to do with churches that are in national historic cultural heritage areas, or churches that are in historic districts or things of that nature. And what I would say is that any historic black church that meets eligibility requirements can apply for our preserving black churches grant. Grant categories include capital, project planning, programming and interpretation, organizational capacity building and operations and endowment and financial sustainability. And those are some of the benefits that we offer through this program. There's a question about timeline and while the application deadline is August 23, grantees will not be notified about their status regarding whether they get the money until January of 2024. And then it usually takes a little bit of time after that, maybe a month after that for you to receive the money depending on what your funding category is and how long it takes you to turn in certain paperwork. Connected to that there was also a question and this came up for several of you about the reasons why some churches are declined and some churches are approved. And these questions are very much connected. And what I would say is that most of the time churches don't receive funding because this is a very competitive process. And there are so many amazing projects that are submitted across this across the country. And we have, we only have so much funding. I would say that some specific reasons are not that churches are not funding are funded is number one, not being clear about the scope of work. It is very, very important that you are very clear about what you are proposing to do. Let us know exactly very succinctly, even if it's bullet points exactly what your project is what are you proposing to do. The other thing is not being clear about what your budget is. Sometimes people will ask us for $200,000 and they'll just say we want $200,000 and not really break down the budget and let us know what that $200,000 consists of. Where those numbers came from and how that ties back to their budget. Sometimes projects aren't ready to go, meaning someone has proposed a project, but their application really doesn't indicate that once we give them the funding that it's very clear that they'll be ready to actually start their project. The other thing is that the other thing we're looking for is that what you're proposing will really lead to the preservation and sustaining of the resource in question. That's really important that that comes across in your application. And lastly, is really adequately showing the significance of the resource in question. So applications that don't show that are usually less successful than others and so on the on the flip side applications that successfully show all those things are usually more successful than others. The other question was, we were asked to discuss the ability to apply for more than one grant. The way is that applicants are welcome to apply for all the grants that we have. You can apply for the preserving black churches grant, the African American cultural heritage action grant, the Fund for sacred places grant and the various other preservation grants the National Trust has to offer. When it comes to applying for the preserving black churches grant and the African American cultural heritage action fund grant. You don't need to understand that if you were to, for instance, apply for capital grant for preserving black churches and you are awarded, you would need to apply for an action fund grant in a different category. You can, if you wanted to apply for preserving black churches fund grant, and you were awarded and then you applied for fun for sacred places, you can't use the funds awarded from the action fund to use that as the required match for sacred places. What you're planning to do if you're considering applying for multiple grants. It's just to talk to a staff member contact us that preserving black churches at setting places.org and just talk talk to us about what you're planning to do so we can help you through that. We can help you through that process, but you do have the ability to apply for multiple grants. Let's some questions from several people that talked about and this is great. I'm talking about celebrating over 100 years at their church and one question is whether this applies to their congregation or their church. For this grant we are looking at historic black churches. So the building should be 50 years or older and built for or by African Americans. It was not built for or by African Americans. It should then be inhabited by an African American congregation for the last 50 years. Churches now churches that now function as a different use could still be eligible as a non active congregation, they would still need to meet the other eligibility requirements. And our second to last question is, is there any assistance available to assist a congregation whose property was sold to a developer to do it dwindling membership. There have been questions about whether funds can be used to purchase property or prevent the sale or property. Our grants cannot be used for the purchase of a property or to prevent the sale or property. Our grants can be used for planning purposes to help you come up with a financial plan, fundraising plan, or to take a wholesale look at the needs of your church. Consider taking a closer look at our planning grants. And lastly, there's a question about cost estimates. And what you need to submit and whether you need quotes on letterhead. And what I would say is we don't need quotes on letterhead at this point in time but we do need to have an indication that your budget is based on real numbers. So it's really best for you to have some sort of bid or or some sort of quote something that shows that your budget and your budget narrative is based on real numbers. And so with that, we will now start our live Q amp a. Okay, so we have. Are there any restrictions on what category you choose. Last year our church wasn't able to apply for a capital project. If we had recently received one from the National Trust. Is this still the case. So for preserving black churches of this is a brand new category of a brand new brands. And so for right now we are not restricting if you applied last year, or yeah just last year for preserving black churches. We are not preventing you from applying again in the in the same category. If you aren't funded last year, you can certainly apply again in the same category. So the next question is, is this about preserving churches or buildings. If you had, if you have existed continuously as a congregation since 1891, but have a newer building for which you need assistance, are you eligible for funding. We are not in a newer building. We are not at this time funding newer buildings your building needs to be at least 50 years or older. The next question is will a black church that has occupied that has occupied for more than 60 years, 100 plus your old historic church that was built by a four white domination be considered for this program. If I understand the by understand the question correctly. I think that the church itself is 100 year old church that was originally built for a white congregation, but a black congregation has occupied it for 60 plus years, and if if that's what you're asking then yes, it is eligible. We have to have been the site of a major national historic event to be competitive. No, and thank you for asking that question. What we, what we didn't want to have is a situation at every church does not have to be where Martin Luther King spoke. We, there's room for every type of historic event, it can be local, it can be regional. It can be national. So as you are talking about the historic significant and that's why we don't require it to be designated. So as you're looking at your historic significance, think about your local significance regional or national. It can be, you know, one of those three. So it doesn't have to be national significance, but think about how it's how your church is connected to African American history. Think about how your church has responded to different events. So think about it that way, but it doesn't always have to be national significance. And see, what are some of the common mistakes and responding to prior grant opportunities. I think I went over that with the sort of during the pre submitted questions. Okay, so the three competitive bids. So, what I would say about the three competitive bids is that we want you to do the best you can on the three competitive bids. But we also understand and we've, we've gotten this this feedback that that's not always possible, especially depending on where you live. And so if you've at all. So, right. And so and so if you at all struggle with getting those three bids, just contact us at black churches at saving places.org and let us know what's going on. So that's so that we can so that we can figure that out. But don't worry about that. So do the best you can. And if that becomes an issue, just let us know. Is there a specific number of grants to be awarded or is it just dependent upon the submitted budget justifications. I think you're talking about the amount of grants that we were generally, and essentially, we have a pot of money and we try to award as many grants as we can. And we just look at, you know, all the amazing projects and we just try to award as many as possible, I believe last year. And we awarded 35 for over $4 million. Does the church have to report this grant money as income. That's a good question. I don't know, Tiffany, do you know the answer to that question of whether the church has to report this grant money as income. We do not require you to report it as income. Again, that's going to be dependent on your financial structure and what you might need to report as income. Generally, again, if your internal church budget requires, you know, you to indicate this is funding that is coming in that would be on you all. It's not a grant for profit direction, but we do not require again we are a not for profit of 501 C3 a granting entity, and we're granting it to other 501 C3 so if you are a organization 501 C3 and you have to submit your IRS nine that may mean you might have to indicate that as grant funding you received over the last calendar fiscal year. But again, you that is the IRS requiring it, not us and as long as the funding was granted for a specific purpose, you should be in compliance for your 501 C3 status. If you are applying for organizational capacity building and operations grants, and you give a general guidance for what types of staff positions meet the funding guidelines. We noted that salaries for religious or clergy are not allowed with communications or stewardship meet the standards. Also, if there are new positions can funding be used for technology or software relevant to the position. That's probably something that we could discuss offline but we're basically a lot what we funded before our preservation related positions fundraising positions. Those types of positions that are going to help you ultimately preserve and sustain the building and that can look like a lot of different things. We can certainly, I hope that's helpful. If it's not, or if you need more detail about that email us at black churches at saving places.org and we can get into that in a little bit more detail but preservation sort of positions that are going to help you preserve and sustain this building and a lot what that looks like is preservation management, fundraising program management, things of that nature, but we can go into that in a little bit more detail. What are the tax consequences by receiving this grant. We really don't deal with that that end of it. This is not a federal grant, we are not a federal agency, we don't, we don't have you report any of that. So, I unfortunately I can't speak to that. Again, do remember this, we are not for profit ourselves we are granting entity so we are granting grant funds to other not for profit specific for purposes related to preservation of black churches and so tax consequences we that is not in our purview, and we're not granting it to for profit entities or private individuals as well. So, they are going to not for profit organizations or tax exempt organizations and so other than keeping your other IRS reporting requirements for your not for profit that you know tax implications are not to be considered on our side with this grant. Can somebody put the application link the preview of the application link in the in the chat again. Our specific vendors beds required for input input on application is national historic site site site site is required before application. So first there is no requirement for national historic site status. Either before or after the application. And in terms of vendor bids again, first of all, it's only if the portion of the work that you're talking about is $50,000 or more. And again, if you if you're having any issues with that, just being conversations with us at black churches that saving places.org and we can discuss that. Is this program limited to African American churches or does other religious communities qualify such as historical African American mosques. So, on a case by case basis, we can consider other non Christian denominations. So please do be in conversation with us because on a case by case basis, we can consider non Christian denominations. Do the project planning programming interpretation and organizational capacity building operation grants have to be related to a capital project. No. So these are all separate categories. So, project planning doesn't have to necessarily be related to a capital project. For all sorts of things. Same with programming and interpretation and capacity building so no so the quick answer is no, it doesn't have to be related to a capital project or all sorts of other projects that you could do under those categories that are not related to a capital project. And then are these reimbursement grants or will awardees receive the funds once the contract is signed. So what happens is, if you are awarded funds, you'll receive a grant agreement, and depending on what type of Let me stop her for a quick sec because I'm sort of seeing two different chats happening. We're asking questions in the in the webinar chat if you could actually put those in the q amp a function so that we can make sure to get your question. I am answering if you put it in the q amp a Leslie is answering live I am typing in some answers to the question so. Okay, so you have that Tiffany. And Leslie will continue to answer one. Um, so what'll happen is, um, once you sign your grant agreement, and depending on what type of project it is, you'll get an initial payment. You'll get an initial lump sum, some of money. And then you'll get an additional lump sum up some money. And another point of time in the project so depending on what type of project is you'll either get in the middle in the end or at the end. But you'll get a part of the money upfront and a part of the money later. So the next question is current church structure opened in 1976 it replaced a historic structure destroyed in a fire in 1972. Church has owned and serve the community from this site without interruption since 1867 interested in project planning grants, any basic eligibility concerns. So it sounds like. The original building isn't there. My concern is that you basically don't have a historic building there for us to work with if I'm reading this correctly. Right current church structure opened in 1976. So that building is less than 50 years old. Um, let me look at how so that building would be about 47 years old. Well, I'll sorry Leslie, I'll jump in. So we did have this come up last year in the grant cycle and what we advised if your building is close to 50 years say within five years. Let's have a conversation so we understand the significance and we will give consideration so if it's 25 years old. But if it is within five years of 50, we will consider it, but we probably want to know more information on the history, the context, the building and significant. So if that's the case, I would email black churches at saving places.org so we can have a better understanding of the project and the building. Sorry. Thanks, Tiffany. If we have already identified a consultant and had preliminary plans of what we need done through a building inspection should we still only apply for the planning grant or we'd be eligible for capital projects without full engineering architectural plans. So, if you have already done. Planning work. Then as part of so with your capital project as part of that. There's 15% allow to actually get your. Planning documents done. But we will need to, but we will need to have some enough plans to actually see what you're doing. So, so you do so as long as you have enough of a plans that we can tell what your project is. But if what you're saying is that you don't sort of have your permit documents. That's fine because if you were grant if you get the capital grants 15% of that you could use to actually develop those engineering and architectural plans. We need to have enough of a plan for us to be able to tell what what you're actually doing. Okay. Next is our all estimates and architectural drawings or electrical design that's required to be completed when you apply for a capital improvement project. If you do not have all of them yet which is put suggest applying for planning part of the growth. So again, it depends. I think the capital project is definitely our most competitive grant. And so my question for what for you would be, if you've done the planning work but just don't have all of your drawing. So the question is, have you, do you have you done the actual planning work, and do you have enough of a plan to show us what you're doing. If the issue is just that you don't have. If you have enough of a permit sets, you can, if you were to get, again, if you were to get the grant you could use part of your capital funds to get that. But if you haven't done enough planning to be able to show us what you're doing, then you're probably more at the planning stage. So it says how, how do you determine if the capital project is maintenance instead of capital. I'm trying to understand. I mean, I think part of that is probably a kind of planning question. And that is, have you had someone come in and sort of look at your building and sort of tell you what needs to be done. Do you have a full understanding of what needs to happen at your building.  I mean, so some of that could, so it depends on what your definition of maintenance is. But capital projects looks, it's both, it could be a big project and it could be a tiny project. So it could be that we need to discuss your project a little bit for us to have a little bit of better understanding of what what's going on at your church. Um, so I, what I might suggest is that you reach out to us at black churches that same places.org so we can have a little bit of a better understanding of what's going on your project. Um, because from my point of view, if you need work done on your project, it sort of doesn't matter whether it's, you know, maintenance or like what the label is, if there's an issue at your church, where not doing it could be an issue at your church because we want to make sure that it's preserved and sustained. So if you have that sort of issue at your church, then we want to help you with it if we can. So why don't you email us and let us know a little bit more about your project. Does the church application be from a historical membership but has moved out of the historical building. Um, so maybe the question is whether it's a maybe it's a non active church, maybe. It sounds, it sounds like maybe it's a non active church. And if it's a non active church, that's, that's perfectly fine. It could still be eligible. It just might be eligible for less money. Um, so I need to know a little bit more about the situation and again just, you know, feel free to reach out to us and let us know a little bit more about your project but non active churches or non active congregations can can can apply. We have the question about drop the link of the application of PDF which we did do. There's a question, can you repeat the reasons why proposals are not funded. And so, just to summarize, some of the reasons why proposals are not funded is lack of clarity in the budget. Lack of clarity around how the project is going to positively impact preserving and sustaining the building. Lack of clarity about how once the project would be funded that the project would be ready to go. Lack of clarity around historic significance. I would say that is some of the big reasons why projects are funded, not funded, but the other really big reason why projects are funded I mean I will say that we got, I think around 1300 letters of intent. Um, last year, so a really big need with some really amazing. You know, projects from across this country. Um, so that's the other really big reason. Our church has an association with NHL local landmark that was once owned and stewarded by us that is now owned by the city we are in this landmark was recently renamed to honor our founding pastor. We are working with the city to determine how to convey the name change and our church legacy of the property how do we express that in this application and can we apply if the city applies as well. So, I would really suggest. First of all, if, if the city owns the property, you would need permission from the city to apply. So you're, you're always going to need permission of the whole of the property owner to apply and in a situation like this. So no, so unless you have permission from the property owner to apply, you wouldn't able to both be applied. You would be able to both apply. That's the first thing. Hopefully it's a situation where maybe you could work together but I obviously don't know what the situation is. In terms of how you, let's say you could get permission from the city to apply you could work together. How do you express this. And I'm assuming you're trying to express sort of the importance of the renaming, maybe, and that can be done and as part of the significance section is talking about the importance of the pastor and then the name change and making sure to tie and this gets back to an earlier question about, you know, whether something has to be of national significance and something like that is, if this pastor is important locally, then talk about why that pastor is important locally and so important locally that there's this name change. So, so just, just talk about that as as best you can is and as succinctly as you can. For capital projects must three contractors be provided with the application or can choose quotes just be included in the application. Again, try your best with the three bids. If you can't, you know, just let us know let's let's talk about it. Leslie, can I jump in and answer this question because I think it might be relevant to sure. I'll go right ahead. So someone asked we are applying for a capital project and have plans done and are about to begin the permit and city approval process we anticipate having permits by January. Will this be considered ready to go. It would be considered ready to go but keep in mind that if you are awarded capital funding part of our process before we distribute funds as we do have to approve the scope of work to ensure that it is preservation and meeting that criteria and standards. So if you do have your plans approved by the city or have your permits that does not guarantee that we will automatically approve those plans. So just make sure to factor that into your schedule that if you are awarded funding, you will have to submit your scope of work again which we reviewed by our senior preservation architect to ensure that it is meeting preservation standards. So once that is approved, then we will follow what is laid out in the grant agreement in terms of dispersing funds. So I just want everyone to keep that in mind. Thanks, Tiffany. So the next question is about bids but we've gone over this a few times. The next question is about the grantee selection committee and that's comprised of staff. Yes, so our grantee with all of our grants is an internal process with staff of the National Trust and the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. So on this program does not involve external reviewers. And next question is again about the bidding process. The next question. So does this grant apply to installing an elevator or accessibility options in a historically black church. So this actually came up a lot last year, and accessibility is really, really important, especially in churches with aging population. And what we found is that almost a lot. The immediate answer was to install a elevator or the proposal was to install an elevator or install lift. And what we want for churches to really consider is looking at accessibility of their of their whole church, because there's more to accessibility. It's not just an elevator. It's the site. It's hearing impaired. It's site impaired. It's how you enter the site. It's, it's more than just the elevator. And so for those who are interested in accessibility. What we're asking is that first. You look at a planning grant that if you haven't done planning. Accessibility that the first thing we would want you to apply for is a planning grant to really look at your church as a whole around accessibility and to really do look at an accessibility plan for your whole church. And if you've already done the planning for that, then to look at applying for a capital grant for accessibility. That in general for accessibility because it's, it's such an important thing for churches. The next question is our church was located next to the cemetery built during the 1800s, but was rebuilt years ago on location that is not near the cemetery now. Does this keep us from being able to apply for funding for restoration. Can we apply for funding to have our cemetery promoted through community tours or as part of teaching programs or school children. So the great thing is that, while our, our grants for cemeteries do not cover capital improvements, it does cover planning. So in terms of sort of the idea of teaching programs or, or promotion or something like that. That would be something more that would fall under planning for our cemetery for cemetery grants. It does need to be directly associated and owned by the historic black church, and that, and that church needs to meet the eligibility requirements. The question is, it does say the church was rebuilt. The question for me, I think I need to know a little bit more about the situation. To be able to answer this properly, so I need to know more about the church now, because it sounds like the church that it was originally associated with is no longer there. I think a little bit more information is needed. So, why don't you contact us at on black churches at famous place.org so we can talk about this a little bit more. So we can get a little bit more information. The next question is if the church is more than 50 years, but the building is not. So perhaps maybe you're saying the congregation is older than 50 years, but the building is not. Is the church still eligible. It would depend on exactly how old the building was to Tiffany's point earlier about buildings that were maybe 45 to 50 years. So, we might need a little bit more information in this case to understand how exactly how old the building in question is. So, maybe context us directly so we could know a little bit more about your, about your situation. The next question is how do supportive letters to be written and presented and and do they need to be on certain letter heads depending on where they come from. I wouldn't say we're going to be picky on on the letter heads.  Again, the only thing that we do really want to see again is something indicating that you have permission and support to actually submit this project and application. Hey, I'm in Alaska some people are having issues with the link to the PDF application. Can you all explain what they should be seeing when they go to that link that we share. They should just be seeing the application. Someone says I use the link and it takes me to view application forms without creating account click here but when I click here it doesn't show a sample application. So maybe if you all could just check on that while we're here in the call. Yes, I'm sharing my screen right now but I'm wondering if Leslie, if Kelly, you can look into that really quickly and see what's happening there. Yeah, because the link that I, let's see. Because I just clicked on the link I have here. And it's working. Let me try this. Let's see if this one works. I'm just going to put the questions but if Alaska and Kelly, maybe if you all could check on that and just put the link back in the chat. So we're working on that you all. And again, we will send out all of the links after the session as well to those. This one works I just put one that I just checked myself that should lead just directly to a preview. So the link should just lead to the application form it won't allow you to actually apply. It's a PDF that just allows you to look at the question. Great someone says that that work. Thank you Ariana. Sorry. So it's eight o'clock I'm happy to stay on and keep answering questions but I do want to respect people's time. And go another 10 minutes and answer questions live. We do have the questions in the Q&A so even if we don't get to them on this webinar. If you go ahead and enter them and we can follow up and update our FAQ, but it's important to remember. What we do is really address the questions that apply to everyone. If it's about your specific church, your specific request email black churches at savingplaces.org so we can start setting up one on one appointments and we'll have more time to go in depth with you on your project so you can email right now black churches at savingplaces.org and we'll start following up with those appointments. Yeah. See I'm just going to scroll through these. So you don't need to step so there's a question about a church that has different sections to it, you can just apply for the church as a whole. There's a question is our church building is more than 100 years old built by former slaves the roof caved in after a storm in 2020 destroying the front part but leaving the back part intact can we apply for capital funding for the remaining part that is standing. That would be a question that I would ask you to email Black church directly on that. Yes. I'm seeing a lot of questions about combining projects for capital projects. It is okay if you have a couple of multiple small projects to combine it into one overall request for your church. Then if you email black churches at savingplaces.org, we can give you guidance on how best to structure that in your application. Someone is asking a question about LOI feedback from last year. What we can do is if you email us at black churches at savingplaces.org. If there were comments left from the reviewers from the last cycle. It would be best to get those comments to you so email us with the name of your church, and then we will look up those comments and get back to you as soon as possible. Leslie someone asked about the endowment grant and I think this might be our first question we had about the endowment and they want to know. The endowment grant can our existing endowment funds be sufficient for matching funds. No. Oh, sorry. Yes. The endowment funding category and financial sustainability is to grow existing preservation endowments or maintenance endowments as you already have or to create new endowments. If you have an existing endowment, you can apply for matching funds for the value of that endowment as it currently exists, but during the application process we do ask you to show proof of that existing endowment that it's invested the balance and you again it's a one to one match that you cannot apply for more than what you have on hand. You can still apply if you have an existing endowment and you don't want to use those funds at match but maybe you want to have a campaign to raise additional funds, and that could be the match so that is eligible if you do have existing funds already again, they have to be currently invested in an endowment and for the purpose of preservation or maintenance of the building. I'm going to put the pay up somebody's asking for the PDF I'm going to put it in the chat one more time. So there's still so many questions and I'm sorry we couldn't get to all of them in this session but we are going to answer all of your questions in the q amp a, and I do want to thank all of you for joining us. We have another q amp a session, but tomorrow night it's a little later than this one it's at 9pm Eastern standard to get to our folks on the West Coast, but if you do want to stay up later you're welcome to join us tomorrow night. I do just want to thank you so much for joining us.