Summer is waning; didn't it seem to go by quickly? The days are still bright, but cooler weather is finally in the forecast for those of us in the St. Louis area, and there are several interesting and exciting genealogy meetings and tours coming up around town. We'll talk about St. Louis Genealogical Society meetings for September next week; this week, we'll feature some things you might be interested in sponsored by our friends in St. Clair County (Illinois), the Missouri Historical Society, and Bellefontaine Cemetery.

The official blog of the St. Louis Genealogical Society. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter! Send news to publications@stlgs.org .
25 August 2025
Potpourri of Genealogy Events for Summer's Dog Days
18 August 2025
Help us Preserve the Veteran Bounty Land Records—Update!
The National Genealogical Society (NGS) is spearheading a campaign to save thousands of precious military records housed in the National Archives that are rapidly deteriorating and of vital interest to genealogists. Along with the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the leaders of FamilySearch, NGS is reaching out to local and state genealogy societies across the U.S. in an organized effort to preserve these records, and StLGS has recently begun to assist in these important efforts. We learned about the project a few months ago and posted some preliminary information then. Here is an update, now that StLGS is officially part of the project.
04 August 2025
Postcards Help Us Picture the Past
More than a century before anyone sent an email or text message, the postcard was born. Evolving from a series of alternatives to long, tedious letter writing, the postcard as we know it was created by Dr. Emanuel Herrmann, an economics professor in Austria, whose ideas came to the attention of the Austrian Post, which, on 1 October 1869, created a Correspondenz-Karte. Printed on light-brown paper, about the size of a 3" x 5" index card, it had space on one side for an address, a blank back for a message, and a pre-printed stamp in the upper right. Most importantly, it cost half the price of a letter! Within just a few years, postcards were in wide use throughout the world. Today, postcards can assist in your genealogy research as well.