Book Reviewers Needed

Do you like to read? Can you do it critically but fairly and with an eye towards what might be helpful to fellow genealogists? If so, we really could use you to help with book reviews for our Quarterly journal. We have a backlog of books that need reviewing right now and would like to move those books off the pile and onto the library shelves for people to use. But we can't do that until they are reviewed, so everyone knows we have them and what they contain.




Here is what is available:

• 1804 Tax Assessment, Baltimore County, Maryland by Michael A. Ports
• Finding Your Irish Ancestors in New York City by Joseph Buggy
• Dictionary of Americanized French-Canadian Names: Onomastics and Genealogy by Marc Picard
• The Cincinnati Germans after the Great War by Don Heinrich Tolzmann
• O'Sullivan (O Suillebhain) the Earliest Irish Royal Family, History and Genealogy, 3rd edition, by William Randolph McCreight
• Genealogy at a Glance Series: Civil War Research by Nancy Hendrickson
• Genealogy at a Glance Series: Cherokee Genealogy Research by Myra Vanderpool Gormley
• Genealogy at a Glance Series: Italian Genealogy Research by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack
• Genealogy at a Glance Series: Court Records by Wendy Bebout Elliott
• The Speth/Spaeth and Braun Families by Sandra M. BrunsmannHughes
• Ebbets: The History and Genealogy of a New York Family, revised edition, by Edward E. Steele

If you can help out, please contact our archivist, Dan Kerckhoff, at archivist@stlgs.org and he will give you directions on how to submit your review. You will need to come into the office to pick up and return the book, but all your writing and your submission can be done electronically. Thank you!

Good Things Come in Threes . .

And we've got three nifty things to tell you about today.

First, Saturday was the inaugural of the St. Louis Ancestor Treasure Hunt at our StLGS office. We had a full house, and thanks to the many enthusiastic volunteers on hand to help (and to VP-Programs Ken Webb for organizing everything), it was a great experience for everyone. Being able to sit with an experienced researcher for more than an hour and work on getting started or overcoming a brick wall seemed to be just what most people needed. We hope it stimulated more interest in StLGS and in genealogy in general, and we look forward to the next session.
     Did you miss out? Not a problem, as we have three more Saturdays scheduled. You can register for Saturday, 14 June, Saturday, 12 July, or Saturday, 9 August from 10 a.m. until 11:30 or 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. You can sign up directly from our website www.stlgs.org. Just click on the "Treasure Hunt" button, download a flyer, and send it in.

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Second, are you a "mature adult" who happens to be a member of AARP? If so, they recently announced a very nice discount on subscriptions to Ancestry.com for AARP members. If you are interested, you can save 30% on a World Explorer membership for one year. Existing Ancestry subscriptions can be extended with the discount for one year. If you are interested, go to aarpdiscounts.com/ancestry3 for all the details.

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Finally, if you are looking for ways to preserve your genealogy and live in the vicinity of Belleville, Illinois, you may want to attend the St. Clair County Genealogical Society meeting on Thursday, 3 April at 7:30 p.m. at St. Luke's Parish Hall, 226 N. Church Street, in Belleville. Featured speaker, Larry Darnell, will present "Publishing for Posterity: Saving Your Research for Future Generations," with lots of tips on how to preserve your countless hours of family research. This meeting is free and open to everyone. More information on the society's website www.stclair-ilgs.org. 

 

St. Patrick's Day and the StLGS FHC

Céad mile fáilte!

This traditional Irish greeting, meaning a hundred thousand welcomes, seems a good way to wish you all a happy St. Patrick's Day. Did you know that according to the U.S. census bureau, there are more than 34 million Americans who claim Irish ancestry? That number is more than seven times the population of Ireland, which only has 4.6 million inhabitants! Want to see a map with current U.S. Irish population statistics? Try this: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/pdf/cb14-ff02_st_patricks.pdf?eml=gd&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery.

This seems like a particularly good time to remind everyone of our upcoming Family History Conference featuring David Rencher, Chief Genealogical Officer for FamilySearch and an expert in Irish genealogy. In addition to presenting two talks on technology in the morning, David will talk about online resources for doing Irish research in two talks in the afternoon. Joining David will be an impressive array of speakers from repositories and local societies speaking on a variety of topics from "Getting Genealogical Websites to Work for You" to "Let Your Computer Help Organize Your Data." Of course, there will be vendors, raffles, and door prizes! You can buy a delicious box lunch for $10 or visit one of the many restaurants in the area for lunch. You may want to stay around, however, to meet Charlie Brennan, local author and radio personality, as he presents a special treat during the noon hour.

This year's conference is at the Maryland Heights Centre on Saturday, 26 April. You can register online and download a copy of the conference program on the StLGS website www.stlgs.org. Hope to see you there!