November Genealogy Events and News

Finally, it feels like fall! Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away, and Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa will be here before we know it. Our genealogy year is winding down, but we have an interesting monthly meeting planned for November, and, if you missed the livestreaming of our Fall Speaker Series, "Mapping Our Ancestors," you can still register to watch the digital recordings. Our friends in St. Clair County, Illinois, have an upcoming meeting that may be helpful to you, and we want to share an honor recently bestowed on a historic African American cemetery in St. Louis County. Read on for all the details.

November 2021 Virtual Monthly Meeting

Saturday, 13 November 2021, 10:00 a.m. (Central)

"Ohio Valley Pioneers: Using the John Dabney Shane Collection" by Dan Lilienkamp, research librarian, St. Louis County Library

John Dabney Shane conducted interviews in the Ohio River Valley during the early nineteenth century. Discover the value of this underutilized resource. Registration for this meeting is now open on the StLGS website.

You can still register to watch the digital recordings of the 2021

 

Virtual Fall Speaker Series

 

Mapping Our Ancestors

Featuring:

• Identifying Migration Trails (Jacob Eubanks, ass't. manager, History & Genealogy Dept., St. Louis Co. Library)
• Finding an Ancestor's Land at the Bureau of Land Management and in Plat Books (Ilene Murray, StLGS Publications Director)
• Library of Congress Maps (Carol Whitton, CG, StLGS Projects Director )
• HistoryGeo and Sanborn Maps: Rural and Urban Map Research (Bob Goode, StLGS Infosystems Director)

Four lectures now available as digital recordings; details on each talk and photos and biographies of the speakers are on the StLGS website on the Fall Speaker Series page. 

Registration for the Fall Speaker Series 

Registration for the digital recordings and handouts is $40 for StLGS members and $50 for non-members and you can still register in our online store. Prefer to pay by check? A mail-in form is on the website.

Once you have registered, you will receive an email invitation that provides access to the event page on our website where you will find downloadable handouts and links and passcodes to the recordings. Don't wait too long, though. Links will expire in mid-January!

Questions? Email: programs@stlgs.org.

More Genealogy News

St. Clair County (Illinois) Genealogical Society

Meeting via Zoom on Thursday, 4 November 2021 at 7:00 p.m. (Central)

"St. Clair County's Circuit Court Naturalization Records" presented by Diane Walsh

If you had ancestors who may have naturalized in St. Clair County, you will want to attend this Zoom meeting. First, there will be a brief overview of the naturalization process and then you will learn exactly what is in the St. Clair County Circuit Court's collection of declarations and other naturalization records.

This meeting is free and open to all, but space is limited, and reservations are required. You can register or find out more on their website or on their Facebook page. Questions? Send an email to Janice Carlson at jjacytwo@aol.com.

Father Dickson Cemetery Receives National Honor

Most African American cemeteries in St. Louis have suffered from neglect over time, but the twelve-acre Father Dickson Cemetery, located at 845 Sappington Road in southwest St. Louis County, has been lovingly restored and now has earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Under the leadership of Ernest Jordan Jr., the Friends of Father Dickson Cemetery have galvanized support from the community and turned what once was a vandalized and overgrown weed patch back into the well-maintained final resting place that those buried there deserve. Father Dickson Cemetery contains more than 12,000 burials from leaders on the Underground Railroad, to former enslaved people and victims of lynchings. The cemetery was named for Moses Dickson, an abolitionist, who was the first to be interred there in 1903. Having the cemetery on the National Register validates the years of time and effort put into its restoration and ensures it a stable future. Kudos to Mr. Jordan and his hard-working volunteers for preserving this special location, not just for those buried there and their descendants, but as a tribute to an important part of our collective heritage.

For more on the Friends of Father Dickson organization, check out their Facebook page.

For some additional history and a list of burials, see the Father Dickson page on the StLGS website (for members only; be sure you log in first.)

(Cemetery photo by Ilene Murray in 2019; used with permission)