Happy Boxing Day!

It’s December 26th, and for most of us that means that we have made it through Chanukah and Christmas. We can thaw out from the extremely cold weekend and think ahead to celebrating the new year. But did you know that for many people around the world, December 26th is a holiday called Boxing Day? And it is very likely that some of our ancestors were active participants in that extra day of giving and receiving. The modern celebration of Boxing Day only began during the 1830s when Queen Victoria reigned in Great Britain, but the origin of the holiday goes much further back in time.

More Free Interactive Maps for Genealogy and a Big Thank You!

After almost three years of pandemic uncertainty, the one thing that St. Louis Genealogical Society can be sure of is the loyalty and generosity of our members and friends. If you have been a regular reader of our blog, you know that like many non-profits, we have struggled to stay active and vital during a very difficult time. Because we have been so limited in what we can do to raise funds, we have relied more than usual on donations, and we are just overwhelmed by how incredibly generous so many of you have been.

Newspaper Article Unexpectedly Ties StLGS Member to a Mexican War Tragedy

The post that follows is from StLGS member, Beth Davis, who wrote to us after our recent blog on the Mexican American War. (Did you miss that one from 14 November 2022? You can access it here.) Beth gives us a perfect example of how you never know where something that pertains to your family will show up! Read on for her fascinating discovery.

Holiday Season: A Perfect Time to Save Your Family's Oral History

Oral history is of vital importance to our families, and as we approach another holiday season, we want to revisit a topic we first covered in 2017: interviewing family members. Many of us have experienced personal loss during the past few years. Once those members of our family who hold the "old" memories are gone, the stories are gone too. So, as you gather during the next few weeks to celebrate Chanukah, Christmas, and/or Kwanzaa, think about sitting with your relatives and capturing those family stories before they are lost.

Gift Ideas for Genealogists

Are you ready for the holiday season? It's here! As we look ahead to Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, it's time to start thinking about holiday gifts for those genealogists on your shopping list, and we are pleased to present our traditional "Genealogy Gift Guide," in case you need some ideas. Although it's easier than it was during the past few years at this time to get out to the stores, you can still purchase almost all of these items online. So whether you get into your car or shop in your jammies at your computer, have fun fulfilling someone's (or your own) wish lists.

Looking Forward to Another Successful Year with YOUR Help, Please!

What a roller coaster ride we all have been on for the past few years, but St. Louis Genealogical Society has survived and thrived, and we are looking ahead to another exciting year of genealogy, with your help. We have managed to weather the storm of pandemic and rising costs because of our wonderful, loyal members and friends, and as this year comes to a close, we are asking you, once again to remember the society in your year-end giving plans. We have managed to accomplish a great deal this past year, due to your support and generosity, and we are excited about what is in the future for the society. 

Like many of you, we watched the St. Louis County Library Headquarters building come down a few weeks ago, leading to the loss of our regular monthly and Special Interest Group meeting space, but we have worked with the library to begin holding meetings at alternate locations. We have opened our office again, welcomed back many of our faithful volunteers (and several new ones), and have begun to hold many of our meetings as hybrid, which allows so many more of you to attend. We continue to be very proud of what our society has and will accomplish!

Remembering Those Who Fought in the Mexican American War

The year was 1846 and James K. Polk was president. You may remember from high school history that he was a firm believer in the Manifest Destiny, the right of the United States to continue spreading westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. Texas, which had belonged to Mexico until it won its independence in 1836, had only recently joined the union, a process that took a decade because it was a southern state with pro-slavery values, and its statehood was opposed by the northern states. Mexico still controlled what is now California and most of the Southwest. However, some of the boundary lines between the United States and Mexico were not fully drawn. The U.S. believed that they owned a slice of land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River; Mexico claimed the same territory. In the summer of 1845, even before Texas became a state, the president sent U.S. troops into the disputed area, starting a ball rolling that would lead to all-out war.

Looking for Genealogy Book Bargains? We've Got You Covered!

St. Louis Genealogical Society has operated a Trading Post of gently used genealogy books for many years. However, having the society office closed during COVID and because of many generous donations during the past two years but few opportunities to interact with the public, we have built up an almost overwhelming number of used books, and they are priced to sell! The Trading Post is open to anyone coming into our office on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday mornings and is located in the front lobby to the left of the new books for sale. (And, of course, if you live too far to visit, we can ship to you—although we will have to add postage to your order).

November/December StLGS Genealogy Meetings

Happy Halloween! As the year winds down, don't forget St. Louis Genealogical Society still has a few meetings for you to attend, either in person or virtually, via Zoom. And while we are enjoying our Halloween treats, we are also hard at work planning next year's exciting calendar of events. Our November monthly meeting will again be at the Thornhill branch of St. Louis County Library, but will also be livestreamed for those who can't attend in person. We have our last Jewish SIG meeting in early December, and, in case you missed the Fall Speaker Series, the good news is you can still attend virtually! The recordings remain available until the end of the year, and you can register on our website. Also, StLGS members, today is the last day to vote in our annual election of officers! More information about everything is below.

Got Vikings in Your Family History? A Surprising Number of People Do!

Long before the world had Spiderman and Wonder Woman, many people’s idea of superheroes looked like larger-than-life Viking warriors. These remarkable people seemed to have been everywhere in the ancient world, conquering and pillaging before settling down in a myriad of locations. They left their genes behind in children with light eyes and light hair, and they left place names, runic writing, extremely advanced artisanal skill sets, and long-buried treasure in a stunning number of places.

As the young folks in your life don their Halloween costumes this year, let’s look back at these precursors to our Marvel heroes to see who they were and how they affected all of modern history, including many of our own families.

Celebrate Family History Month with Pizza!

October is a busy month for many reasons. Last week, we suggested ways genealogists could celebrate Family History Month. (Did you miss last week’s post? You can read it right now!) This week, we want to call your attention to the fact that October is also National Pizza Month, and even if you are not Italian, we thought you might like a bit of pizza history to brighten up your day. So when you are ready for a break from genealogy or are looking for some ideas to add to the stories of your immigrant families, read on!

Creative Ways to Celebrate Family History Month

October is Family History Month, so why not take the time to do something creative or fun with your favorite hobby? Many families are lucky to have inherited family heirlooms, but, as we have seen in the aftermath of recent hurricanes, sometimes those objects don’t last. Photos get thrown away, glassware breaks, and many young people don’t seem to have much appreciation for antiques.

October StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Events

Before we get to genealogy, all of us at StLGS want to send our best wishes to our friends in Florida and the Carolinas, with hopes that you, your loved ones, and your homes are safe in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Our hearts are with those of you living in areas where there was destruction; please know that we are thinking of you.

Now that fall has arrived, if you still haven't ventured back out to work on your genealogy, why not plan to attend a monthly meeting? Our October monthly meeting will again be at the Thornhill branch of St. Louis County Library, but will also be livestreamed for those who can't attend in person. We have an Irish SIG meeting in October, and, in case you missed the Fall Speaker Series, the good news is you can still attend virtually! The recordings are now available, and you can register on our website. Also, StLGS members, it's time to vote in our annual election of officers! More information about everything is below.

Finding American Ancestors Before 1840

What would we genealogists do without the U.S. federal census? We have come to rely on it for so much: names, ages, occupations, locations, neighbors, and, in some years, military and citizenship information, health status, individual wealth, and more. But . . .  all that bonus information only applies to the censuses from 1850 onwards. What about our ancestors who lived in earlier years? The earliest censuses captured only basic information, so how do we find out more about the lives of our pre-1850 ancestors?  There are genealogical methods you can use to learn more, and noted genealogist, D. Joshua Taylor, will go into depth on this in his presentation, "Bridging the Gap: Finding Ancestors in the United States Between 1790 and 1840," at our annual Fall Speaker Series this coming Saturday, 1 October 2022. Read on to learn the details!

Ancestors with No Children: Why You Need to Research Them!

One of the basic guidelines of doing thorough genealogical research is to always work on collateral family lines. That simply means we should not just attempt to go back in a straight line from child to parent to grandparent, etc., but to remember that all our ancestors were part of families, and every sibling is important to our research, whether they had children of their own or not. In fact, sometimes the childless members of our families provide us with the exact information we need to break down our stubborn brick walls. This is one of the four topics our guest speaker, D. Joshua Taylor, will present at the StLGS Fall Speaker Series, Saturday, 1 October 2022, and we have stories from our own genealogical research to share.

Missouri State Archives Has Volunteer Opportunities

StLGS put out a call for volunteers on 22 August 2022 (Read that post here, if you missed it) and now our friends at the Missouri State Archives are also asking for assistance. Although StLGS still REALLY needs people with specific technology and proofreading skills, we are happy to share information about more volunteer opportunities that you can do from home on your computer. Read on for the specifics on how you can help.

“Webtember: All Genealogy. All September Long.”

Legacy Family Tree Webinars are known throughout the genealogy world for being excellent resources. They are taught by experts on a wide variety of subjects but often require a subscription. Now, each Friday in September, in cooperation with MyHeritage, another genealogy company, they are offering a series of free webinars on a wide variety of topics, and all of us are invited to watch and learn!

September StLGS Meetings and Events

Our August monthly meeting on researching the history of your house was the first time for us at the Grant's View branch of the St. Louis County Library, and we were so pleased to see some familiar as well as some new faces for the in-person meeting and to greet many more who attended via Zoom. Our September schedule includes a monthly meeting at the Thornhill branch of the library, a German Special Interest Meeting at the Oak Bend branch, and a hybrid class, for StLGS members, at our office in Maplewood. We are also very excited to be hosting nationally known genealogist, D. Joshua Taylor, for our Fall Speaker Series on Saturday, 1 October. Early registration ends on 17 September, so be sure to register soon! More details coming up . . .

Volunteers Needed!

Like many others in the business world, St. Louis Genealogical Society rode out the storm of the "pandemic years" with a skeleton crew of hard-core workers. This was an amazing feat, considering that our society has no paid staff. Everything we accomplish is because of our volunteers. Elected officers, members of the board of directors, and office "regulars" all pitched in to keep the society moving along during those months of uncertainty. As it became safer to work together at the office, volunteers relied on each other to follow safety protocols, and we were able to pick up the pace. However, although many of our volunteers have returned to work, there is currently more to do than there are people to do it!

Fifteen Years of Google Street View

(Many thanks to StLGS publicity and social media director, Laura Mackinson, for writing this week's blog. All images from Google Street View.)

Go back in time with this interesting Google Maps feature!

By now, most everyone has heard of Google Maps, but perhaps you haven't heard of Google Street View. Essentially, Google sends vehicles with 360-degree cameras mounted on top to drive up and down streets taking panoramic photographs. These images are then uploaded to Google Maps and linked to the corresponding locations on the map. Google Street View began in 2007, and the past images were made available beginning in 2014.

Obsolete Occupations: Factors and Commission Merchants

Perhaps, as you have been researching your male ancestors, you have come across some that were factors or commission merchants. Have you wondered what these people did for a living? Are there modern equivalents for these jobs? We will take a look at this obscure occupation in this week’s post.

Farewell to Our "Guardian Angel" and Recovering Photos from Flood Damage

We lost a very special StLGS member this week, Mary Berthold, whom we frequently called our "guardian angel" because of her never-ending support and generosity. We say a brief farewell here but will celebrate her life more fully in a future Quarterly article. 

It feels as if it has been a week of losses. Not only did we have record-setting rainfall in St. Louis City and County, but flash floods have affected our members throughout the country. Our hearts go out to those of you whose basements and homes have been swamped by rain water and backed up sewers. We want to offer some hope for your photos and documents that have been soaked, and, more importantly, some advice about how to protect those precious keepsakes for the future.

StLGS August Meetings and More!

Most of us are sweltering this summer, but doesn't that make the idea of attending a genealogy meeting in a cool, air-conditioned location that much more appealing?  Now that the St. Louis County Library Headquarters building is closed, we have been working with our friends at the library to reserve large, comfortable meeting locations at several of the branch libraries for the remaining months of this year and all of 2023. Because our membership is so widespread, we have decided to use several venues throughout St. Louis County plus our office for our hybrid meetings, so we can accommodate everyone, regardless of where you live. You will not have to reserve space if you are attending in person, but do pay attention to meeting locations from now on. We will have Google map links to each branch library on our website as meetings open for registration. We have several interesting meetings coming up in August that should fill the bill for staying cool and learning at the same time, so check these out!

Looking for an Ethnic St. Louis Newspaper?

As you probably know by now, the old headquarters building of St. Louis County Library is closed and the demolition process has begun; a new structure will take its place in a year or so. As the History & Genealogy Department prepared for its move to temporary quarters at the Daniel Boone branch, they had to reassess their holdings and make some decisions on what to keep and what to discard. Accordingly, since many of their newspapers were already digitized and online, they offered StLGS a variety of newspaper microfilms.

Shot Towers: A Strange but Necessary Bit of History

If you lived in the United States in the nineteenth century, the need for hunting and defending yourself and your family from predators meant that you required a ready supply of ammunition for your guns and rifles. The forests and the prairies were your grocery stores. If you had the materials, skills, space, and time, you could make enough bullets for your personal use, but there was also ongoing conflict between indigenous people and sprawling American settlers, and there were wars and other military skirmishes creating continuous demand for gun shot. There was, however, an inherent problem with the way gun shot was created.

July StLGS Meetings, Events, and More!

Happy Fourth of July! We hope you have had a good holiday weekend, have stayed cool and dry, and celebrated the birth of our country safely and happily. Now that the holiday is over and summer is in full swing, we also hope you will make some time for attending some upcoming genealogy meetings. Our monthly meeting will be hybrid; you can attend in person at our office or via Zoom. However, the Irish Special Interest Group meeting this month will be via Zoom only. We are also announcing the Fall Speaker Series, now open for registration, and a new membership category for young people. Read on for more!

More Tips on Using the 1950 Census

Now that the 1950 federal census has been released, many of us have attempted to find our families or even ourselves. In looking for your relatives, you may have discovered that some major genealogy websites are in the process of indexing but have different states available. According to a news article from the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Ancestry and FamilySearch have partnered to create an index. Ancestry began by using a proprietary Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology so an entire census index could be released as soon as the census went live from the National Archives in April. Now, FamilySearch volunteers are reviewing and making corrections to that index. The National Archives also released an OCR index and is asking for assistance in finding and correcting errors.

A Day at the Archives Enriches Research

At this year's StLGS annual Family History Conference, “Get in Your Car and Go,” speakers emphasized the importance of researching at archives, libraries, and other non-internet sources. Here is a recent, personal example of exactly how such a trip can enrich your family history research and even solve a few mysteries.

Finding St. Louis Orphanages in the 1950 Census

Did you know the term "orphan" refers to both full orphans and half-orphans? A full orphan means both parents have died or deserted the child. A half-orphan refers to children with one parent still living. Every year, our Ask Louie genealogy advice service receives many questions on researching orphaned ancestors, and this year is no different. With the release of the 1950 U.S. census, we've been busy updating St. Louis orphanage information on our website.  If you are researching an ancestor who was orphaned or half-orphaned in St. Louis and are a member of StLGS, you can access a great deal of information about St. Louis orphans and orphanages on our website.

StLGS June Meetings and Events

We hope you were able to attend our Family History Conference in May, but if you missed it, no worries. The recordings will be available until the middle of August. We have a wonderful hybrid monthly meeting coming up next week, a German Special Interest Group meeting, and a class on Catholic church records. In addition, we have updated the StLGS website to include all of the upcoming meetings and classes for the summer. Time to open your calendars and check out the details below!

Another Resource to Locate Revolutionary War Service Members

This weekend, as we have been honoring our military heroes, both present and past, we thought we might introduce you to a little-known resource you may find useful in tracking down ancestors who served in the American Revolution or a military operation in that time period. If you have worked with early federal censuses, you know that the first fifty years of the census listed only heads of household, and enumerators used tally marks in columns to indicate age and gender of household members. It wasn’t until 1850 that the census began to list names of individual members of each family. However, an exception was made in 1840.

Conference Wrap-up, Digital Recordings, and Three New Publications

The challenges of holding our 50th annual—and first hybrid—Family History Conference on Saturday, 14 May 2022 were enormous, but thanks to the non-stop efforts of many people, it was a huge success. It was not without some glitches, however, but all were overcome in the end. Kudos to StLGS vice-president of programs, Kay Weber, who spent countless hours emailing, calling, and organizing while setting up the speakers and topics, and to StLGS president, Karen Goode, who oversaw the Zoom team, coordinated the kitchen, and sorted the dozens of miscellaneous bits and pieces of the day. Kay and Karen’s conference planning team met regularly so that registration, signage, the syllabus and handouts, the sales area, technology, and all the other areas that needed coverage were, indeed, covered.

Update on St. Louis County Library Plans

As you no doubt know by now, the time is rapidly approaching for what has served as the Headquarters branch of St. Louis County Library to close and for the History and Genealogy (H&G) Department to move into temporary quarters until the new Ladue branch building is completed. As much as we are looking forward to having a brand new facility with updated technology for genealogists and room for H&G to continue to grow, we are also facing at least a year in which we will not have access to all of the genealogy materials we have previously had at our disposal. The H&G staff will be relocating to space at the Daniel Boone branch (see below). Although they are trying to keep a selection of St. Louis-based materials on hand, most of the large collection will be boxed and kept in storage until the new genealogy center is ready.

How Can a Presidential Library Help With Your Genealogical Research?

Even if your family had nothing at all to do with any of the United States presidents, there may be material in a presidential library that will help you “put the meat on the family skeleton.” As your family lived through events like World War II or the Civil Rights Movement, what happened to them as individuals was part of the larger history of our country that is being saved and explained in these institutions. Ready to learn about presidential libraries? You can learn about them and so much more at the StLGS Family History Conference coming up next weekend, Saturday, 14 May 2022. Read on for details!

Surprises Wait in Courthouse Records!

Our ancestors interacted with government officials on a regular basis at their county courthouses. Not just for recording births, marriages, and deaths, the courthouse was also for paying taxes, settling disputes, filing wills and probates, and obtaining business licenses and a wide variety of permits. The county courthouse was the center of the legal life of the community, and many of them still contain thousands of unique documents that can help us with our research.

May Meetings and Events and We Say Goodbye to Another Volunteer

The days are longer, more of us can now gather in groups without fear of getting terribly ill, and life feels a lot more normal these days, at last. Our April monthly meeting, held as our first "hybrid meeting," was a huge success. We learned so much about the "new" 1950 federal census from Missouri State Archivist John Dougan with about thirty people in our office and another large group watching via Zoom. We will continue offering you meetings in that format so no matter where you are or however you feel safe, you can take part in our society's events, meetings, and classes. Coming up are some great options for you. Read on for details!

An Unsung Hero of Family History: Lyman Copeland Draper

Sometimes we are guilty of thinking that people in the past were not at all like us, but the more we study family history, the more we find individuals worried about precious documents, fearful of the loss of oral tradition, and trying to preserve facts surrounding important events in American history. One of those unsung heroes was Lyman Copeland Draper, who lived in the nineteenth century and gathered as much information as he could on those he called “heroes of the Revolution” in the American south. Draper spent most of his life collecting information on the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812 in what he called the “Trans-Allegheny West, which included the western Carolinas and Virginia, some portions of Georgia and Alabama, the entire Ohio River valley, and parts of the Mississippi River valley.”*

Although a single index to the entire collection does not exist, you can learn how to access and use the Draper collection from nationally-known genealogical researcher, Dr. David McDonald, at the St. Louis Genealogical Society's Family History Conference on Saturday, 14 May 2022.

StLGS 50th Annual Family History Conference: Get in Your Car and Go—Midwest Archives and Libraries

We are excited to announce our 50th annual Family History Conference, this one in a brand new format, hybrid! We hope you will join us on Saturday, 14 May 2022, at the Maryland Heights Community Center, 2300 McKelvey Road, St. Louis, MO 63043, for this all-day event. You can attend in-person OR via Zoom, and, for the very first time, everyone who registers will be able to view all eight of the lectures, since they will all be recorded! Read on for all the details . . .

StLGS Congregations Index Pages Now Include Maps to Locate Churches and Synagogues

More maps for our website! Yes, we have spent a lot of time and energy recently on maps, but they are so incredibly valuable for genealogists, that we feel it’s worth devoting more than the usual amount of attention to them. During this past week, our map guru/technology volunteer, Jim Bellenger, uploaded a whole series of locator maps for all of our congregation indexes! That’s right––now you can click on a link and go to an exact location for every church and synagogue for which we have an address in our indexes.

StLGS April Meetings AND Our Annual Family History Conference Returns!

At last, it is safe enough to start planning for live events, and we have some exciting news to share. First, the StLGS office is open again, so as long as you are healthy, we welcome you back on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, from 9 a.m. until noon. Please respect our volunteers and plan your trip on another day if you are not feeling well or have been exposed to anything contagious. Second, we are pleased to be able to offer most of our meetings and classes in the future as hybrid events. We will be using our office in Maplewood for our meetings, since St. Louis County Library Headquarters is slated for its long-awaited demolition and rebuilding in the next few months. However, those who are not in St. Louis or who are not ready for being in a group setting are welcome to join us via Zoom. So, get your calendars out, and start planning!

Great News for Genealogists Researching New York City Ancestors!

Sometimes genealogical miracles occur. It happened a few years ago, when, after years of severe restrictions, Pennsylvania opened its vital records to the general public, and, this past week, it happened again. This time, it is New York City, which, after staunchly defending its right to deprive the public access to public records, suddenly launched a stunning new website that opened vital records from the New York City Municipal Archives to anyone who wants to see them.

Safety and Security: A Priority for Your Computer

We first posted articles about online safety in our blog in June 2019 and again in July 2020. This situation has continued to be of concern, and now, with the added focus on tax season and the crisis in Ukraine, online scamming is at a peak. So, it seems like a good time to reiterate some important information on keeping your computer and your personal information safe when you are online.

St. Louis County Library and Public Library Will Update and Share Their Catalogs

As many of you know, St. Louis has two unique library systems, one for the City of St. Louis and one for St. Louis County. Up until recently, each system maintained its own catalog, but all of that is about to change. Both library systems have announced that they are ready to merge their catalogs, improve their technology software, and make checking out materials between systems possible, and it’s about to happen!

Library Resources, German Brick Walls, and Irish Research on Tap for March Genealogy

Snow, sleet, and ice may have been falling in February, but we know that spring is on the horizon. The recording of our February monthly meeting featuring archivist Mike Everman on probate records is now on the Monthly Meetings page and our Ask Louie January panel discussion will remain up until the end of March. Coming up next, via Zoom, is the March monthly meeting on using the St. Louis County Library History and Genealogy Department for your research. Plus, we have a German Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting planned for you, and it's not too late to register for the Irish research class coming up this weekend.

Prepare for the 1950 Census Release with our New Interactive Map!

As most of us know by now, the 1950 federal census will be released on 1 April 2022, and many of us are chomping at the bit to see ourselves, maybe for the first time, on a federal census. We have been spoiled over the years, as all the previous censuses are now indexed, making our relatives easier to find. Of course, some of our family members are lost in mis-indexing confusion, but we can usually track them down with creative searching.

When the 1950 census is released in April, it will be posted immediately on the National Archives (NARA) website, and the big players in the genealogy world, like Ancestry and FamilySearch, should have the images up very quickly as well. What no one will have, however, is a completed index, which means that if you can’t wait to find your family, you will have to do some advance preparation before you get to the images. You will need to know:

• exactly where your family members were living
• the enumeration district (E.D.) in which that address was located. (For those new to genealogy, an enumeration district is an area assigned to a census taker [enumerator] that he/she is expected to complete within an allotted amount of time.) 

Once you have the address and the E.D., you should be able to browse the images, which will give you a head start while you are waiting for the indexing to be completed.

A New Interactive Map of 1950 St. Louis City and County E.D.s

St. Louis Genealogical Society tech volunteer, Jim Bellenger, has created another wonderful resource for those searching for family in St. Louis City and County. This new interactive map is now on the StLGS website and links to the National Archives where a series of maps will help you to identify the E.D.s you need. Our website page has complete instructions for using the NARA maps, so be sure to read carefully because there are no instructions on the NARA pages. 

So, how does this work? Let’s say we know that our family was living at 6741 Crest Avenue in University City in 1950. (And if we didn’t know that, we’d start by using a city or county directory to determine their address.) Next step is to go to the page on our website and look at the map of St. Louis County. We know that University City is just west of St. Louis City, so we will need to click on the number five in a circle. 

When the map on the NARA website opens, click on it to enlarge it. The enumeration district numbers are written in orange, so we will want to check those, and we find that University City is in an area that combines a large range of E.D.s, from 155 to 208. (You can ignore the 95 in front of each number.)

That’s a lot of possibilities, so here is a hint on how you can cut the number down. Use the website of noted genealogist Steve Morse. Scroll down to the census section and click on “Unified 1880 to 1950 Census ED Finder”; then choose the 1950 census (way up on the top). Enter the state, county, city, and street address and the site will narrow down the possibilities for you. Now, instead of dozens of E.D.s, there are only three, and you are ready to more easily find this family when the census debuts in April. 

We hope you have had some time to explore the 1883 Hopkins atlas and the Missouri immigration map we told you about two weeks ago, but if you haven’t, here’s the link to that blog post. Have fun!

Celebrating Valentine's Day, a Very Old Tradition

Happy Valentine’s Day! If you are indulging in flowers, chocolate, and greeting cards to your loved ones today, you are not alone, and it’s quite likely that your ancestors did the very same thing. Many of the traditions of this holiday, including its origins, go back hundreds of years and encompass much of the world. Let’s look at some of the more interesting aspects of celebrating Valentine’s Day.

Which Genealogist Doesn't Love a Good Map?

If you had ancestors in St. Louis in the late-1800s, you probably are familiar with the Pitzman's 1878 Atlas that provides maps and the names of property owners in the City of St. Louis. StLGS has sold copies of this atlas in CD format for many years in our secure store. Pitzman's was not the only atlas of the city, though, and if we move ahead a few years, we can enjoy the additional information provided by the Hopkins Atlas of 1883. 

St. Louis Genealogical Society February Meetings and Classes

Our new year of genealogy meetings and classes is off and running. If you weren't able to join us on Zoom for our January panel discussion of "Ask Louie" questions and answers, you can still watch the recording that is posted on our website on the Monthly Meetings page. Our panel of genealogy professionals answered a number of questions that may help you with your own research. Our February monthly meeting, also on Zoom, will focus on an important record set—probate records—so you won't want to miss it!

Marriage Bonds: How to Use Them to Build Family Relationships

Most genealogists are quite familiar with marriage licenses. Depending on where you live, they may or may not contain quite a bit of information. However, if your ancestors resided in the south or some mid-Atlantic states throughout the nineteenth century, you have another record set to examine that may help you to link families when marriage licenses are limited. These are marriage bonds, and we’ll take a look this week at what they are and why they may be useful to you in your research.

Policeman's Diary Reveals a Slice of Late 19th-Century Life in St. Louis

Charles Henry Richter was a police officer in the Sixth District of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in the mid-1890s. We know this about him because he kept a diary from September 1893 until August 1896 that was preserved and cared for by the residents of Breeze Park Lutheran Senior Services in St. Charles, Missouri. The story of the diary and how it came to St. Louis Genealogical Society is the subject of an article in the fall 2021 St. Louis Genealogical Society Quarterly, recently published by the society. The contents of Officer Richter's diary have been digitized, indexed, and posted on our website. Read on to learn more. . . .

Learn More About Symbols on Tombstones

Are you familiar with the term "iconography"? Pronounced "eye-con-og-ra-fee," it means, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "symbolic representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image or images." Even if you've never heard of the word, as a genealogist, you know how important it is to understand the meaning of what we see on tombstones. Among many other things, we may learn whether an ancestor was in a fraternal order, what his/her occupation may have been, or if he/she had life cut short too soon.

January 2022 StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Another Farewell

We are excited to begin another year of interesting genealogy programs. While we did hope that we would be able to resume meeting in person, for now, we will continue meeting with you via Zoom. We had also planned to start hybrid meetings in February with our first 2022 class, but with the current COVID situation, that class will likely come to you online too. As much as we would like to have some attendees in person at our office and others joining us on their computers, this may just have to wait. If nothing else, these past two years have taught us to be flexible! We hope you had a happy holiday season, and you are ready for a busy year of genealogy. Here's a start for the new year!