November/December Genealogy Meetings, Classes, and a Special Event at Sappington House

Happy Halloween! We are coming to the end of another year of genealogy meetings, classes, and special events, and, as fall finally arrives, StLGS volunteers are hard at work planning next year's exciting calendar of events. Our November monthly meeting will again be at the Grant's View 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 two more classes are on the fall schedule. Our friends at Historic Sappington House have a very special event to announce, of special interest to those whose roots go back to early St. Louis. Also, StLGS members, tomorrow, Tuesday, 31 October, is the last day to vote in our annual election of officers! More information about everything is below.

Baby Gardens and Potters' Fields: Burying Babies and Poor People

With Halloween around the corner, this week seems like a good time to talk a bit about burial customs for the most vulnerable of our ancestors. In the past, we have covered several related topics, and you might want to check out some of them before we move into looking at how some infants, children, and poor people were treated at the ends of their lives.

“Did Our Ancestors Trick or Treat?” 25 October 2021

“Funeral Rituals and Traditions, Part 1” 19 April 2021

“Funeral Rituals and Traditions, Part II” 26 April 2021

“Broken Mirrors and Spilled Salt: Some of our Ancestors’ Superstitions,” 26 October 2020

If Only Geographic Borders Didn't Change!

It certainly makes it easier to do genealogy if your family lived in the same place for hundreds of years, doesn’t it? Well, maybe. The reality is that over time, borders are always changing. As America became more settled by non-native people, the borders of cities, counties, colonies, and then states were forever shifting. In Europe, centuries of disputes over who ruled what and where meant that stability was the exception and not the norm. What do movable boundaries mean for those of us trying to research our families?

Newly Revised Missouri Birth and Death Indexes Online!

Just about a month ago, our friends at Reclaim the Records announced the release of birth and marriage indexes from Connecticut (which we told you about in a post on 6 September; if you missed it, you can read it here.) This week, they announced another exciting victory, one which may be much closer to home for many of us. Although this hardworking group had already obtained indexes for some births and deaths in Missouri, they have now been able to add about a million new names to what had previously been published. But it was not without an expensive fight! Here are all the exciting details.

Google Patents May Add to Your Family History AND StLGS Members, It's Time to Vote!

We already know that many of our ancestors were hard-working and industrious. They often had to be in order to survive. A lot of our ancestors were also extremely creative as they made their way through what often was a difficult world. Not satisfied with the status quo, they looked for ways to improve their lives. A few weeks ago, we told you about a woman named Nancy Donaldson Johnson, who invented and patented an ice cream freezer in 1843. (Did you miss that post? You can find it here.) How can you learn more about your own ancestors who might have been inventors? Once again, Google is your friend. Read on to learn about one of its best-kept secrets, Google Patents. (And if you are a member of StLGS, be sure to check out the information at the end of this post; it's voting time again!)