Missouri, St. Louis, and Irish Offerings at our Family History Conference, Saturday, 4 May 2024

Last week, we told you about the FamilySearch part of the program for our annual Family History Conference, Successfully Navigating Websites for Your Genealogy, coming up on Saturday, 4 May 2024. (Did you miss last week’s post? You can read it here.) But, in addition to the three lectures that our featured speaker, Chief Genealogical Officer for FamilySearch David Rencher is presenting on the library and its catalogs, we have five more exciting talks scheduled for the big day. You can learn more about important resources at the State Historical Society of Missouri, the brand-new Clark Family Branch library here in St. Louis County, our own StLGS website, and fantastic sources for online Irish research. PLUS, all participants will have access to the full slate of eight lectures and an electronic version of the syllabus via our website for three months after the conference. Excited? Read on for more information . . .

Learn More About FamilySearch.org

Many newcomers to genealogy have yet to discover the powerful website run by the FamilySearch organization in Salt Lake City, Utah. And many who have been doing genealogy research for years may not realize how this powerhouse website has grown, especially if it's been a while since you looked at it. You probably know the Family History Library (now the FamilySearch library) is the world's largest genealogy library and that for the past few decades they have been digitizing, indexing, and uploading their millions of microfilms to their website.

April StLGS Genealogy Meetings AND Don't Forget to Register for our 52nd Annual Family History Conference!

Our Open House on Saturday, 23 March, was a great success, and now we have more exciting events and meetings for you to attend, either in-person or via Zoom, coming up soon. Last month, we announced that registration is open for our 52nd annual Family History Conference featuring noted genealogist David Rencher. Remember that early registration ends on 16 April. By registering before that date, you save some money and help us plan more efficiently as well. We are also pleased to let you know about some new classes and our April meetings. Read on for more!

We Bid Farewell to Longtime StLGS Core Volunteer, Edward E. "Ted" Steele

Usually on the first of each month, our weekly blog features upcoming meetings. Because of the importance of the following "In Memoriam," we'll hold that post until next week. In the meantime, please use the Annual Family History Conference, Calendar of Events and Current Classes pages on our website for the latest news. Also, registration for our annual Salt Lake City Research trip has just opened. And now, please read on as we bid farewell to a beloved member of our genealogical family.

Open House Brings Out a Crowd!

For the first time in many years, St. Louis Genealogical Society hosted an open house on Saturday, 23 March 2024, and it was a great success! It was wonderful to see so many new faces as well as some old friends who stopped by to chat. Our hardworking volunteers provided coffee, cookies, and soft pretzel bites to munch on and were available all morning to greet visitors, give tours of the office, answer a myriad of questions, and encourage people to explore our website, attend our meetings, and be part of the exciting genealogical community in St. Louis.

Updated Congregations Maps Added to the StLGS Website!

Suppose you had a female ancestor who lived in St. Louis in the 1860s, but you couldn’t discover her birth date. There are no statewide birth records in Missouri prior to 1910, and, although the City of St. Louis kept a birth register, compliance was not compulsory; hence, it is incomplete. Religious records would be very helpful, as births, baptisms, confirmations, and other life events were usually recorded by religious leaders and kept on site. You know where your ancestor lived and what religion her family practiced, but how do you know what congregations were active at the time she was born? A new set of congregations maps is now live on our website, and an exciting feature of the maps is the ability to see exactly which churches and synagogues were open in the city and county at any given time. Let’s take a look!

Orphans in the Family?

Sometimes, because we are so used to the way we do things, we forget it wasn’t always that way. We assume that if an ancestor changed their name, they went to court to do so because that’s what most people do now. We also assume that if a child was adopted, some well-defined legal pathways were followed––again, because that’s what is expected today. However, the reality is that names were changed all the time without anyone taking any legal steps, and children were handed over to friends, clergy, family members, and other willing takers, quite often with no paper trail. Orphanages held thousands of children who still had one or more living parent, and children struggling to survive in poverty were often literally snatched off the streets and placed in institutions, sometimes without parental consent.

Celebrate National Women's History Month with a Remarkable Scottish Heroine

March, with its promise of growth and rebirth, is exactly the right time for National Women’s History Month and the celebration of International Women’s Day this week on March 8th. We genealogists know how difficult it often is to learn more about our female ancestors, largely because for most of recorded history, they were treated as second-class citizens. Historically, women have lost their maiden names when they marry; they have usually not been heads of household; they have been under-educated and undervalued, all leading to their “disappearance” from public records. As far back as 400 years B.C., the Greek statesman Pericles stated, “A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about, whether for good or ill.” That mindset persisted for centuries.

March 2024 StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Events AND Family History Conference Registration Opens!

Spring is in the air early this year, and we are looking forward to welcoming you to an enticing array of genealogy events. We will, of course, continue to offer you the option of attending remotely, but we hope with the warm weather, you will return to attending in person. It's always so good to see all of you! We want to remind you about our Open House on Saturday, 23 March, and we are also excited to announce our 52nd annual Family History Conference featuring noted genealogist David Rencher. Here is the upcoming schedule.

Open House is Back! Come Visit on Saturday, 23 March 2024!

During the early 2000s, St. Louis Genealogical Society hosted an Open House at our office in Maplewood. It was held on a Sunday afternoon and always attracted an enthusiastic crowd. We enjoyed showing off our home base, greeting old and new friends, and sharing progress on our many projects. As time passed, however, and we got busy with many other events, Open House slipped under the radar and faded away. Then, of course, the pandemic shut us down, and even more years passed by without a way to celebrate our society. This year, we are reviving this fun way to spend a morning. We're changing it to a Saturday so more people can attend, and we can't wait to welcome you to our office!

Free Webinars to Celebrate Black History Month!

This mild and so far un-winter-like February brings us Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, and, perhaps most importantly, Black History Month. Regardless of your cultural or ethnic heritage, if you are an American, then the experiences of everyone who has lived, worked, and sacrificed for this country are yours too. And the uptick in DNA testing during the past few decades has made it very clear that many of us are more diverse than we had ever imagined.

Another Goodbye to a Friend, Some More Upcoming Events, and an Update to the Photo Scanning Day

In Memoriam: Jim Bresnahan, Former StLGS Webmaster

As many of you know, the StLGS website is one of our society’s most valuable assets. Developing and maintaining the site has taken thousands of volunteer hours and an incredible amount of expertise. We have been very lucky to have knowledgeable people design and create our website pages over the years, and this week we lost one of them. James “Jim” Bresnahan was our webmaster for almost twenty years, and it is with great sadness that we announce his passing on 26 January 2024 after a long illness.

StLGS February Genealogy Meetings and Classes

We hope you are staying warm and dry during this past month of freezing cold and copious rain and snow. Even our friends and relatives in Florida are feeling real winter this year! We are so very glad we can offer you most of our meetings and classes now as hybrid so that no matter where you are or how nasty the weather, you can participate, learn, and continue to grow your genealogy research skills. We love seeing you in person, however, and hope you will come out and join us now whenever you can. Here is what is on tap for February.

Some New Year's Resolutions for Genealogists

As each new year begins, do you get excited about starting over? Do you promise yourself you will exercise more? Eat more healthy foods? Cut back on bad habits or continue good ones? Perhaps you have made some new year’s resolutions for those things, but have you thought about making some for your genealogy research? There are many things that all of us can do in this new year and those to come to enhance our research skills. Why not make a resolution for 2024 to become a better researcher? Here are a few suggestions for how you can do just that.

Honoring Our Ancestors Who Fought for Equality

This long holiday weekend, we honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who lived and died fighting for equal rights for everyone, regardless of how they looked, what they believed in, or where they came from. For all of us as genealogists, this seems like an appropriate time to think about and pay homage to our ancestors who lived and died fighting for equality and acceptance.

Patent Models Online at Missouri Historical Society's Website

In a recent blog post, we shared information on a little-known area of Google’s website: Google Patents. We discussed how you could check to see if one of your ancestors filed for a U.S. patent and the interesting information a patent file might contain. (If you missed that post from October 2023, you can find it here.) Shortly after our blog was released, the fall 2023 issue of the Gateway magazine published by the Missouri Historical Society arrived containing a fascinating article on patents written by Assistant Collections Manager Bryan Morey. Read on to see how the Missouri Historical Society’s collection may lead to some remarkable discoveries for you.

January 2024 StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Classes

Happy New Year! Before we tell you about the exciting meetings and classes we have planned to kick off 2024, we want to say a huge THANK YOU! to all of you who generously donated to St. Louis Genealogical Society during the past year. The outpouring of donations and words of encouragement we have received from you mean the world to all of us who volunteer for the society. Everything we do throughout the year is for the betterment of our members and friends, and we thank you so very much for recognizing that. Now, read on to learn what we have waiting in the wings as the new year begins. . .