A Thanksgiving Genealogy Gift and Another Farewell

StLGS bids farewell to another past-president with the passing on 26 October 2024 of Neil Fiala, who served in 2000–2001. Neil and his wife Barbara were active volunteers throughout the 1990s, and you can read more about them below. We also have a very special gift to all of you, courtesy of our intrepid "geospatial genealogist," Jim Bellenger, who has been working non-stop on creating maps for every cemetery on our website. This past week, we have finalized and uploaded about forty new maps, and the linked list below is a thank you for your generous donations to the society. Read on for all the details . . .

Officer Election Results, Exciting Website News, and Thank You to Our Supporters!

Thanks to all of you who voted in the election for our 2025–2026 officers. With unanimous votes, we will have co-presidents for the next two years as Kathy Franke and Jeani Ward share that position. Jim Yochim has been reelected as vice president for membership, and Debbie Benoit will take over as secretary beginning in January. We’d like to say a huge thank you to both Karen Goode and Cindy Finnegan, our current president and our society's secretary, who are ready to step down and hand the reins to our newly elected officers. Cindy has prepared board meeting notes, tackled dozens of thank you letters, scanned years' worth of old documents, and assisted at many of our events. As president for the past four years, Karen has managed to guide us successfully through one disaster after another. Her tenure began with a complete shutdown due to the pandemic, which led us to learning from scratch how to set up Zoom and hybrid meetings. After the office opened again, and we settled back into a more normal routine, it was time for a massive cleanup so we could get new carpet and a much-needed paint job. When all was finally sparkling clean and everything in place, we were faced with water damage due to a badly leaking roof, which shut us down for weeks again, and now, Karen is leading us through a complete redesign of our website. (More on that in just a bit.) Her leadership skills and her determination and perseverance in the face of one obstacle after another have kept our society on a steady course during some incredibly difficult times. We thank both Cindy and Karen for their hard work and look forward to seeing both of them enjoying some new adventures in the coming year.

And now for some exciting news about our StLGS website  . . .

Veterans Day and Genealogy

Happy Veterans Day! If you, your children, or other living family members have served in the military, we thank you so much for your service. If your parents, grandparents, or any other relatives in the past have served, this day commemorates them as well, and this holiday Monday, we are reminded of their commitment to our country and everything it stands for. Veterans Day, once called Armistice Day, is often confused with Memorial Day. The latter honors our fallen heroes, whereas Veterans Day was created as a way to say thank you and to honor living veterans. It is a fairly new holiday which began early in the twentieth century, when President Woodrow Wilson called on Americans to “remember the armistice,” signed on 11 November 1918, that ended World War I. His intention was to emphasize peace and to honor thousands of men who served in the war.

Voting in America—A Genealogical Perspective

With such an important election upon us, and with all of us who are of age and citizens of the U.S. entitled to vote, this seems to be an opportune time to look back at how our ancestors may have viewed elections. We know, of course, that many of our ancestors came from places where there were no national elections. Kings, queens, czars, and czarinas either inherited or took their positions without input from local citizens. When elections were held, they may have been symbolic only, and voting was often limited to certain groups of eligible men. Democracy was not something most of our ancestors knew in their homelands.