Artificial Intelligence and DNA in Genealogy: New Tools for Your Research

For decades, those of us researching our family history have watched technology change the way we work. If you started your journey towards the end of the twentieth century, you expected to travel to a library or courthouse, sit among books, periodicals, and boxes of old papers, and read unindexed material for hours. If you were fortunate, some of what you needed was microfilmed, and you could crank faded and blurry images until your shoulders ached and your hands cramped. The first of many updates in genealogy came to microfilm readers when they became more automatic. Film could be threaded, advanced, or reversed with just a touch of a button.  But, lucky for us, technology forged onwards, and our lives became a whole lot easier.

April Genealogy Events AND Registration is Open for our Family History Conference AND Our Annual Salt Lake City Trip!

Our Open House on Saturday, 22 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. Registration is open for our 53rd annual Family History Conference featuring Steve Little, Jim Brewster, and Josiah Schmidt. Remember that early registration ends on 17 April! By registering before that date, you save some money and help us plan more efficiently. In addition, one of the events we look forward to most each year is our annual research trip to Salt Lake City, and registration is now open for that. Read on for more!

Goodbye to Another Longtime StLGS Volunteer and Some New Maps on Our Website

Another of our valued StLGS volunteers has passed away, and we share an "In Memoriam" this week to our former remote data entry team leader, Mary Ryan. We'll fill you in next week on upcoming April events, but meanwhile, please use the Annual Family History Conference and Calendar of Events pages on our website for the latest news. Registration has opened for our annual Salt Lake City Research trip, and, in addition, we want to tell you about two new mapping resources uploaded recently to our website, so please keep reading.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Irish or Not!

Whether you are walking in a parade, drinking a Guinness, or just wearing a touch of green today, it's a perfect day to celebrate the traditions of Ireland, that spunky country from which so many Americans emigrated. They brought us their work ethic, their wonderful sense of humor and love of language, and, of course, recipes for delicious food. No, not corned beef and cabbage; that is decidedly NOT authentic Irish cuisine, just an American adaptation. But yummy stews, chowders, and breads top the list of foods you can easily cook at home to celebrate Irish heritage. (For a more complete discussion of what is truly Irish, see the blog we posted in March 2023. You can read it here.)

You are Invited to Our Annual Open House!

Last March, St. Louis Genealogical Society revived our annual Open House after a hiatus of several years, and it was a great success. Moved from Sunday to Saturday afternoon so more people could attend, the Open House allowed our volunteers to meet old and new friends, show off our newly painted and re-carpeted office, and answer lots of questions from interested attendees. Now that spring is finally in the air, we are excited to welcome you once again to this year's Open House. Read on for all the details!

StLGS March Genealogy Meetings and Events

We've had a little taste of spring in St. Louis this week, and we are looking forward to our March meetings and events. If you missed the February meeting on "Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Genealogy," featuring our co-webmaster Jim Ross, you can still watch the digital recording on our Monthly Meeting page and get some great ideas for how you can incorporate this new technology in your own family history research. You can dive deeper into AI at our upcoming Family History Conference! Later this month, the German SIG has a meeting, and we are excited to welcome you to our annual Open House on Saturday, March 22nd. Read on for more information. 

Visiting an Ancestral Town in France

As anyone who lives either in St. Louis or New Orleans knows, the beginning of March is the time for all of us to dig deep to find some French roots as Mardi Gras approaches. (Or we can just enjoy celebrating, no matter what our ethnicity!) Regardless of where your ancestors are from, we hope you will enjoy a bit of a travelogue this week, as one of our members, Joan Koechig, who does have roots in France, shares an interesting research experience in the land of her ancestors. Thanks, Joan, for writing this week's post! Perhaps Joan's experience in France will motivate you to travel to your own ancestral cities! Joan writes . . .

Two Exciting Genealogy Announcements!

 Happy President's Day. We hope you are staying warm and dry during this winter of every kind of weather! This week, we have several items to share with you that we believe are of interest to our genealogy community. With luck, you will discover something new to help move your research forward.

Can You Help Us Return Photos to This Family?

OK, genealogy detectives, we have another mystery for you to solve. You may remember that in early December, we posted some military documents from a soldier named James Ronald that needed to be returned to his family. We got several responses with suggestions of things for us to do, but, luckily, one of our members, Norm Miller, recognized the surname. He made some phone calls, and, amazingly, discovered that a relative of the Ronald family was related to his own family. Several more phone calls later, and the documents were on their way to Arnold, Missouri, where they will be forwarded to the Texas family who has been eagerly awaiting their return. Kudos and many thanks to Norm for reaching out and making the contact!

February Genealogy Meeting and Class AND Information on Special Upcoming Events!

Our genealogical year got off to a great start with several very well-attended meetings. Our January "Ask Louie at Your Service" meeting, as always, generated a host of interesting questions, and we've added a handout covering the websites mentioned during the meeting to our Monthly Meeting page along with the digital recording of the meeting. The Irish Special Interest Group (SIG) hosted a Zoom presentation featuring the noted author, John Grenham. The recording of the meeting and Mr. Grenham's handout are posted on our Irish SIG page. The German and Jewish SIGs also met this past month, but neither meeting was recorded. We hope to see you at our February monthly meeting and our first class for 2025. Read on for details. 

Second Batch of Cemetery Maps Now Uploaded to our Website!

In August of this year, we announced that our resident map guru, Jim Bellenger, has been using his talents to superimpose old cemetery maps onto new Google maps and georeference them so that exact locations of even long-gone cemeteries are now visible. Jim has worked with dozens of people in St. Louis City and County and beyond to obtain maps of the cemeteries, get permission to use them, and link them to the cemetery pages on our website. Because this is so time-consuming, we are releasing the maps in groups of about twenty to thirty, and now, we are happy to share the next batch of maps with you. (If you missed the post about the first set, you can read it here.)

Reclaim the Records Scores Another Victory for Genealogists

We have written several times in the past few years about the nonprofit organization called Reclaim the Records and its endless battles against governmental agencies on our behalf to open public records. This bold and tireless group is pretty much the David vs. Goliath of the genealogy world, taking on bureaucracy in state after state to ensure that genealogists have access to both indices and records that are, by law, open to the public. In their latest triumph for all of us, they have gone into action against the Department of Military Affairs, and they have won! We now have access to millions of records generated by the Veterans Administration for those military personnel who received benefits during the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries! This victory opens a huge record set that most of us have likely never known about. Read on for all the details!

Genealogy News from Missouri and Illinois

Many of us are homebound as the winter of 2025 continues to surprise us with unexpected watery and icy bounty. What better time is there to learn about more genealogy resources as well as some upcoming projects and meetings?  You won't have to shovel a drop or get out of your comfy pjs to learn about the wonderful work the Missouri State Archives has accomplished this past year or to attend a virtual meeting on researching in Illinois. So, settle in and read on for more!

StLGS News to Start the New Year

As the new year begins and a huge storm engulfs most of the country, we thought we'd bring you a bit of cheer with a few items of interest from our society. Our social media reach is expanding, and we want you to know how and where to get the latest information from us. And, at this time of end-of-year giving (and upcoming spring cleaning), we're restating our policies on what types of donated materials we can accept.