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.