StLGS July Genealogy Meetings

Summer has arrived most definitely throughout the world, so we hope you are staying cool and dry! We have some interesting meetings this month, air conditioned at both our office and the St. Louis County Library! Please don't forget that the deadline for early registration for our Salt Lake City Research Trip is tomorrow, June 30th, and remember that you can still watch the digital recordings of our Family History Conference for another two weeks by registering to view them. All the information you need is below. . . . 

Just Like Spring, Our March is "Busting Out All Over"!

It's coming! Spring is in the air, and the month of March for St. Louis Genealogical Society is overflowing with meetings and special events. If you missed our February monthly meeting, "Living on the Frontier: A Look into Missouri and Illinois," featuring St. Louis County Parks museum educator Jeffrey Edison, you can still watch the digital recording on our Monthly Meeting page. You can continue learning about St. Louis history at our March monthly meeting too. Come visit us on Saturday, March 7th for our annual Open House, come play with us at our newly revived Trivia Night on Saturday, March 21st, and attend the German SIG meeting on Saturday, March 28th. Registration for our annual Family History Conference in April is now open as well. We've got so much to share with you! Read on for the details . . . 

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

As we dig out from the massive snow and ice storm this past weekend, we want to remind you that if you missed any of our January genealogy meetings, you can snuggle up on the couch and enjoy some of the recordings posted on our website. Then, you can plan ahead to join us in February. Our annual "Ask Louie at Your Service" meeting started the new year with many interesting questions, and the recording is available on our Monthly Meeting page. The German Special Interest Group (G-SIG) hosted Timo Kracke, a German genealogist, who spoke on databases hosted by German genealogical societies. That recording and Mr. Kracke's handout are available on the G-SIG page. The Irish Special Interest Group (SIG) hosted a Zoom presentation featuring Susan McKee, who provided helpful tips on "Organizing Your Genealogy: Getting Your Research Year Off to a Good Start." The recording of the meeting and Ms. McKee's handout are posted on our Irish SIG page. We hope to see you at our February meetings and our first class for 2026. Read on for details. 

October Genealogy Meetings and Another StLGS Election

As warm as it's been everywhere, it's not feeling much like autumn, but as our year winds down, we hope you will continue to join us for our remaining 2025 meetings. For those of you who are members of StLGS, voting is now open for the election of officers for 2025. Our bylaws provide for elections of our officers in alternate years, so we never have everyone new to a job at once. This year, we will elect a vice-president for programs and a treasurer. Luckily, we have some talented and caring volunteers running for each position, and, although they are unopposed, they would appreciate your support by voting. More information about everything is below.

September Genealogy Meetings and Events

  

Happy Labor Day! It's unofficially the end of summer, but we still have plans for weeks of pleasant weather ahead, just right for getting out and attending some genealogy meetings. So, we hope to see you in September for our monthly meeting, our German SIG meeting, and our special workshop on artificial intelligence at the end of the month. 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. 

StLGS January 2025 Genealogy Meetings and Classes

Happy New Year! We are excited to share our first meetings and classes of 2025 with you to get your genealogy year off to a rousing start. We also want to say thank you again to those of you who responded to our Giving Tuesday reminder about much-needed donations. Your enthusiasm and unwavering support of St. Louis Genealogical Society is what makes our society so successful and what makes our volunteers continue to be strongly committed to our mission to preserve, educate, and publish. We thank you so much for recognizing our dedication and making all of our future work possible. Now, on to the beginning of what all of us hope will be another fabulous year for StLGS!

September Genealogy Meetings and Classes

And just that quickly, summer is almost over! As we look forward to pumpkin spice everything, shorter days, and, hopefully, cooler evenings, we are gearing up behind the scenes for next year. We will soon have an StLGS election for officers and will be booking our featured speaker for the 2025 Family History Conference, taking our annual research trip to Salt Lake City, and finalizing next year's busy program of meetings, special events, and classes. Meanwhile, here's what's on tap for September.

August Genealogy Meetings and Classes

In spite of the disruption at our office caused by ongoing roof and ceiling leaks, we continue to carry on with our scheduled meetings and classes. (If you didn't read about our water woes, be sure to take a look at last week's post.) We are excited about the grand opening of the Emerson History and Genealogy Center at the new Clark Family Branch that opened on 9 July, and we have already begun to avail ourselves of the library's new meeting spaces. Our friends there came to our rescue in providing space for the Irish SIG meeting on 27 July, and our first monthly meeting will be held at the Clark Branch in August. You are invited to tour the new facility, if you haven't already done so, this coming week. Read on for more information . . .

StLGS Office Faced with Extensive Water Damage!

The week of July 4th brought intensive rain to the St. Louis area, mostly carried in by the hurricane that blew into the Gulf Coast. For many years, the flat roof of our building has leaked sporadically, but this month's torrents were relentless, and rain poured into our office. When the first of the office volunteers opened the doors on Saturday, July 6th, they were greeted by collapsed ceiling tiles, soaked countertops, and dripping holes, some of which were directly over very expensive equipment. These first volunteers began to clean up and cover surfaces, but the worst was still to come.

July Genealogy Meetings and Classes

It's almost July 4th, which means summer has officially begun! Enjoy the upcoming holiday week, but don't forget to get out your calendar and make note of some of our upcoming programs. This month's general meeting will be our last at the Grant's View Branch of the St. Louis County Library system. With the new Clark Family Branch opening on 9 July, we will finally be able to go back to meeting at one location, now with ample room and state of the art technology! We'll have more for you on that soon; meanwhile, please read on for July's offerings. . . .

May's StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Classes; Last Chance to Register for the Family History Conference!

Because of the annual Family History Conference (FHC) scheduled for Saturday, 4 May 2024, there is no regular monthly meeting. We hope you will join us in June, and we'll tell you more about that meeting later on in this post. It's not too late to register for the FHC! You can still attend in person or watch the livestreaming next Saturday. Plus, everyone who registers will have access to all eight of the recordings, which will be available for ninety days after they are posted. You won't want to miss this chance to hear David Rencher, chief genealogical officer of FamilySearch, plus four other outstanding regional speakers! Here is what is coming up this month.

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.

StLGS Launches New Registration Process for In-Person Genealogy Classes

As we begin our new year of genealogy classes at StLGS, we are striving to make things easier to attend in-person at our office by updating our online registration process and making it possible for those of you who are not members but live in St. Louis to attend in-person as well. Here are all the details you need to know about our revised registration procedure for in-person attendance. (Please note that Zoom registration for both livestreamed and recorded classes is still for StLGS members only and remains the same.)

Library Resources, German Brick Walls, and Irish Research on Tap for March Genealogy

Snow, sleet, and ice may have been falling in February, but we know that spring is on the horizon. The recording of our February monthly meeting featuring archivist Mike Everman on probate records is now on the Monthly Meetings page and our Ask Louie January panel discussion will remain up until the end of March. Coming up next, via Zoom, is the March monthly meeting on using the St. Louis County Library History and Genealogy Department for your research. Plus, we have a German Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting planned for you, and it's not too late to register for the Irish research class coming up this weekend.

Free Genealogy Webinars are Just a Click Away!

Twelve months of mostly being at home has given many of us the chance to explore new ways of learning using our computers or tablets. Have you discovered the benefits of free webinars yet? Did you know you can watch thousands of digital recordings without any fees at all? Yes, sometimes there are advertisements, but they are relatively unobtrusive and easily passed over. By now, many of us also know that there are instructions online for just about anything we want to do. In fact, just last week, like magic, a two-minute YouTube video saved this writer a trip to the store and the price of a new pneumatic door closer when just a few squeezes of a piece of metal with a strong pair of pliers was all it needed. OK, that was fixer-upper stuff—what about our favorite hobby? Are there free webinars available on genealogy? Indeed there are, and here are some places you can start to look for them.

March 2021 StLGS Genealogy Meetings, Classes, and Events

Just a few more weeks, and spring will arrive, at last! As we are moving into 2021, it's become clear that Zoom meetings are here to stay and that we can continue to learn and share with each other via technology. We are so excited about engaging those of you who reside outside the St. Louis area or who cannot travel to an in-person meeting. We miss you and look forward to the day when we can meet again in person, but in the meantime, we are continuing to plan for many interesting and exciting programs for the rest of this year as webinars. Here is what is coming up in March and a bit beyond, like our annual Family History Conference!

February 2021 Upcoming StLGS Meetings and In Memoriam for Three Long-time Volunteers

As we enter the heart of winter, we hope that wherever you are located, whether it's snowing, raining, or mild and sunshiny, you can brighten up your February by attending some of the upcoming StLGS meetings we have scheduled. In addition, we hope those of you who are society members will take advantage of our free classes for members coming up in March and April.

Looking Forward to the StLGS Winter/Spring 2021 Schedule

We hope you are having a healthy and happy holiday season and staying safe. After you are finished celebrating Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, it will be time to get back to genealogy! In a more normal year, StLGS would have the whole 2021 schedule ready for you by now, but due to the uncertainty of the times, we are taking it a bit more slowly this year. We have no idea when it will be safe to gather in person, but we are looking forward to bringing you the very best experience possible by continuing our successful livestreamed and digitally recorded virtual meetings and classes. Take a look at what's coming up . . .

StLGS September Genealogy Meetings and Events

As we continue to bring you our meetings and classes in an online format, we are delighted to hear that so many of you have been enjoying the experience. It's been a difficult time for everyone, which makes us even more excited that we can offer you an ongoing program of lectures and classes that are interesting, appeal to all skill levels, and viewable no matter where you live. In addition, registration for our virtual Fall Speaker Series is underway and we hope that you will be able to join us for this four-part series of lectures from the comfort and safety of your home. Read on for all the details.