How You Can Help StLGS This Holiday Season

St. Louis Genealogical Society (StLGS) has had a busy, productive year, and, with your help, we are looking ahead to another exciting schedule of genealogy events in 2026. Many genealogy societies continue to struggle, losing members, lacking volunteers, and coping with reduced finances. However, we continue to stand solid in the genealogy community because of our wonderful, loyal members and friends, and as this year comes to a close, we are asking you once again to remember the society in your year-end giving plans. We have accomplished a great deal this past year, due to your support and generosity, and we are excited about what is in the future.  We continue to be very proud of what our society has done and will do in the upcoming months!

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.

Bunches of Thanks Coming Your Way!

(StLGS president, Kay Weber, who will hand her gavel to Karen Goode on 1 January 2021, has written the first part of this week’s post. Kay has provided four years of excellent leadership to StLGS and has held us together with her calm efficiency and unfailing good humor through this most challenging of years. With Kay’s guidance, we have come out of the pandemic as strong and solid as we were when it started, and we owe her a huge debt of gratitude for steering us through this storm!)

How to Find an Old Post and Other Social Media Search Tips

Have you ever seen a post in a Facebook group, then later couldn't find it when you went back to look for it? Social media can move fast these days, and as we have all been at our computers and using social media more and more, it's important we sharpen our search skills so we can more easily find what we want. For instance, you can search most blogs, including this one, for names, topics, places, and more. Similarly, you can search for people, surnames, and places (and more) in the St. Louis Genealogical Society's Facebook group. You can also quickly locate genealogy-specific accounts and tweets on Twitter. Here is how you can search smarter when you are using social media.

StLGS and the Current COVID-19 Situation

Having cancelled our planned events for March through May, and, like all of you, unsure of how long we will have to shelter in place, the St. Louis Genealogical Society social media committee has been working to speed up the process of bringing you genealogy lectures and classes digitally. We had been exploring options before the coronavirus appeared, but we are now moving ahead a lot more quickly. As you will see below, however, this process will still take a bit of time.

What are we planning?

Our first priority is learning to use popular webinar software and getting a process in place to offer lectures online that can be both fee-based and free—free to members (like our classes), and, when appropriate, fee-based views (like our Family History Conference and Speaker Series.) While we were still able to meet last week, the social media committee began to develop this process, which will likely begin with a simple one-hour meeting sometime in the near future.

In addition, we are planning a virtual Family History Conference to replace the full-day in-person conference that had been scheduled for Saturday, 4 April. Members of the social media committee obtained willingness from the conference speakers to participate, and now we are moving ahead with the behind-the-scenes parts: contracts, payments, details of registration, etc. There are many steps we must take, but we are working on them diligently.

What can you do?

You can help us!

1. Last week, we emailed a letter to members asking how you want to handle your registration fee, if you have already registered for the Family History Conference. If you haven't already responded to that email, please will you do so? Can't find the original email? Send a note to publications@stlgs.org and we'll send you another copy.
2. Check our website (www.stlgs.org), our Facebook group (www.facebook.com/groups/76633518155), and/or our Twitter account (www.twitter.com/stlgs) periodically so you are up to date on progress. We want to stay connected with you so you will be aware of what is happening.
3. If you have genealogy friends that are not getting this blog or are not using social media, encourage them to do so.
4. If you have any questions, please send them via the StLGS Facebook group or Twitter account, or send an email to programs@stlgs.org so we can answer them for you.
5. Most of all, we are pleased to say that exciting things are coming, and we appreciate your patience! Stay tuned!