Save Our (Local Genealogical) Societies

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Comment by Deason Hunt on October 4, 2009 at 4:56pm

I have started a hybrid weblog/society website for our local society which I will use to provide the society quarterly newsletter. The advantage of such a page is that those members who are interested in current events of the society will be able to visit the page as often as they wish or to have new posts announced to them either through email notification or RSS feed. At the end of the quarter, I will use items posted to the blog to prepare the print newsletter. To save money, we are asking members who have computer and internet access to download their copy from the blogsite and, if they want a paper copy, they can print out their own. This will save us a major mailing and printing expense. For those few members who do not have computer or internet access, we will print them a hard copy and mail it. As time goes by, we think we'll have fewer members who need this service. We are pondering whether to continue to send printed hard copies of the newsletter to other societies with which we exchange publications or inform them of how they can access the newsletter online and print out their own copy (if they want a paper copy.) I would appreciate comments on the site, suggestions for improvement, and suggestions about the exchange publications question.

Comment by Deason Hunt on August 26, 2009 at 7:45pm

Sorry I have been so inactive here. Work and grand children visiting have been real time gobblers in my life recently. The kind of exciting thing I have been working on is a web presence blog for our local society (not yet finished or approved officially by the society for showing it online) which will be used to gather information for the society's quarterly newsletter. I'm going to open up a topic about this. Hope to see you there.

Comment by Sally Nelson on August 16, 2009 at 4:48pm

Thank you for starting this group, Deason. By sharing our concerns and successes I believe we will strengthen our groups.

Our group is starting our 6th year. We are located in a beach/vacation community with many retirees from MD, PA, NY, VA, and D.C. That is part of our problem--scheduling programs that are of interest to people from all over. If we schedule a local-specific program, some people complain they don't have anyone from that area. If we do a more widely based program, the locals say we are ignoring them! Such a dilema. What these members don't understand is that many of the things in either type of program can be modified to the areas they are researching. Yes, an archives in one location may have local-specific material, but the basics are the same and can be adapted. I wonder if other Societies face the same problem.

To save $, we send our newsletter to our members via e-mail and also put a copy on our web site.

Comment by Glenn Roy Browne on August 16, 2009 at 3:43pm

One project our Genealogy Association tried was to get members to volunteer to take hand written death and birth records from and old township ledgers and copy them to a computer. The Ledgers started in 1883 and ended in 1930. After that date the local County Courthouse took over the task. We set up a database and each person would type a year or two. We had anywere from 10 to 15 births per year and ended up with about 500 births. Once the job was done we started proofreading and that has to be completed. The help was good in the first few weeks but then it ran down hill, but we got it finished. My best guess was that every day activities of a normal busy life style got in the way. It takes a very organized and dedicated type of person to show up regularly. I personaly was very interested in the project. The names of each parent was recorded along with their name and place of birth. The number of childred born to the mother was also recorded. Parents in the first ten to fifteen years were usually born in Sweden. Once in a while we saw a name from Norway. After 18 years it was obvious the earlier children were growing up and getting married as the place of birth was Jupiter Township, which was where the records came from. By the late 1920's almost every couple was born in the township. A lot more facts came out but you get the idea. I would do it again but I may end up doing it by myself, or at least until I learn how to motivate more people.

Comment by Deason Hunt on July 22, 2009 at 7:03am

Help us build a log of ideas or needs for this group for ourselves and future group members by responding to Discussion with ideas. Or start your own discussion. One idea is start a discussion as a question or area in which you would like us all to share ideas.

Comment by Deason Hunt on July 20, 2009 at 7:09pm

Add your two cents worth in the new discussion topic "What is your favorite activity, service, perk, etc. provided by the genealogical society you belong to?" Drop over and reply.

Comment by Deason Hunt on July 18, 2009 at 10:16am

Do you belong to a local genealogical society? If so, what do you get out of it or what would you like to get from being a member? I'm starting a discussion on that right now. Feel free to join in and share your thoughts.

Comment by Deason Hunt on July 13, 2009 at 7:20pm

Sue, I wish I had helpful experiences from my society to offer, but I don't. I'm working on some ideas like this on my own, but nothing that has been run by the society yet.

Comment by Sue Tolbert on July 13, 2009 at 4:58pm

How does your Society encourage younger people to become members? What are the benefits to them? See Elyse Doerflinger's blog posts: "Genealogical Societies Need to Look Toward the Future" at: http://elysesgenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/genealogy-societies-need-to-look-toward.html What are you opinions of what she has to say as a younger genealogist?

Comment by Sue Tolbert on July 13, 2009 at 4:55pm

I'm interested in how societies are using technology. Do you have a website, blog, FaceBook page? What about a members mailing list? How do you use these and do you feel they are helping your group?

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