Ethnic Heritage Society

Hello everyone, This last weekend I travelled way over to Iowa to attend a meeting of (ASHHS called "Ashes") the American Schleswig-Holstein Heritage Society in Walcott. Schleswig-Holstein is the region in Northern Germany where my Pepper family came from in 1871.
I planned on joining this group and was looking forward to meeting some people and learning about what they had in their library. This group meets quarterly and this meeting happened to be the celebration of the 20th anniversary of ASHHS.
Walcott is a small farming community of 1400 people located in Scott county a couple miles South of interstate 80 and West of Davenport about six miles.
As I entered Walcott I saw a sign advertising a potluck supper for later this month at the VFW hall, which happened to be where ASHHS was meeting today. I also passed the Casey's gas station with one car probably belonging to the employee and a mixture of new and very old buildings. The only people I have seen so far were two pre-teen boys who were walking quickly along the road towards Casey's. As I turned the corner to where the VFW hall should be, I found the street was suddenly packed with parked cars and a line of people crossing the street from the VFW parking lot into the hall.
The change in mood from sleepy farm village into somewhere that I had to actually wait in a line of cars to enter a parking lot was very very surprising.
After I parked and found my way inside I was again mildly surprised at the number of people inside, there was probably one hundred in attendance. As usual I was the youngest in the group.
The meeting started with the ASHHS choir singing four songs in Platt (the Low German language) this was a first for me. The fifth song was Happy Birthday in English, this one I could join in on. After the scheduled Happy Birthday in English, a handful of members in the audience sang Happy Birthday back to the choir in Platt. I was so surprised to hear so many German accents in the room.
The meeting then when into a typical society business mode with the reading of minutes, treasurers report and the other obligations. The president was new and stumbled a bit, but everyone was friendly and there were lots of laughs and good fellowship for all.
This adventure of visiting and joining a heritage society will be interesting for me and I will keep you updated as events happen. I believe this will be fun and rewarding and I encourage you to search out and consider joining a similar society for yourself.

Genealogy Jeopardy

Don't forget we'll be playing Genealgoy Jeopardy at our February evening meeting this Thursday the 19th. Be sure to join us and bring along your thinking caps:)

CIG meeting

I think we had a fun meeting yesterday. Here's hoping that at least some of our members take the time to check out the EGS blog on a regular basis. Also, please let me know if any of you would like to be able to make posts to the blog; I'd be happy to set you up. That way you can keep us advised of your research progress or ask questions that someone else in the society might be able to answer. Let's help each other in our common endeavor of finding our families in history.

View Rita's Blog

The EGS CIG worked on setting up a new blog. We used Rita Gholson's family blog as an example. Stop by and check it out at http://myfennellfamily.blogspot.com.

Don't forget to come to the Computer Interest Group meeting this Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 at 9:00 am in the computer classroom at the Gail Borden Public Library. We'll be creating a blog for Rita Gholson and her family. Join us as we learn how quick and easy it is to set-up this great communication tool.

Thank you Becky

I received the invitation and all is good

At our February morning meeting, we spent considerable time reviewing and discussing this blog. Hopefully, now the members will begin to request authorship and start using this new means of communication. Though new, this technology is easy to use and will give us quick and easy access to each other.
Feel free to ask questions that may come up in your research. Your fellow members may just have an answer for you or at least be able to set you in the right direction.
Share you triumphs and revelations as they come along so we can all rejoice with you.
Share the URLs to your favorite genealogy websites and databases and let us know how you use them and how they might help the rest of us in our research.
There are countless possibilities and I'm looking forward to each and every one.