February 2011 morning meeting

You'll not want to miss the opportunity to hear Scott Gribish talking about "Preserving Your Family Memories." As our families' historians, we often find ourselves the collectors of memories in many forms from artifacts to photos to the oral histories to digital files. It is important that we learn the best ways to maintain these collections for years to come.


Join us next Tuesday, February 1, at 9:30 am at the Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin. Our meetings are always open to the public.


Hope to see you there.

Put Your Thinking Caps On!

In an effort to help EGS and the Gail Borden Public Library determine what areas to concentrate on for the purchase of books and materials for the genealogy department, we're asking you to provide us with some information. To make it easy, we're going to go about this is steps.

At the February meetings, morning and evening, paper will be provided for you to write your counties of interest within the State of Illinois. Don't worry about Cook, Will,  DuPage, Kane, McHenry, Lake, or De Kalb as these always keenly watched. We're looking for other counties, farther from us, for which you'd like to have more research material at GBPL.

So take a close look at your files so you can be ready for February!

Can't make the meetings? That's okay. You can always post a comment here to let us know:)

EGS 2011 Executive Board

Becky Higgins, Suzanne Kovak, Judy Van Dusen, Karen Myers, Anna Moy, Larry Pepper

This happy group makes up the new executive board for the Elgin Genealogical Society. We are looking forward to another year of learning, researching, serving the Society, and building friendships.

If you live in the area, stop by. We'd love to meet you! 

For meeting dates, times, and programs, go to our website and click on Events. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ilegs/v3/

More than Two Million Northern NY Historical Newspapers Online

The Northern New York Historical Newspapers web site has been available online for six years. The site continues to add new material and recently added its two millionth page. More than 50 newspaper titles are now available online.

The Northern New York Library Network is provided at http://news.nnyln.net/ by the Northern New York Library Network based in Potsdam. There are currently 18 newspapers from St. Lawrence County available on the NNY Historical Newspapers website. from the Eastman Online Genealogical Newsletter, January 17, 2011 issue.

Illinois State Genealogical Society Blog: Announcing the New ISGS Website

Illinois State Genealogical Society Blog: Announcing the New ISGS Website

Ohio Cemetery Records

If you're doing Cleveland, Ohio research, you'll want to check out this site posted via the Genealogy In Times newsletter of January 15, 2011:

US – Cemetery records for Cleveland Ohio have now gone online thanks to the diligent work of the East Cuyahoga County Genealogical Society. About 350,000 records from ten Cleveland cemeteries can be searched by cemetery and last name. Information includes date of internment, age, sex and sometimes name of parent. Access is free. [Cleveland Cemetery Records]

EGS Celebrates 35 Years and Counting!

The Elgin Genealogical Society (EGS) is celebrating its 35^th year as an “official” organization this month. Members at the January morning meeting enjoyed a surprise cake at the treats table in honor of the event.

However, EGS really began in December of 1972 when a very special lady gathered some like-minded friends together to discuss genealogy. Pat Robbins Lose was the guiding example and “fearless leader” of the group until her untimely death in 1981. (Pat Robbins Lose 22 Mar 1937 – 03 Jun 1981)

I’ll share some of the achievements of EGS in future posts, but this time I’ll let you hear from Pat herself.  This is an article written by Pat for the July 1976 Elgin Genealogical Society newsletter (Vol. I, No. 1.)

Our Past and Future

If wanting to know your ancestors is lying dormant within you, it can surface and become an exciting interest.

From Donna Elbert I found there was such a thing as Genealogy. I soon discovered others were wondering about their ancestors, so I invited Donna Elbert, Martha McGinty, Donna Buckler and Dorothy Powers to my home to ‘cultivate our family trees’. This was in December 1972. The following month Elizabeth Weigle, Editor of ‘The Brethren Genealogist’ spoke to us. We met regularly in various homes until March 1974.

Needing more space, we were fortunate to be able to move to spacious Meeting Room A in the Gail Borden Library where we have since held monthly morning and evening meetings.

We realized the need for organization and became the Elgin Genealogical Society in January 1976, our Bicentennial Year.

These past four years we have collected more than ancestors and descendants. Our friendships have multiplied along with the projects, activities and family records. May the future see many more members sharing with us to preserve family heritages.

Pat Lose, President

I can say this, 35 years later EGS still meets twice a month at the Gail Borden Public Library where members and guests gather to learn about the research process and share their personal adventures and accomplishments in the field of genealogy and family history. And as Pat said our friendships continue to multiply.

Family Tree Maker Tutorials

Family Tree Maker by Ancestry.com - The #1 Selling Family Tree Program

If you're in need of some help with Family Tree Maker, check out the tutorials online. They may have your answer:)

Genea-Musings: Tuesday's Tip - find Online Historical Newspapers

Genea-Musings: Tuesday's Tip - find Online Historical Newspapers

We all know how important newspapers are to our family history. Randy Seaver has a list of guides to online historical newspapers.

Check it out!