EGS Executive Board 2013

The EGS Executive Board for 2013 was elected at our Annual meeting in December 2012 and began work for the Society in January 2013.

Front: Becky Higgins - VP, Sara Taylor - President, Judy VanDusen - Treasurer
Back: Larry Pepper - PM Secretary, Rita Gholson - AM Secretary

The Board looks forward to serving EGS this year and hopes to make it a great one for the Society!

~Becky

Illinois State Genealogy Society Volunteering Opportunities

If you looking for volunteer opportunities, there are some interesting ones below. Not only can you help out the genealogy community but you'll meet some wonderful people along the way. You'll be joining a vibrant group of passionate family historians.

ISGS Volunteer Alert Dear Members and Friends of ISGS, As we approach 2013, ISGS’s open positions list has grown due to various life changes we all experience, including a death in our “family,” and the creation of new positions.  ISGS fully supports its board members serving in capacities that interest them, which can necessitate moves to new committees, leaving vacancies. Please consider helping ISGS achieve its mission to preserve and disseminate Illinois historical and genealogical materials, and to educate and aid those researching their ancestry. ISGS 2012 Fall Conference Volunteers: The ISGS Fall Conference will be held October 19th & 20th at the Clock Tower Inn and Conference Center, Rockford, IL. Volunteers will help with monitoring sessions, the Youth Workshop, and other essential tasks. Save these dates, and please let us know if you can lend a hand and be a part of our great conference team! Contact Tammy Spearie,isgsvolunteers2012@gmail.com. Church Records Committee Chair: The Church Records project identifies Illinois church repositories by denomination and assembles files containing church history and record access information.  Contact Susie Pope, isgs2ndvp@ilgensoc.org. Newsletter Editor: The Editor of the ISGS Newsletter receives articles and information for publication via email, and produces a newsletter six times a year (bimonthly). Experience with page layout design and writing/editing is desirable. Contact Susie Pope, isgs2ndvp@ilgensoc.org. ISGS Quarterly Design and Technical Editor: The Design and Technical Editor works with the Quarterly Editor to produce a polished publication. A working knowledge of design and layout principles and the use of Adobe InDesign is desirable. Contact Judy Milde, Editor, isgsquarterly@ilgensoc.org. Membership Promotion Committee Chair:  This committee promotes membership with renewal notices and other communications and maintains the membership list. Contact Janice Fritsch, isgspresident@ilgensoc.org. Youth Creative Contest Coordinator: The Education Committee would like to implement an annual youth creative contest in 2013. The contest will have three categories (writing, artwork, and photography) and three age group divisions. The Coordinator will fill in the details, and help to implement it. Contact Julie Tarr, isgseducation@ilgensoc.org. Writers: Part of the ISGS mission is to educate its members and the public. The Education Committee needs volunteers interested in sharing their knowledge by writing educational articles and guides. We have a lot of ideas on the table, but we need your help to make them a reality. Contact Julie Tarr,isgseducation@ilgensoc.org. Website Committee Chair:  (This is not a webmaster position)  This position monitors the ISGS website for errors, ease of use, etc. and notifies the Webmaster of any needs.  Contact Susie Pope, isgs2ndvp@ilgensoc.org. Website Indexing Committee: Indexing projects are based on member submissions, ISGS holdings or other resources. Volunteers will scan images, and upload images and/or data to be indexed. Let us know if you would like to be involved! Contact Susie Pope, isgs2ndvp@ilgensoc.org. Honors & Awards Committee Chair:  The chair solicites nominations from individuals and societies for each of the ISGS annual awards.  The nominations are discussed in committee and finalists are presented with awards in the fall.  Contact Susie Pope, isgs2ndvp@ilgensoc.org. Illinois Society Liaison Chair:  The chair communicates with associate societies, and coordinates the annual Roundtable Events which are hosted by local societies.  Contact Janice Fritsch, isgspresident@ilgensoc.org. Long-Range Planning Committee Chair:  This committee considers plans for the improvement of the Society. They solicit suggestions from the membership, make regular reports to the Board, and present projects for action.  Contact Janice Fritsch,isgspresident@ilgensoc.org.

1940 Census Indexing Party Invitation

You're all invited to a fun and informative time! It's an opportunity to get involved in the great project of indexing the 1940 census while enjoying the camaraderie of others. Indexing is often a singular activity but with this activity we can all work together in the same room at the same time. Woot!!Woot!!

The Gail Borden Public Library is graciously allowing us to use the computer class room and load the indexing software onto their computers for our parties. If you have been putting off indexing because you're not sure you'll understand how to use the software, now's you're chance. We'll be discussing how to use the software and the idiosyncrasies of the 1940 census project. If you're already indexing, be sure to join the party as well!! We can all help each other.

To facilitate, it would be great if everyone set up a familysearch account prior to the parties; however, if you want to wait until the day, that's fine too. The accounts are free and easy to establish; just go to familysearch.org, look in the upper right corner and click on sign in, choose Create A New Account and follow the instruction.

If you have a laptop, you're more than welcome to bring it along!

When: Friday, Jun 15, 2012 from 9:30-11:30 am and/or Wednesday June 20, 2012 from 7:00-8:30
Where: GBPL computer class room

January 2012 Evening Meeting

More than 25 hearty members and guests attending the January evening meeting last night. Considering the frigid and ever dropping temperature outside, all I can say is I'm truly impressed! I hope each person took something useful away from the sesstion.

The topic was a Computer Interest Group discussion about Family Tree Maker's mapping and timeline features. I facilitated the evening and am happy to report I learned a few new things on the topic as well. The participation of attendees was wonderful and greatly appreciated.

In anticipation of assisting with the indexing of the 1940 census, we also demonstrated how to register as a volunteer indexer for Family Search at https://www.familysearch.org/, as well as, how to be included with the indexing group for the Illinois State Genealogical Society. ISGS is embarking on an initiative to gather support from local Illinois genealogy societies to index the Illinois portion of the 1940 census. Everyone is welcome to join ISGS in this effort. If you have questions or want more information, feel free to contact me, Becky, at bhiggins9@gmail,com.

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/

Update

Hello Everyone,
Here is a belated update from me. We had our August morning meeting today but this meeting was a bit different than most of our meetings.
The difference was that our speaker failed to attend.
As our starting time drew near I became more concerned and quickly called 411 info for the speaker's telephone number, after several attempts I finally got the number and contacted the speaker's spouse, only to be told he was at an appointment at least 30 minutes away.
So we had to "wing it" for a presentation.
We had our usual business meeting with an extra item of my apology for my assumption that the speaker would remember out date and show up.
What we did for our presentation was have a group share of some success's and experiences we have been having with our genealogical researches.
We had a good meeting with many people sharing, the strong possibility of a volunteer for the position of Program Chair (Which is Fantastic!!), updates on some member medical situations and a 60th Wedding anniversary announcement.
After our meeting a couple of people told me they thought we had a great meeting.
I want to say thanks; but it is the members that make this group and our meetings great.

In 1969, I started my genealogy research with curiosity, a pencil, a pen (oh horrors), a three ring binder, and family group sheets from Evertons. The curiosity was free, the pen, pencil and binder were leftovers from the previous school year but the genealogy sheets were fresh and they cost twenty-five cents apiece. I was very careful with these pages and I am certain I made illegal (gasp) photocopies of these pages. I can see myself quietly going over to the copier when Miss. Neil Carpenter, the archivist, was busy making copies and then sneaking back to my chair, before Miss. Carpenter or the copyright police caught me. Remember, I was a thirteen-year old kid with an active imagination and my source of income was mowing yards, so cost was definitely an issue.

The archive was in my local library where it shared half of the basement with the children’s department. Full bookshelves covered two walls of the archive. Many of the books did not have indexes but a few of them had an index created by a volunteer who read each page, noting who and what page, alphabetized that list, and then typing it all up. Covering a third wall there were vertical file cabinets. These cabinets contained the ubiquitous manila files that were full of genealogically significant articles clipped from the local newspapers by many volunteering hands and hearts.

Miss. Carpenter and volunteers from the local Genealogical society zealously guarded all of these books and files. I remember a few volunteers (Mrs. Payne, Mrs. Roberts and Miss. Hadden). I attended beginning genealogy classes taught by Mrs. Payne and Roberts. I remember talking with Miss. Carpenter; she was a friend of my Grandmother, who had recently passed away, and after school, I did yard work for Miss. Carpenter. I once asked her if she had researched her family and she said that she never had and that it did not interest her. I remember shaking my wise thirteen-year-old head not understanding. How could anyone have no interest in his or her genealogy! Miss Carpenter also told me about the arthritis in her hands and that she believed it was from using her manual typewriter to answer the years and years of research queries, she had received.

Now forty years later, I still visit that same archive, but now it is housed in it own room on the second floor of a new addition to my old library. Today I am using a computer, loaded with a popular genealogical software application. I have access to online databases, forums, and mailing lists courtesy of the World Wide Web, but the pencil, curiosity and imagination still come in handy. Something else that still comes in handy today is the manually created indexes and the vertical files, created by the tireless volunteers I knew back then. They helped me then and are still helping me today; they have left a mark on me and I bet some volunteers have done the same for you.
Just a re-post of my May 2009 newsletter article.

Volunteers Needed!

EGS is in need of help.
We have three Volunteer Chair positions that should be filled, these are-
Newspaper Indexing,
Program Chair for mornings,
Program Chair for evenings.

Any wonderful person that steps up to any of these positions will have help in performing the duties of these positions. Currently the the calendar for 2009 programs is pretty full so anyone volunteering for am or pm chair will have a "head start" on scheduling programs.

I know many of the members of EGS are currently helping on a project or with treats or as an officer or that you may have previously volunteered for chairs, committees and worked on projects; but this society does not exsist because of past work and projects.

If we as a group do not work together by volunteering, by putting our energy into our group, this group will wind-down until it stops. We must put energy into our Society Today and Tomorrow so our Society will continue to operate Today, Tomorrow and beyond.

So please seriously think about what you can do to help keep our Society alive and growing.