Report on General Meeting - Feb 9, 2012

We had a very good turnout for our General Meeting on February 9, 2012.  Janice Sellers gave a wonder talk on using online newspapers.

She spoke about why newspapers are helpful to genealogists and that you can find more than birth, marriage, and death information from them.  Other types of information include school news, legal notices, business news, social news, and military news to list a few.  She described the types of newspapers one can find from national, large local, small local, and ethnic papers.

She gave us a list of the online sources that are free to use at LDS Family History Centers: NewspaperArchive.com, Fold3.com, 19th Century British Newspapers, Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords.com, and 19th Century US Newspapers (through Godfrey).  She gave us a nice list of other libraries in the area that have newspaper subscriptions, other subscription databases, free databases such as Library of Congress Chronicling America and the California Digital Newspaper Collection, and some portals such as Cyndi's List and Wikipedia to help you find other newspapers.

Lastly she gave us some database basics.  In describing how searches work, we saw screen shots of the actual databases and the newspaper articles that she found.

It was a wonderful talk and I heard many people say upon leaving that they couldn't wait to get home and try some of it out.

Thank you, Janice!


Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Accomplishments in the Past Year

Some of us board members were commenting about how we don't do much business in our board meetings.  Our President, Yvonne Adams, made a list of all of the accomplishments members of our society have done in the past year.  It is a pretty impressive list and we should all be very proud of ourselves.

1. Increased our publicity using newspapers, online sites, and a table at the Peddlar's Faire.
2. Cleaned up our Standing Rules
3. Created name tags for our members to wear at General Meetings
4. Resumed research trips
5. Changed our General Meeting format to encourage more member sharing
6. Resumed the Teaching Moment
7. Increased dues so we could increase the stipend for speakers
8. Continued with donations to Toys for Tots and the Food Bank
9. Created Inventory Sheets for Officers for a smoother transition
10. Created Blue Books for Officers with a list of duties and a timeline
11. Created a Refreshment Committee
12. And lastly created a display case at the Pleasant Hill Library which will be on display the month of February 2012.  Below is a photo of the display case.

Display created by the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society at the Pleasant Hill Library

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

General Meeting -- Feb 9, 2012

Coming up this month will be professional genealogist, Janice Sellers, who will speak about Online Newspapers.  Her summary is:

Using Online Newspapers for Genealogical Research

      Newspapers are valuable in genealogical research because you can find information about births, deaths, marriages, moves, business, naturalizations, court cases, and more. Millions of pages of the world's newspapers are now accessible online, but there is no one place to find them all. This class gives an overview of what isavailable online and techniques to help improve your chances of finding information about your relatives.

Janice M. Sellers is a professional genealogist who specializes in newspaper and Jewish research. She is the editor of two genealogy journals and a member of APG, Genealogical Speakers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and CGS. She has volunteered at Oakland Regional Family History Center for eleven years.

The meeting begins at 7 pm and the location is the LDS Church at 1360 Alberta Way, Concord.  All are welcomed!

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.