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Connecticut Ancestry Society, Inc.
June 2008 eNews Vol. 1 No. 3

Welcome to our third installment of news from Connecticut Ancestry Society, Inc. As announced in our February 2008 journal, this eMail will inform you of upcoming events currently scheduled. We are expecting to send these roughly once a month to help remind you of upcoming plans.

Upcoming Meetings:

July 19th, 2008: “Planting Your Family Tree Online” Workshop at Bridgeport Public Library. Starting at 10:30am, our webmaster, Robert Locke, will demonstrate how dynamic, work-in-progress, publishing of your own tree on the Internet can bring connections from around the world knocking on your “electronic door.” The workshop is open to the public, but please RSVP to the Historical Collections staff at Bridgeport Public Library at (203) 576-7417 or via email at mwitkowski@bridgeportpubliclibrary.org

June 22nd, 2008: Please join us for our next Board Meeting to be held at the Fairfield Museum and History Center at 2:00 PM. All Connecticut Ancestry Society members are welcome.

Check out http://www.connecticutancestry.org/activities.html for upcoming activities occurring at other locations throughout the area.

News:

We had a wonderful time at the Annual Meeting on May 18th held at the Keeler Tavern Museum in Ridgefield, and hosted by the Ridgefield Historical Society. We learned about some of the settlers of the Oblong from our esteemed editor, Harlan Jessup.

Announced at the Annual Meeting, our website has been growing. The “Past Journals” page (http://www.connecticutancestry.org/journalpast.html) now has every article title and author going back to Volume 10, September 1967. You can use your browser’s search feature to search for surnames, locations, or authors mentioned in the titles. You can peruse the issues’ Tables of Contents to see some of the wonderful articles and maybe order a back issue or two.

As a reminder, if you have yet to renew, the recent May journal is your last. Please send in your renewal soon to keep those journals coming. Renewal forms are available in the Journal or you can download the order form from our website at: http://www.connecticutancestry.org/about.html

If you have any ideas or comments about this “monthly” broadcast, please contact me at: webmaster@connecticutancestry.org

Connecticut Ancestry Society, Inc.
May 2008 eNews Vol. 1 No. 2

Welcome to our second installment of news from Connecticut Ancestry Society, Inc. As announced in our February 2008 journal, this eMail will inform you of upcoming events currently scheduled. We are expecting to send these roughly once a month to help remind you of upcoming plans.

Upcoming Meetings:

May 17th, 2008: Irish Genealogical Workshop at Bridgeport Public Library. As a follow-on to the co-sponsored seminar in March at the Housatonic Community College, Connecticut Ancestry Society and the Historical Collections staff at Bridgeport Public Library would like you to bring your Irish “challenges”. Starting at 10:30am, professional genealogist Nora Galvin will point out additional resources not presented during the March seminar. The workshop is open to the public, but please RSVP to the Historical Collections staff at Bridgeport Public Library at (203) 576-7417 or via email at mwitkowski@brdgprtpl.lib.ct.us

May 18th, 2008: Annual Meeting hosted at the Keeler Tavern in Ridgefield and co-sponsored by the Ridgefield Historical Society. Following our “brief” annual business meeting at 2:00 PM, Harlan Jessup, editor of “Connecticut Ancestry,” will present on “The Settlement of the Oblong: How the boundary between New York and Connecticut was determined”. Certainly North and South Salem were largely settled by Ridgefield families, but what about the other areas of this “narrow strip of Equivalent Lands”? The lecture is open to the public, but please RSVP with the number of attendees to the Ridgefield Historical Society at (203) 438-5821 or via email at ridgefieldhistory@sbcglobal.net

June 22nd, 2008: Please join us for our next Board Meeting to be held at the Fairfield Museum and History Center at 2:00 PM. All Connecticut Ancestry Society members are welcome.

Check out http://www.connecticutancestry.org/activities.html for upcoming activities occurring at other locations throughout the area.

News:

Our May Journal, “Connecticut Ancestry” has gone to print, so keep an eye on your mailbox…. And, if you have yet to renew, this May journal will be your last. Please send in your renewal soon to keep those journals coming. Renewal forms are available in the Journal or you can download the order form from our website at: http://www.connecticutancestry.org/about.html

In other news, our collection will be going into storage temporarily while Ferguson Library undergoes an extensive renovation. While the renovation will begin in June 2008, the Stamford Room will remain open until September 2008. If you have been putting off visiting, please do so soon. We are looking forward to the re-dedication of the Stamford Room when it returns and will keep you posted on planned events.

If you have any ideas or comments about this “monthly” broadcast, please contact me at: webmaster@connecticutancestry.org

Connecticut Ancestry Society, Inc.
April 2008 eMail Vol. 1 No. 1

Welcome to our first installment of news from Connecticut Ancestry Society, Inc. As announced in our February journal, this eMail will inform you of upcoming events currently scheduled. We are expecting to send these roughly once a month to help remind you of upcoming plans.

Upcoming Meetings:

April 20th, 2008: Please join us for our next Board Meeting to be held at the Fairfield Museum and History Center at 2:00 PM. All Connecticut Ancestry Society members are welcome.

May 17th, 2008: Irish Genealogical Workshop at Bridgeport Public Library. As a follow-on to the co-sponsored seminar in March at the Housatonic Community College, Connecticut Ancestry Society and the Historical Collections staff at Bridgeport Public Library would like you to bring your Irish “challenges”. Starting at 10:30am, professional genealogist Nora Galvin will point out additional resources not presented during the March seminar. The workshop is open to the public, but please RSVP to the Historical Collections staff at Bridgeport Public Library at (203) 576-7417 or via email at mwitkowski@brdgprtpl.lib.ct.us.

May 18th, 2008: Annual Meeting hosted at the Keeler Tavern in Ridgefield and co-sponsored by the Ridgefield Historical Society. Following our “brief” annual business meeting at 2:00 PM, Harlan Jessup, editor of Connecticut Ancestry, will present on “The Settlement of the Oblong: How the boundary between New York and Connecticut was determined”. Certainly North and South Salem were largely settled by Ridgefield families, but what about the other areas of this “narrow strip of Equivalent Lands”? The lecture is open to the public, but please RSVP with the number of attendees to the Ridgefield Historical Society at (203) 438-5821 or via email at ridgefieldhistory@sbcglobal.net.

News:

Vital Record Access

Following the difficulties imposed on our local city registrars and town clerks by conflicting federal and state statutes, there has been a growing desire by certain political groups to further block our access to vital records. Connecticut Ancestry Society is endorsing (through our membership in the Federation of Genealogical Societies) a position paper developed by the Keeping Genealogical Records Open Workgroup (KGROW) of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Please take a moment to view this information through our website: http://www.connecticutancestry.org/20071107VRLetter.html which links to: http://apgen.org/publications/press to view the press release and position paper.

If you have any ideas or comments about this “monthly” broadcast, please contact me at: webmaster@connecticutancestry.org

This was historic. For the first time, we co-sponsored an event with Connecticut Society of Genealogists. At the Housatonic Community College, Jonathan Shea, Janet Pestey and Daniel Lynch presented on Irish Genealogy. With over 150 attendees, we squeezed more chairs around the aisles and all got to know our neighbors really well.

There were three very knowledgeable speakers that took us on a journey from initial research here in American records, crossing the ocean back to Ireland and searching the Internet.

We will be having an Irish Workshop in the near future to give everyone an opportunity to more directly work on their brickwalls.

Hindsight is 20/20. Our Holiday Social 2007 was scheduled for the same day, November 18th, as the Stamford Balloon Parade. Well, if you cannot beat ‘em, join ‘em, so, I (with my daughter, father, and son) at least enjoyed the parade before our Social.

While we scheduled our start time to follow the parade, traffic was a challenge, but several members persevered and we had a grand time at the Ferguson Library.

Nora Galvin, Bob Ferry and Rick Roof (above) listen to stories from Lloyd Sturges,

from Shirley Jessup,

from Nan Crowthers,

and others. We all got a chance to share some of our favorite stories of our ancestors in a little genealogical “show-and-tell”. I think we all had a grand time.

To finish up at Ferguson, we celebrated Fred Hart’s election as a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists with cake.

The party could not end there, so we went out to dinner to continue the festivities and honor both Fred and Norma.

It is such a privilege for me to be able to learn from Fred and all the wonderful people that make Connecticut Ancestry Society a fun place to be. I cannot wait for our next meeting….

Yesterday, we visited the Mark Twain Library to explore the Margaret Wixted Collection and present our latest issue to the First Selectman of Redding and other officials.

Above, Library Director Heather Morgan welcomes us.

Above, our President Richard Roof presents a copy of our Journal with newly discovered Redding Vital Records to Redding First Selectman, Natalie Ketcham.

Our Editor, Harlan Jessup, renowned expert on Barbour Collection Errors and Omissions, explains the discovery of new Redding Vital Records.

Jean Taylor, reference librarian, details the resources available in the Margaret Wixted Collection at the Mark Twain Library.

We visited the Trumbull Library yesterday to present newly discovered Vital Records to town and library officials.

Pictured are Ray Baldwin (Trumbull First Selectman), Lois Levine and Warren Blake (Directors of the Trumbull Historical Society), Mary Rogers (Associate Director of Library Information Systems), Walter Dembowski (Head of Reference Services) and Richard Roof (President of Connecticut Ancestry Society).

The presentation was followed by a rousing presentation by lecturer Bill Stansfield entitled Genealogy 101.

Our Annual Meeting found me Cruising Long Island Sound, as our genealogist, Fred Hart, showed the use of water as the highway of yesterday. I can now more easily picture the movement of family members back and forth from Connecticut to Long Island. It may be time for me to take a closer look at those Long Island roots of Sayre, Hildreth, Jessup, and others.

Today, we had a wonderful lecture by award-winning Master Graphoanalyst, Irene P. Lambert at the Cyrenius H. Booth Library in Newtown. The lecture was both informative and entertaining as Irene took us in to the world of handwriting analysis. I am also enthusiastic about our sponsoring her for the upcoming NERGC Conference.

As so many of us endeavor to put character and personality into our genealogical research, this investigation into our ancestor’s handwriting can paint a picture of why our ancestors made some of the choices that they did. My great-great grandfather’s handwriting showed some of that determination and quick-thinking that must have been necessary to be a successful entrepeneur in Greenwich.

I think I will be trying to locate more writing samples that can be looked at by Irene in the future.

With the summer months having waned, and our first board meeting of the fall earlier today…

It is now time to start thinking about what else I can do with this website to ensure that it can be relevant to our members. I want to find a way for our members to “help each other” in our quests. I do not necessarily want to duplicate or try to supplant many of the other fine endeavors that technology is presenting to us, but I do want to find a way to make this site one that our membership can be proud of, but, more importantly, something we can use on a regular basis.

I am told that years ago, Stamford Genealogical Society had a project that collected pedigree charts from their members. In fact, these charts are said to be available with other parts of our collection at the Ferguson Library in Stamford. I wonder if we could somehow provide a means for members to contact members who happen to be researching the same lines. I do find some of the “Surname Projects” a bit overly inclusive and have found that sometimes it is a challenge to “keep up”. So this should be a nice complement to those lists. But, should we keep the information “members-only” or aid our members in publishing their genealogies in this modern age?

Let me know your thoughts. Send me an email with any ideas you might have for how we can extend this website to be more of a resource in your endeavors. I really want to hear from you!