The Pajama Game vs Genealogical Societies

I've been conducting pajama research for the past six months. Quite successfully, I think. However, I have recently begun visiting the local library a lot more often to go through their microfilm holdings, and at the end of January paid the dues to join the local genealogical society for a year.

I could wait for the microfilm holdings to go online, but I could be waiting a decade, or longer, and I'm not that patient. I've seen devices advertised online that will convert microfilm to digital images, but at $40,000, I suspect libraries, and genealogical societies, aren't yet lining up to buy them. But if the price decreases, I suspect they will. When that day comes, the conversion process will speed up.

The St. Louis Genealogical Society does have some attractive offerings to members. Discounts on classes and seminars is one of them. In particular, they offer a Beginning Genealogy course for $60 to non-members, and for free to members. Still feeling I qualify for that course, I figured that it was worth $35 to see if I could learn anything.

Checking out their course list, I'm not too thrilled with their other offerings for this season. The ones that would interest me the most (on military research) are scheduled during the weekday lunch hour. It's likely the majority of membership is retirement age, but I'm not, so I can't attend those classes.

Beyond the discounts on courses and some CDs they offer, there isn't much they provide to the member only. There is a lot of good information on their website available to anyone, and I've been using it the past 6 months. The Members-only section has a marriage database from 1804-1876, but none of my ancestors were in St. Louis by then, and anyway, they sold the database to Ancestry.com, so it's available there. They have a section for the pedigrees of "First Families", but once again, my ancestors haven't been here long enough. (They've been here since the 1880s. It's not like they arrived last year.) Beyond that the only other Members-Only feature on the website is the opportunity to volunteer to do data entry. I may, but that's not really a benefit. I'm not upset that the society gives most of their information away, but it might not make the most business sense.

So if I don't feel I'm getting my 'money's worth' from the discounts on classes, or find another benefit, my renewal in future years may be open to question. However, I do feel that the experienced genealogists in the society have knowledge about resources I lack. I've learned stuff at every presentation at every monthly meeting I have attended so far.

Today's Activities

• This morning I added several sites to my blogroll on the left that I have been reading, but hadn't yet made it to the list.
• Then I headed to the first meeting of the St. Louis Genealogical Society of the year. Interstate 40/64 for a several mile stretch in St. Louis has shut down on January 2nd for a year for construction. Next year, another stretch will be shut down. Many people in the area are in a total mess of confusion. The dividing spot West of which is shut down this year, and East of which will be shut down next year, is where I live. So while I normally would take the interstate to the meeting, I had to find another route. It added a little excitement to my morning, but I made it.
• The meeting was interesting. It was on 'creating a master plan' as it relates to solving genealogical puzzles. The speaker led us down two case histories where she researched two 'apparent aliens' who had landed on Earth, and their descendants had no clue what planet they had come from. Hearing the processes she went through gave me some ideas.
• This evening I finished up some blind letters I had been working on to send to some distant likely-relatives.
• A few minutes ago I was looking through the list of topics the St. Louis Genealogical Society will be discussing each month in 2008. September's topic caught my eye. "Voting Records." I hadn't thought about those. "Are they available?" I asked myself. I figured the answer was probably, 'Yes,' or the September presentation would be awfully short. I didn't want to wait eight months though. So I went to the Stlgs website and found the information there.
  

Voter registration records may provide important naturalization information, a birth date, and a signature. In August 1920, women were given the right to vote, thus a large number of registrations occurred that fall. The women that registered were U.S. citizens by birth, those who were naturalized via marriage to a U.S. citizen, or women who were naturalized at the same time as their father or husband. In 1922 women were required to naturalize as individuals, without their father or husband.

Before 1937, voters had to register every four years. The microfilmed ledger books show the voter’s signature, address, and voting record over that period of time.

City records, where most of my family lived in the first half of the 20th century, are available from 1897-1977 in the same library I was at this morning. It might help me track my ancestors' locations between censuses. County records are available from 1924 on in different locations.

Three out of four sets of my father's great-grandparents were in St. Louis by 1897. The Newmarks arrived in 1909. If it went back a few more years, it could help fill in for the missing 1890 census. (At least for the fraction of the citizens who could vote). St. Louis also has city directories which are helpful for those years, but the voting records will have signatures, which could be helpful for those whose names seem to change from one directory to another, unless the signature is just an X. It should also be interesting to discover how regular my ancestors were in voting.

St. Louis Genealogical Society

Tuesday night I attended my first meeting of the St. Louis Genealogical Society. I've read other genea-blogger discussions on genealogical societies, such as Creative Gene and Genea-Musings so I had some idea of what to expect.

I wasn't surprised that I was the youngest person in the room. I kind of hoped there might be one or two others in my age bracket, but I didn't see any. The presentation topic was on how to use Google, and I didn't expect to learn much, but I did expect to get an idea of the quality of the presentations. Often in any group that solicits guest speakers from within its own membership - regardless of the group - you're going to get questionable expertise. And since technology topics still have an inverse age-curve, I figured the topic would be a good test for me. If the information presented was full of holes, or worse, incorrect, I would have doubts about the information presented in topics I was less familiar with.

I was happy with the presentation. There were additional features they could have mentioned, but in the 90 minute presentation they covered a lot of ground. I'm not sure if everyone in the audience followed well enough to be able to use the information on their return home, but it was still accurate and useful information. And one suggestion was made that I hadn't considered. (Searching the Patent database. I've searched it before at its main USPTO.gov site, but not for family surnames.)

I'm on the fence on whether to join the society or not. Most of their online databases are open acess on their website. They do have a local marriage database members-only, but it stops in the 1890s, and my earliest St. Louis ancestors arrived in 1885, so I know it won't be very helpful. (I have ancestors who were in the US in the 1700s, but not St. Louis) They have some useful CDs for sale containing data and maps and such, but non-members can purchase them for only a slight surcharge. Monthly presentations at their meetings are open to the public. I may purchase one year membership though in order to take a multi-session Beginning Genealogy course, which appears to be open only to members and is free with membership. Though at the moment I don't see why I would renew the membership afterwards. (That said, I might still volunteer for data-entry/proofreading. If they offered a VolunteerHour/$ exchange rate so people can volunteer instead of pay dues, I would definitely consider it. Of course, I didn't ask, but I might make the suggestion to someone at the next meeting I attend.)