"Social Media at The VGS"
	Member: Florida State Genealogical Society Member: Federation of Genealogical Societies Member: National Genealogical Society

The Villages Genealogical Society sponsors live virtual broadcast presentations as part of your membership. Learn more about these live events, presenter bio's and how to register Here...

May Monday Evening Webinar

May 2020 Monday Evening Webinar

On Monday evening, May 11, we had a terrific presentation by Mary Kircher Roddy, CG direct from Seattle, Washington. We had nearly 200 register for this webinar. Her presentation was "I Remember Mama (But Not Her Maiden Name): Finding Female Ancestors"
Mary demonstrated multiple strategies using records and those of her FAN club – her friends and family, associates, and neighbors to help crack the case of the “mystery woman” in your family tree. She also showed how to use ancestry.com very efficiently.
If you missed the live presentation, members have 90 days to view it in the "Members Only" section of our website. The handout is also available.

April Virtual Meeting

Paul Milner ^FUGA,MDiv was our guest presenter for our April Virtual General Meeting. During these difficult times, the VGS is still presenting high quality genealogical learning opportunities to our membership. Over 200 members registered for the first session and over 150 for the second. Session 1, "Overcoming the Deadend Doldrums" was the topic. Here we learned that in any search clearly identify what piece of information you are looking for - - - only then will you know how and where to look. The second presentation was "Effective Use of GENUKI." GENUKI is the United Kingdom's largest free genealogy website. Do you have UK ancestors?

If you missed the live presentations, members have 90 days to view them in the "Members Only" section of our website. Handouts are also available.

Virtual Expo Update

Our Family History Expo was canceled due to Covid-19 but it did not prevent us from having a Virtual Expo replacement. We were able to present eight, half hour presentations. Our guest speakers included, Diahan Southard, Maureen Taylor, Jim Beidler, Janet Hovorka, Katherine Schober, Rich Voight, Mike Bollinger and Karen Molohon.

If you missed the live presentations, members have 90 days to view them in the "Members Only" section of our website.

“Admission to meetings of The Villages Genealogy Society is limited to

VGS members and paid guests.”

You must be a resident of The Villages, FL for membership

COMING EVENTS

Thursday, Jun. 4th

1:00 pm

Eastern European Genealogy SIG Meeting

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Monday, Jun. 8th

7:00 pm

“Mining for Treasures in the Internet Archive”

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Wednesday, Jun. 10th

9:00 am

Board of Directors Meeting

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Thursday, Jun. 11th

9:30 am

German Genealogy SIG Meeting

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Thursday, Jun. 11th

10:00 am

Genetic Genealogy SIG Meeting

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Facts

Town and county histories can be invaluable to form a picture of your ancestors in the time they lived in the area.

[Hometown Records]

Always record females using their maiden names.

[Basic Genealogy]

What happened to the 1890 U.S. Census? A fire broke out in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C.on January 10, 1921. The census records were stored improperly in the basement and were soaked with water and no restoration efforts were made to save the documents. The damaged records were destroyed sometime between 1933 and 1935 when they were deemed no longer necessary.

[Census]

In 1820 the Federal Government began requiring ship manifest lists but the early years can be difficult to locate.

[Immigration]

Begin with the latest census available and work backwards. Census records have been taken since 1790. Before 1790 you can use Tax Lists and other local lists that might have been compiled according to the state you are researching in.

[Census]