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Morris Area Genealogy Society (MAGS)

President’s Annual Report 2014-2015

This document has been divided into four sections. In the last three sections the headings have

been alphabetized in order to easily find the reports. The sections are Officers, Committees,

Websites and SIGS.

Officers

President MAGS has had another very productive year with the completion of cleaning out and

reorganizing our archives at the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center located at the

Morristown-Morris Township Library, trimming costs of membership renewal notices, and

increasing the number of participants in our SIGs. A new SIG was added, “Computer

Genealogy” bringing the number of SIGs to eight with three being held in the evenings.

The Speakers Bureau talks were placed on the website, the By-laws were changed in that audits

would now occur every two years or when there is a change in the treasurer instead of every

year, a new committee for Special Projects was formed and this spring the speakers are being

audio recorded for members not able to attend a general meeting. We were able to give the

North Jersey History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown-Morris Township Library a gift of

$400.

We held board meetings on October 10, 2014, January 9, 2015, February 13, 2015 and May 15,

2015.

Susan Simon

President, Morris Area Genealogy Society

Vice-President/Program Chair 2 Sept. - City Records: New Dimensions in Family History (Maureen Wlodarczyk,

Author)

7 Oct. - History, Herstory, Mystory, Yourstory: What Every Genealogist Ought to Know

to Breathe Life into their Family Tree (Michael & Alex Courter, writers)

4 Nov. - How to Use Digitized Newspapers for Genealogical Research (Brian Armstrong,

historian, genealogist)

2 Dec. - Annual Holiday Party, featuring stories by Carol Flatley, Mary-Jo Solomon,

Ruth Otey, Bonnie Mangold and Dave Marr

6 Jan. - Preserving Heirlooms and Old Photos- cancelled due to snow

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3 Feb. - A Genealogy Potpourri

+ Where to Keep Your Family Tree (Ruth Daniels)

+ Comparison of Billiongraves and Find-a-Grave (Susan Kehr)

+ What’s New at FamilySearch.org (Martha Corson)

3 Mar. - Researching Revolutionary War Soldiers- cancelled due to snow

7 Apr. - Introduction to British Research (Melissa Johnson, genealogist)

5 May - Finding Naturalization Records (Sharon Hodges, genealogist)

2 June - Perserving Heirlooms and Old Photos (Carolyn Dorsey, librarian,

Preservationist)

Martha Corson

Vice-President/Program Chair

Treasurer’s Report

A new membership renewal process invited members via email to renew early. The success of

new process is reflected in the large increase in income from membership dues of $5835,

exceeding Budget by nearly 60%. This increase represents dues that would have been collected

over the coming summer rather than increased membership. Contributions from Hospitality

($60); Donations ($140) and income from Research ($33) brought the total income to $6068.

Overall, expenses for the year were slightly below budget. Insurance continued at the new lower

rate with a premium of $308. Two donations of $400 each were made to MMTL, one in June to

catch up from the 2013-14 fiscal year and one in November for the current year. Again, we were

unable to arrange a donation to Morris County Library. The Newsletter costs have stabilized at

about $250 per issue and were close to budget.

Publicity was slightly over Budget ($38) and Speakers Fees came in $102 under budget. In total,

Supplies and Copies came in $280 under budget.

The result for the 2014-2015 fiscal year was a net gain of $2615 mainly due to the new

membership renewal process. This impact should level off over the coming year.

A Budget for FY June 2015 - May 2016 was presented to the Board and approved at the May

meeting. We will continue to donate to MMTL and have decided to present gift baskets to staff

at Morris County Library. The Speakers budget has been increased to $900. With the

introduction of Audio Recording at monthly meetings an allowance of $150 has been added. A

substantial surplus in the MAGS checking account allows us to run a negative net projection of

$150 for the Budget.

Mary Keane

Treasurer

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Recording Secretary

Minutes for all MAGS general meetings and board meetings were taken and distributed to all

Members by uploading a PDF version to the MAGS Members Yahoo Group. General meeting

minutes contain attendance, announcements and highlights of the evening’s presentation. Board

meeting minutes contain summaries of the Treasurer’s Report, Committee and SIG updates, and

Old and New Business along with voting approvals, deferrals and non-approvals. A supply of

Welcome Letters for newcomers at the general meetings was prepared, and they were distributed

with the aid of member volunteers. General meeting attendance averaged at 81 attendees up

from last year at 78.6 attendees over the nine months of presentations. This year there was a

high of 111 at the May 2015 meeting, whereas last year’s high of 106 occurred at the September

2013 meeting. We should note that the April 2015 meeting also exceeded 100 with 104

attendees. This year’s low attendance was the 42 attendees at the Members Only Holiday Party,

lower than the 50 at the December 2013 party. Excluding the Holiday Party, attendance at the

six general meetings with presentations averaged to 88 attendees, higher than the average of 82

for last year. Two General Meetings were canceled due to weather though one will be presented

in June 2015. The Secretary’s Notebook has been maintained containing board and general

meeting minutes for the last four years, President’s annual reports, officers lists, membership

lists, a program listing for the last five years, and copies of the current by-laws and Policies &

Procedures of the Society.

Marianne Totaro

Recording Secretary

Corresponding Secretary

Mail was picked up at the Convent Station Post Office and delivered to the appropriate officer or

committee head.

The largest volume of correspondence was membership dues envelopes which were delivered to

Linda Mathew throughout the year. Research Requests were scanned and forwarded to Linnea

Foster. Items for Gleanings were deposited at MMTL Cabinet as was a thank you note from the

Morristown / Morris Township Library.

Correspondence from MAGS included sympathy notes to members and a Note to Marion Harris

to inform her of the Board’s decision to offer her Complimentary Membership in the Society for

all her work in preparing Gleanings.

Nancy Lack

Corresponding Secretary

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Committees

Document Retention Committee

The Document Retention Committee was formed in February 2013 and has completed its work

this spring. In broad terms the committee established a policy for maintaining and archiving

MAGS records in the Officers’ Boxes and at the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center.

Specific products developed by the committee include the following:

A Document Retention Schedule identifying location and retention for various MAGS

documents

Archive Responsibility Checklist defining who is responsible for delivering documents to

the Archive

MAGS List of Selected Members who have access to the Restricted Material in the

Archive

The committee reviewed all of the material in our archive with the MMTL Archivist Jeff Moy

who was extremely helpful. Revisions were drafted for the online Finding Aid at the MMTL

website. When the archive is updated with the 2014-15 materials the Finding Aid will be

uploaded to the website by Jeff. Revisions reflecting the new DRC policies were made to

MAGS Policies and Procedures with Ruth Daniels and Susan Simon. The committee will

reconvene in the Fall to see how the system is working.

I would like to thank all the Committee members for their great input and perseverance: Linnea

Foster, Ruth Daniels, Nancy Lack, Roy Lindsey, Ruth Willis, Claire Kissil, Susan Simon and

Martha Corson.

Mary Keane

Chair, Document Retention Committee

Indexing

During the past year the MAGS Indexing Group met the third Monday of the month at the North

Jersey History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown-Morris Township Library. In addition,

daylong sessions took place in July, October and March.

The group continues with its current project, sorting and organizing a large collection of material

concerning many cemeteries in Morris County and other areas, a recent donation to NJHGC.

When this phase of the project is completed, an index to the material will be prepared. In

addition, Volume 27 (2014) of the MAGS Newsletter was indexed.

Members of the Indexing Group are Martha Corson, Ruth Daniels, Linnea Foster, Evelyn Huey,

Susan Kehr, Linda Mathew, Stephanie Reidinger, Marianne Totaro, and Ginny Walton.

Linnea B. Foster Chair, Indexing Group

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Historian

The completion of the MAGS Document Retention Project by Mary Keane has provided a good

foundation and a well-defined process for future documentation retention. Information for

MAGS 2014 – 2015 will be forwarded to The North Jersey History and Genealogy Center

(NJH&GC) at the Morristown-Morris Township Library (MML) in June 2015.

A “MAGS Archive Responsibility Check List” was prepared to summarize members that are

required to submit information and when to the Library Liaison or Archivist at MML.

Roy Lindsey, Historian

Hospitality

Many members contribute to the success of the hospitality committee. Dave Marr and Jim Malcolm

continue to take care of the coffee pots and ancillary items. Carol Flatley is the Assistant Hospitality

Chair. She also makes sure that we have seasonal decorations at each meeting along with the

refreshments.

At the end of year meeting a sign-up list for providing refreshments is passed around the audience.

Two people sign up for each month. Gini Anderson reminds the people each month, and makes sure

all goes well with the food at each meeting. With the money placed in the basket for the paper

products and coffee, the committee was able to give the general fund $60.

Gini Anderson

Hospitality Chair

Liaison to Morristown-Township Library

Because I worked Morristown/Morris Township History and Genealogy Center for many years, I

am able to act as the liaison between MAGS and that library. There is a special attachment

between the Morristown Library and MAGS rising from the fact that MAGS was founded by

that library and the two institutions continue to hold a unique bond and useful connection to each

other.

Probably the most important aspect of this responsibility is to collect various items for the

MAGS archives and deliver them to the archivist at the History and Genealogy Center at the

Morristown Library. This is done so that there will always be a paper archive of important

items and these will be kept in the climate controlled atmosphere that is available at the

Morristown Library History Center. It is important that this historical material is available for

MAGS members to use for various projects and to maintain the continuity of the history of the

Morris Area Genealogy Society Organization.

Claire Kissil

Liaison to Morristown/Township Library

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Membership

As of May 15, 2015 there were 259 members: 7 courtesy members, 7 institutional members, 36

family members, and 209 individual members. 199 members live in New Jersey and 60 live out-

of-state. 20 joined for the 2014-15 membership year and, as of this date, 9 have joined for 2015-

16. 39 members were dropped because they did not renew their memberships. 88 members

receive the newsletter by USPS and the others by email.

In late March we sent an email to all for whom we have an address requesting that they pay their

dues early so that we can save on postage and stationery by not having to mail them a renewal

packet. The response was very good. As of May 15, 137 members had already paid their dues for

the 2015-16 membership year.

Linda Mathew

Membership Chairman

Newsletter

This year we published our usual four quarterly 16-page issues of the Morris Area Genealogy

Society Newsletter.

Stephanie Reidinger was the editor for the September 2014 issue. In August I met with Stephanie

and she showed me on her computer the layout of an issue. I took notes. For my first issue,

December 2014, Stephanie read the 1st draft and made suggestions. The December 2014, the

March 2015 and June 2015 issues owe their polish to the superb comments and proofreading by

Ruth Daniels, Linnea B. Foster and Susan Kehr. Stephanie and Ruth gave me newsletter notes.

In May Ruth Daniels helped me with some formatting techniques. At this point in time I am still

a novice in this job. I am very grateful for all the time that Stephanie, Ruth, Lyn and Susan have

generously given me.

The feature “New Acquisitions and Holdings in the North Jersey History and Genealogy at the

Morristown/Morris Township Library” continues to be written by Stephanie Reidinger and

Carolyn Dorsey.

Bible records from the Adelaide J. Howell Collection have been used again this year. The

collection of the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center of the Morristown Library was the

source for Bible records and records from the First Congregational Church of Chester.

Bonnie Mangold and Linda Mathew have written articles about “Giving Back to the Genealogy

Community”.

On the “Seasonal Genealogy Ideas” page there are activities and websites that members have

shared at the General Meetings and at Special interest Group Meetings.

Two Beginners and Beyond SIG meetings have been the source for two articles, “Remembering

the Civil War and Our Ancestors” and “A Family Heirloom travels over 900 miles from home

and then back again!” The Special Projects Group wrote about the Dover Area Historical

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Society.

We continue to use Alpha Graphics in Morristown as our printer. And we use first class mailings

with the emphasis on encouraging our membership to receive the newsletter in PDF format only.

The PDF version of the Newsletter, after being proofed by Ruth Daniels, Linnea B. Foster and

Susan Kehr, is imported into our website [MAGS members-only Yahoo Group] so that all of our

members are able to access it at any time, with the links working, and the colored pictures in

view.

Every member that has an email address receives this PDF from our Membership Chair, Linda

Mathew, or Ruth Daniels at an earlier date than they would receive the printed copy.

Our printer, Alpha Graphics, does all the collating, folding, wafering and mailing, with the

addresses being supplied by our Membership Chair, Linda Mathew. Mary Keane delivers

Postage Stamps to Alpha Graphics. Alpha Graphics emails the bill to Mary Keane and the extra

copies are picked up by the Membership Chair and delivered to our storage cabinet at the

Morristown-Morris Township Library.

Mary-Jo Solomon

MAGS Newsletter Editor

MAGS Publicity

For each monthly speaker event, a flyer and press release are created. At the last several

meetings, new people were asked where they learned about the meeting. The majority are seeing

the notices in the newspapers or online. We will modify our distribution starting in September

2015 to deprioritize the flyer approach. The two approaches are described below ie Press

Release and Flyer Approach.

THE PRESS RELEASE APPROACH

Each month press releases are created for the upcoming presentation and are emailed it to the

following print newspapers and websites individually as was done in 2014:

morris@starledger.com

newsroom@dailyrecord.com

ipeditors@njnpublishing.com

pnardone@recordernewspapers.com

parsippanylife@northjersey.com

historicalsociety@rosenet.org

NJMorris-L@rootsweb.com

The following website and/or email addresses from 2014

are no longer active and thus were removed from the 2014

list.

rglover@starledger.com

hometowns@dailyrecord.com

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In addition a copy of the press release is faxed to the Madison Eagle at 973-377-7721 since they

do not accept e-mails.

The Parsippany Life press release includes an extra sentence to say that MAGS has members in

Parsippany, Boonton, Denville, Dover, and Wharton. They will not publish the release unless

they are told that we have members in some of the towns that they consider their territory.

No checking is done to determine whether the newspapers or calendars added our event though

occasionally MAGS members will let me know that the event made their newspaper.

Modified versions of the press release are added to the following websites as was done in 2014

and new this year was the addition of our event to Dick Eastman’s internet calendar (address

below in red):

http://www.starledger.com/editorial/editPReleases.asp

http://calendar.northjersey.com

www.dailyrecord.com

http://www.nj.com

www.wmtram.com

www.wdhafm.com

calendar.eogn.com

The press releases are modified because some of the sites limit the length of the posting and also

some require information such as location and time in a specific section of the online page.

THE FLYER APPROACH

A flyer is also made for each month's upcoming presentation using the desktop publisher

software “Page Plus” by Serif and 100 salmon colored copies are prepared and distributed. The

pdf file is emailed to the Bernardsville Print Center and they make 100 copies on our paper for

$5.

Twenty six flyers are mailed via the US Mail. These go to the following libraries; Boonton

Holmes, College of Saint Elizabeth Mahoney Library, Fairleigh Dickinson University, County

College of Morris, Denville Free Public Library, Montville Township, Mount Arlington, Mount

Olive, Mountain Lakes, Rockaway Free Public Library, Roxbury, Rockaway Township Free

Public Library, Washington Township Free Public Library, Westfield Memorial Library, and

James Lewis New Jersey Information Center Newark Public Library; the following Family

History Centers; Ledgewood, Caldwell, and Scotch Plains; the following Senior Centers;

Montville, Parsippany, Roxbury, Wharton Centennial; and the following Genealogy Societies;

Genealogy Society of the Westfields, Genealogy Club of Passaic, and Genealogical Society of

Bergen County.

The rest of the flyers are distributed by myself or other members to the following( a single copy

unless otherwise noted): Mendham and Mendham Twp. Libraries, Randolph Twp. Library,

Chester Library, Garabrant Center, 5 to Parsippany Library flyer bin, Whippany Library,

Whippany Seniors, Madison and Chatham libraries, Morristown and Short Hills Family History

Centers, Morris Plains and Florham Park libraries, Summit Library, New Providence Library,

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Berkeley Heights Library, Harding Twp. Library, Madison & Chatham Seniors, Drew

University, 20 to Bernards Township Library, 20 to Morristown Library, 6 to Morris County

Library (1 downstairs and 5 upstairs).

Copies of the press release and the flyer are sent to the MAGS members in charge of the MAGS

website, the MAGS newsletter, the MAGS Historian, the MAGS Vice President, and Ruth

Daniels

The cost to print 100 flyers and mail 26 of them is about $23 monthly (paper, printing, stamps,

envelopes, address labels).1

FACEBOOK

Board approval was obtained to set up a MAGS facebook page to publicize the talks. This will

be set up during the summer of 2015

Bonnie Mangold

Publicity Chair

Research

Research is limited to sources available in the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center of the

Morristown-Morris Township Library. Requests from members for research have dropped

dramatically, possibly because of the availability of sources online. Only one request of any

depth has been handled. Most requests have been for copies of information from various

publications and manuscripts. Indexes to these items appear on the MAGS website.

Linnea B. Foster MAGS Research Coordinator

Speakers’ Bureau

After discussion and approval at Board meetings the Speakers Bureau went into full production

this year. Speakers’ subjects are listed on our MAGS web site and requests come in via email.

Bob Stein

Chair

Special Projects Committee

A special projects committee was established with a mission to explore ways to increase

awareness and accessibility of genealogical and historical information for the benefit of MAGS

members.

1 If we mail out only 14 per month the cost drops to ~$15.50/month. To drop the cost by about half, we’d need to only print about 50 copies (higher price/copy to print)

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The initial project was undertaken to create an inventory of Morris County genealogical relevant

material.

The committee will create a summary of records stored at local area churches, historical

societies, local colleges, etc. As part of the project, the repositories will be visited, the

archivist interviewed about the collection, and a photo taken. From this project, MAGS

gains a collection of useful information for members-only to drive membership benefits

and the newsletter has an available source of stories.

As a benefit to participating in our inventory, the repository will be able to tap into any

MAGS volunteers and have their volunteer projects announced in a forum of interested

parties

Two places were visited to test out the repository questionnaire, ie the First Presbyterian Church

of Rockaway and the Dover Historical Society. Summaries of the visit have been written and the

Dover Historical Society is being highlighted in the Summer newsletter. Neither repository

requested immediate help by MAGS.

Research was conducted into getting local bank grants to assist with archiving local church

records. Two bank websites were investigated, ie Bank of America and PNC bank but nothing

useful was found as most grants on the PNC site related to historical building restoration. In one

instance (Bank site??) religious groups were specifically excluded from grants.

Goals for next year are to expand the membership of the committee and cover more locations

using the tools developed in the first part of 2015. Currently the membership consists of Bonnie

Mangold, Chair, Mary Jo Solomon, and Marianne Totaro. Roy Lindsay researched bank grants.

Bonnie Mangold

Chair, Special Projects Committee

Surname Research List Maintenance

The MAGS public website has a Surname Research List that lists surnames which

MAGS members are researching and have an interest in. Each member is allowed to have up to 5

surnames on the list. The general public may send an e-mail to the address shown on the list and

request to obtain or exchange information with the member that has posted the name. I receive

the e-mail via my address surnamemags@gmail.com, which is automatically forwarded to my

personal e-mail. The procedure is to forward that e-mail to our member and ask them to respond

to the person who sent the e-mail. I do not copy the sender, so our member is not known to the

sender until they decide to answer the e-mail. The surname list has a member ID number for each

surname. A separate list that I maintain identifies that person to me. I ask our member to copy

me so I know that the correspondence is happening.

As new surnames are to be added, I update the list as required and send the revised list to

the MAGS web mistress who posts it on the MAGS website. Many revisions are due to new

members having surnames of interest. It is also common that existing members fill out the list of

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surnames when they renew their membership. I usually update the list only once a month if

changes have been received that month.

The surname list still has surnames from former members. I forward e-mail queries to

former members as required. If the former member's e-mail address is no longer valid, I advise

the sender that the person is no longer a member and could not be reached. If that is so, then I

also delete all the former member's surnames. If the former member has a valid e-mail but does

not respond after a couple of follow ups, I will also remove that member's surnames.

This year there were no requests to add or revise names on the Surname Research List.

There were six queries this year from outsiders on surnames. These were forwarded to 8

members or ex-members since in two cases there were two people who had posted interest in the

surname. Seven of the eight people were no longer members but four of them still responded.

Three of the eight did not respond or could not be reached. I am still waiting on a recent contact

of an ex-member so it is too early to tell on them. And the one member that I contacted did not

respond. I have removed, or will remove, the surnames of the ex-members who did not respond.

Ed Simon

Surname Coordinator

Websites

MAGS Public Website

While the Indexing group has been concentrating on the Coulther Collection, they managed to

provide one Newsletter Index to upload. The Documentation Retention group was busy

organizing the MAGS papers and in conjunction with the MMTL have created an archive record

on the library’s website. A new evening SIG was created to satisfy member desires, and has

been listed on the SIG page. A need for an easy place to find genealogy-related glossaries was

identified, and a new section was created linking to PDFs and web URLs.

Indices: Added link to MAGS Newsletter Index – Volume 27 – Year 2014.

Links: New link added to MAGS Archives Records, located at MMTL, North Jersey History and

Genealogy Center.

SIGS: A new SIG “Computer Genealogy – Evening” was added to the SIG page.

Search: Added instructions on the FIND command to assist in searching MAGS indexes.

Glossaries: Added new Home Page Section entitled “Glossaries”. This new page contains

Glossaries and Other Miscellany links to internet sites, and to PDFs.

Susan Kehr

Webmaster

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MAGS Yahoo Groups

MAGSmembers

We currently have 97* members (the same as last year) registered on the MAGSmembers Yahoo

Group (started Dec 2007). We have all our Newsletters posted here, plus our recent meetings

minutes, recent President’s Annual Reports, our By-Laws and Policies & Procedures, recent

gleanings and our Officers Master List. We also have photos of most of our meetings back to

2002 and a few more back to 1998. Unfortunately the links to audio recordings had to be

removed as they are no longer valid, but this year we uploaded 12 audio recordings from 2004 -

2008 to MAGSmembers Files area.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MAGSmembers/

MAGSbrickwalls

We currently have 38* members (the same as last year) on the MAGSbrickwalls Yahoo Group

(started Jun 2009) for the Brick Walls SIG.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MAGSbrickwalls/?yguid=107500599

MAGS Italian and Western Europe SIG

We currently have 19* members (same as last year) on the MAGS Italian and Western Europe

SIG Yahoo Group (started Jun 2011) for the Italian and Western European SIG.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MAGS-Italian-and-West-Europe-SIG/?yguid=107500599

MAGS-CompGen

We currently have 44* members (an increase of 2 from last year) on the MAGS-CompGen

Yahoo Group (started Aug 2012) for the Computer Genealogy and Family History Writing SIG

with access also given to the Beginners and Beyond SIG and, new this year, to the evening

Computer Genealogy SIG.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MAGS-CompGen/?yguid=107500599

MAGS-Board

We currently have 18* members (an increase of 2 from last year) on the MAGS-Board Yahoo

Group (started Apr 2013) where we will maintain an archive of our Annual President’s Reports,

keep a copy of our membership list and have some of our forms available for Board members.

This group is by invitation only.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MAGS-Board/?yguid=107500599

MAGS-Pond

We currently have 11* members (an increase of 2 from last year) on the MAGS-Pond Yahoo

Group (started April 2014) for the Crossing the Pond SIG.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MAGS-Pond/info

*includes the universal ID: UNIMAGS

Ruth Daniels

MAGS Yahoo Websites Administrator

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Special Interest Groups

Beginners and Beyond SIG

The Beginners and Beyond Special Interest Group usually meets the third Monday of each

month, September through June, at the Morris County Library. There are 52 members on the

contact list. Attendance ranged from 14 in December to 23 in October and April. One meeting

was canceled because of snow.

Part of the meeting focuses on a particular topic. The remainder of the two hour session is spent

discussing research issues brought up by members of the group. Some of our topics this year

were: Military Records, Family Holiday Photos and Stories, Finding a Woman’s Maiden Name,

Newspaper Research, Identifying Individuals of the Same Name Living in the Same Place at the

Same Time. Presentations were given by Ruth Daniels, Roy Lindsey, Linda Mathew, and

Marianne Totaro.

A highlight of the year was John Kitchell sharing his story at the December meeting about his

grandson finding a Family Bible at a garage sale. This led to locating basic information about the

family using Find A Grave. Eventually John, with the help of Mary-Jo Solomon, was able to

reunite the Bible with family members in Iowa.

Linnea B. Foster

Chair, Beginners and Beyond SIG

Brick Walls SIG

Brick Walls SIG meets every second Friday of the month at 10:00 a.m. to Noon in the

conference room of the Morris County Library. There are thirty-eight members on the roster.

The average attendance per meeting has been ten members. Three brick walls were discussed

during the past year. When there isn’t a brick wall up for discussion we go around the room and

talk about what we are working on. By sharing our work we are able to help each other in

breaking down barriers in continuing in our genealogical research. We also share resources,

again another way of helping each other in our search for ancestors.

Susan Simon

Moderator, Brick Walls SIG

Computer Genealogy SIG

Our evening Computer Genealogy group met for the first time in October 2014. We met in an

upstairs meeting room of the Morris County Library and use the MCL portable projector (when

available) to display what is being done using one of our laptops. Each month we must schedule

the room for our next meeting. We had 10 people who attended one or more meetings this year

and we averaged 5 people per meeting. They can request access to the MAGS-CompGen

Yahoo website.

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This past year we have looked at and/or discussed:

2014

Nov Working in Family Tree Maker (which non-FTM users can translate to their own

preferred brand of genealogy software)

Dec Online Immigration Resources

2015

Jan Cancelled – weather

Feb Cancelled – weather

Mar Learning Genealogy with Online Videos

Apr The Steve Morse Search Engine

May Finding Online Obituaries

This is a lively group, most of whom are just learning about online resources. We have put into

the MCL lottery for the Conference room on the 1st floor so we can move into better quarters.

We are looking for someone to take leadership of this group.

Ruth Daniels

Temporary Leader - Computer Genealogy – Evening

Computer Genealogy and Family History Writing SIG

The Computer Genealogy group and the Family History Writing group met jointly on the third

Friday of each month this year except December. We meet in the large meeting room of the

Morris County Library and use the overhead projector to display what is being done using one of

our laptops. We had 48 people who attended one or more meetings this year and we averaged 24

people per meeting.

This past year we have looked at and/or discussed:

2014

Jun Tips & Tricks Working with Ancestry

Jul Local Research

Aug Genealogy & Photography – perfect together

Sep Working with FamilySearch.org

Oct Cloud Storage

Nov No meeting, bumped by MCL

Dec We do not meet in December

2015

Jan How are you spreading the word: What’s Your End Product?

Feb How to Divide a Family Tree

What types of reports do you use (or want) in your genealogy research?

Mar Google Day

Apr Online Sources of Social History

May Finding That Obituary

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Many of our attendees helped present the various topics. Also many people shared their

published genealogies and family histories in the making.

Ruth Daniels

Leader - Computer Genealogy and Family History Writing Special Interest Groups

Crossing the Pond SIG

Our evening meetings have been attended by an average of eight members. Our focus is helping

members perform research on both sides of the pond. Unfortunately weather and a power failure

at the library canceled a few meetings this year.

Bob Stein

Moderator

DNA SIG

The DNA has met nine months this last year, usually on the second Tuesday evening of the

month. We currently have 34 members, of these 3 - 5 usually attend any one meeting. It is rare

that one of our long-time members attend. A meeting usually consists of newer members and

those that have recently been tested and received their test results.

A typical meeting usually includes answering questions new people may have about how DNA

testing works, how it can help identify ancestors, how to determine which test best meets their

needs, and anything else that may be brought up to the group. We use a computer and LCD

projector to visit various WEB sites. We also discuss any tests that the members have made in

the past month.

We decided that we would not be meeting during the summer, but will resume in September.

Jim Short

Chair, DNA SIG

German and East European SIG

The MAGS German & Eastern European Special Interest Group Meeting meets on the 3rd Tuesday of

the month from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the Morris County Library. These meetings are attended by

between 10 to 13 people per session and occur every month of the year. We have regular attendees as

well as new attendees at our meetings. Our focus is on the roots in Europe including census, church

and civil records. However, we do entertain other subjects related to the pursuit of genealogy

information that can be easily answered by one or more of the experts attending these meetings. US

census records and related data are also of interest.

Lou Andrews

Moderator, German and East European SIG

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Italian and Western European SIG

Our membership as of May 12, 2015 is seventeen, an increase of one member. We meet

monthly on the second Tuesday of the month from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Morris County

Library conference room. Average attendance is seven. We usually follow a roundtable

discussion of what each member has done since the last meeting, and answer questions that

members may have on researching Italian and Western European records.

Susan Kehr

Moderator, Italian and Western European SIG