[APG Public List] Genealogical Societies

[Joel S. Russell]

I'm going to throw in my two cents.

I've been involved in genealogy for over 30 years and I've been a 
member of numerous genealogical societies across the 
country.  Originally it was the only place to find others also 
interested in genealogy with whom to talk and get advice from.  It 
was also the point of contact when I had research in a particular 
locality in which I didn't live.  The Internet now allows me to find 
many more people interested in genealogy.  People who are researching 
the same or similar areas or families that I am.  There is also a lot 
of information (including a tremendous amount of bad information) 
available from on-line resources.  Also, for a person like me who 
joined societies in other parts of the country, I relied on that 
periodical publication to assist my research and post queries.  I can 
now post a query anytime of day or night and reach a much larger 
audience.  Finally, and this again is just my experience, the 
majority of societies that I belonged to had no interest in using the 
Internet or finding out ways it could enhance the society.  Instead 
they ignored it and saw it only as a threat.

I'm still a member of a couple of societies, but only ones local to 
me in which I can attend a meeting.

Joel
http://www.rafert.org/home



At 02:19 PM 4/6/2010, Johnny Bradley wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>I am the president of our genealogical society here in Mississippi 
>County, Missouri. The society has existed for about 25+ years. After 
>I joined twelve years ago, the few members who were with the group 
>told me that there just was not as much interest. At one time we had 
>60 to 70 members and most of them were from outside this area. We 
>are now at the point that we no longer have meetings and have 
>stopped publishing our MUDDY ROOTS quarterly magazine.
>
>My opinion is that people have other things they would rather be 
>doing. Also, the society we live in now, people have schedules, work 
>hours are different and the digital age in which people think they 
>can just sit down in front of there computer and find all of there ancestry.
>
>Johnny Bradley
>President-Mississippi County Genealogical Society, MO.
>
> > From: nancyml at comcast.net
> > Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 17:19:15 -0400
> > To: apgpubliclist at apgen.org
> > Subject: [APG Public List] Genealogical Societies
> >
> > Although this question is not directly about genealogical procedures or
> > methodology, I wanted to ask the group what genealogical 
> societies they have
> > observed that have a done a particularly effective job in the area of
> > membership development, and how they have done it.
> > Many thanks,
> > Nancy Menton Lyons
> > Delaware
>
>
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