It's a new year and we are excited to help you discover your roots in Prince George's County, Maryland, as well as other areas of this vast country.  While our focus is on the Midatlantic states, we have many resources that explore records and research in 41 states and the District of Columbia.  We offer limited free research services (e.g., a quick look up of specific information in one of our publications or other holdings) to our members and for non-members for a modest fee.  Check out the Research tab on our Home page.  New to genealogy research?  You might want to check out our Links page for some free and helpful sites.

 

Good luck with your genealogical research in 2024!  Let us know how we can help.

Our next newsletter will be issued in early October and our newsletter editor says, "This is the best issue yet."  I can't wait to see it myself, but I'm astounded at the number of members who have not read the newsletter -- about 17 percent of our members have never logged on to the Members Only section of our website, which they need to do to open each issue if they have a digital subscription. 

 

In case you are in need of some instructions on how to find the newsletter, here they are:

 

           Enter https://pgcgs.org into your Internet browser window.  From the menu on the left, click on Members Only.  Enter your user name and then your password.  If you don't know your user name, send an email to our membership chair at membership@pgcgs.org and ask Karen to send you your user name.  If you don't know your password, click on the question mark near the password box.  You will receive instructions on how to change your password.  Select a password with no capital letters (these are frequently entered incorrectly -- that Shift key is a tricky guy!) and no special characters -- use letters and numbers only.  Make sure you have a safe place to record your password to refer to later.

 

           Once your password is changed, log on to the website and then select from the menu under Members Only, Newsletters.  On the screen that comes up then, the most recent newsletter should be on the top left of the list.  Click on that green box -- for the next newsletter in October, click on Volume 55, then select Issue #2.  The newsletter will open in a new window where you may read it, print it, or save it by printing to PDF and saving it in a file on your computer.

 

The Bulletin is chocked full of articles on records in Prince George's County.  Don't forget, there is also a Name Index for each volume and a Subject Index for the first 53 volumes.  The Subject Index for Volume 54 is under the tab marked Volume 54, along with all four issues of that volume.  A volunteer is currently working hard on indexing both names and subjects for Volume 55, and it will be posted online when it is complete.

 

If you have suggestions for future articles, please email them to communication@pgcgs.org.  If you would be interested and willing to write an article for submission, please also email us about that.

 

Happy reading!

Our website is a year old now!  That time has flown, but it's been good to be able to add new material and make changes without having to explain what is needed to someone who is tech savvy but may not be genealogy-oriented.  It's nice to be able to make the changes and improvements on our own and we are happy with how our new website is functioning.  Could there be improvements?  You bet.  If you have suggestions for changes or new material, please send them in an email to either president@pgcgs.org or webmaster@pgcgs.org.  These two positions are currently filled by the same person, so you may use either one.

Speaking of which, if you have some computer experience or are not afraid to learn new things, perhaps you would be willing to fill the shoes of webmaster.  There are training videos available that you may watch at your own speed and the provider, EasyNetSites, was created with the idea of keeping things simple and easy for us non-techies to understand.  It's actually a fun job -- I'm not dying to give it up, but then I'm also president and currently functioning as publicity chair -- so I have plenty to do for this society.  If you are interested in helping spread the word about our society, its meetings and its library, feel free to join me on the Publicity Committee -- that would make two of us!

Does it sound like we need help?  We sure do!  In addition to the above, we also need someone who would be willing to conduct the annual audit our books.  Ideally this would be a local person, so we would not have to mail the paperwork that needs checking.  Please contact the same emails as mentioned above.

One more thing -- our Membership Chair, Karen Riekert, who is also our Secretary and main Librarian, would be happy to train someone to take over the Membership files so she can focus more on her other two society jobs.  The membership rolls are computer-based, so some comfort in computer use is a prerequisite for the job.  Attention to detail helps, along with a willingness to listen to/watch a few hours' worth of training videos on how to use our online system.  But it's not a difficult job and does not take long to do; the heaviest concentration of time is in summer, since our membership year ends June 30 and many people are renewing around that time.  Please think it over and let us know by emailing president@pgcgs.org.

Thanks for your attention!  Have a nice summer vacation.

A new site has been entered on our Links page that will take you to WikiTree, a free site for entering and building your family tree.  WikiTree is a collaborative platform for genealogy research, where users can create and edit profiles, connect with other researchers, and grow their family trees. The site is designed to be accessible to all levels of genealogists, from beginners to experts.  For those who can't or choose not to download genealogy software, this is another choice for a place to keep your records.

 

Scroll down the home page to find links to instructions on use, such as:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqUlQ0dxsgk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76UUx8QAESc&list=PLEqK4ICkQWXSKJksGv3vx_XQjAHZzU2Qn&index=2

Clicking on either of these links will open a new window in your browser.  When you close it, you will be back at our website.  If you have logged in, don't forget to log out.  And thanks for reading this!

 

Check it out soon!