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From:
Subject: Idea's for genealogy societies
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 09:32:00 EDT


Our society has been in existence since 1989 and we find it dwindling with
volunteer's. Us "old faithful's" are still plugging along.

I do find that if we have a meeting about beginning genealogy, organizing
your genealogy or computer genealogy we have a good attendance. If we would have
more of these we probably could get more people interested. That's my two
cents on the subject of getting people more involved, but today with more people
working and the internet I do wonder what will happen with genealogy societies.

You can find information on the internet, but you would be hard to put to
find out that great great grandma's horse and buggy were "spooked" going down
Main St. which caused someone else's great great grandfather to come to the
rescue. I think that can only be found by being a member to a society and they put
out a good quarterly with tid bits of information like that.

I just typed before reading this message as I was working on our
quarterly....
March 5, 1872: It is ordered that Joshua Epperson and family be admitted to
poor House. (From Ray County Court Records)

I also know that our 40 page quarterly keeps our membership over 200. We try
not to put chit chat in it about the society in our quarterly. We put
information in it with names, and a little history about the county. I know it's hard
to find people who will transcribe items for quarterlies, but thankfully there
are two of us who enjoy this. (Yes, I am the editor). Old newspapers are a
great source. Especially around the 1890 since the census for that year was
destroyed.
The cost of publishing a quarterly can be expensive.
We have ours copied at Office Depot (275 at the cost of around $450.00).
The bulk mailing cost $150.00 per year, plus around $68.00 each mailing.

We also give 10% discount on books purchased from us. Free queries to
members, $2.00 for non members.

We do not put out a newsletter like we used to that did chit chat about our
society. We figured that people who live close can read about our meetings
in the newspapers of the surrounding area. If we have a special meeting we will
mail out a notice to our members who live within driving distance.

Yes, lets kick around some idea's about what your society is doing.

Lisa S m a l l e y
Ray County (MO) Genealogical Assn.

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