British Interest Group of Wisconsin and Illinois
Upcoming events of regional interest (in Wisconsin, Illinois & nearby portions of neighboring states):If you need to have larger text for ease of reading, nearly all web browsers have a feature to increase (or decrease) the size of the text. This control is usually located somewhere in the View menu of the browser, with a sub-menu name such as “Zoom” or “Text size.”
Be sure also to check the listing of upcoming BIGWILL meetings! You may also want to check out the various cultural events (Highland Games, Irish Fests, etc.) listed on the Upcoming events of British Isles interest web page.
2-3 October 2009 - “Research: Do More and Do It Better”
31 July 2009
Fall 2009 seminar of the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, hosted by the Winnebagoland Genealogical Society.
Best Western Bridgewood Resort Hotel & Conference Center, 1000 Cameron Way, Neenah, Wisconsin. The featured speaker for the Saturday seminar will be Michael John Neill. His lecture topics will be “Research on a Tight Budget,” “Researching the Entire Family,” “Organization of Information,” and “Locating Emigrant Origins.”
On Friday afternoon there will be a limited-registration workshop. The speakers at the workshop will be Lori Bessler, the outreach coordinator and microforms librarian of the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) library archives, and David Michael McDonald, CGSM. Lori’s topics will be “It’s All Online! – Or Is It?” and “Wisconsin Historical Society: Services and Collections.” David’s topics will be “Jefferson’s Genius and the Old Northwest” and “Nineteenth Century Migrations to Wisconsin.”
There will be numerous vendor displays. (Interested in exhibiting at this seminar? See the vendor registration form; exhibitor application deadline is 11 September.) Visit the WSGS website for further information about both the workshop and the seminar, including hotel information and access to a printable registration form. If you have difficulty viewing the registration brochure on the WSGS website, you can access the same information by clicking here. Early (discounted) registration deadline is 18 September.
6 October 2009 - “Passage Express”
3 October 2009
Monthly morning meeting of the Elgin Genealogical Society.
Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave., Elgin, Illinois (Community Room A). Carole Magnuson will demonstrate the use of Passage Express to organize, present, and share your genealogy treasures with others. Carole is a representative of The Jefferson Project, creator of Passage Express, a “multimedia presentation software solution.” Meeting starts at 9:30 am. See the Event Calendar of the Elgin Genealogical Society’s web site for further information.
13 October 2009 - “Skeletons in Our Closets: Researching a Family Scandal”
3 October 2009
Regular monthly meeting of the Lake County (IL) Genealogical Society.
Fremont Public Library, 1170 N. Midlothian Rd., Mundelein, Illinois (Meeting Rooms A & B, on the second floor). Robin B. Seidenberg will be the speaker. Robin will reveal an intriguing tale of wealth, romance, betrayal, jealousy and murder. After investigating rumors of an old family scandal that took place during the roaring 20s in Chicago, she uncovered a sensational story that made newspaper headlines across the entire nation. Find out who the “Kissing Blonde” was, and how Robin was able to unravel this family mystery by researching historical newspapers. The meeting starts at 7:00 pm. See the meetings page of the Lake County Genealogical Society’s web site for further information.
15 October 2009 - “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places”
3 October 2009
Monthly evening meeting of the Elgin Genealogical Society.
Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave., Elgin, Illinois (Community Room A). Ginger Frere will be the speaker. You’ve looked through civil records and you’ve looked through church records. What else should you do if you simply can’t find your ancestor’s marriage records? In the United States the requirements for a valid marriage have changed over time and varied from state to state. Today couples in a hurry might rush off to Las Vegas. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, numerous towns across the nation were known as “marriage mills” or “Gretna Greens.” Come learn about some of these locations and find out why you might be looking for marriage records in the wrong place. The meeting starts at 7:00 pm. See the Event Calendar of the Elgin Genealogical Society’s web site for further information.
17 October 2009 - “Main Street & More”
21 September 2009
Regular monthly meeting of the LaSalle County Genealogy Guild.
LaSalle County Genealogy Guild Headquarters, 115 W. Glover St., Ottawa, Illinois. The program will be about a forthcoming book, Main Street & More, which describes the history of Marseilles, Illinois. The speaker will be Marianne Dahl, one of the organizers of the volunteer effort to compile this history. The meeting starts at 1 pm. Contact the guild at <lscgg@sbcglobal.net> or call them at (815)433-5261 between 9am and 4pm on Monday or Saturday for further information.
21 October 2009 - “Emily’s Story – Orphan Trains to the Midwest”
4 October 2009
Regular monthly meeting of the Burlington Genealogical Society.
Burlington Senior Center (use entrance at the back of the building), 201 N. Main St., Burlington, Wisconsin. Clark Kidder will be the speaker. Emily’s Story, Clark Kidder’s newest book, is the story of how his paternal grandmother, at the age of 14, was taken from the Elizabeth Home for Girls in New York City in 1906 and placed on an orphan train bound for the Midwest. Between the years 1854 and 1930, as a social experiment by the Children’s Aid Society, nearly 200,000 abandoned and orphaned children were loaded on these orphan trains in large cities on our East Coast and sent to the rural Midwest, to then be presented “for the picking” to anyone who expressed an interest in them. Emily’s Story is told through the use of primary material, oral history, interviews, and historical photographs. The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. For further information, view the BGS event calendar or contact Merilyn Romani, (262)215-2225, Judy Rockwell, (262)742-4306, Sharon Worm, (262)637-4108, or Dave Nelson, (262)534-6590.
24 October 2009 - 2009 ISGS Fall Conference
22 March 2009
Fall 2009 conference of the Illinois State Genealogical Society.
Elgin Community College Business Center, Elgin, Illinois. The featured speaker will be Michael John Niell.
3 November 2009 - “Using Non-population Census Schedules”
3 October 2009
Monthly morning meeting of the Elgin Genealogical Society.
Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave., Elgin, Illinois (Community Room A). Matt Rutheford, Curator of Genealogy and Local History at the Newberry Library, will be the speaker. When genealogists refer to “the census,” we usually mean the population census, in which households are enumerated. Invaluable though these are, we short-change ourselves if don’t use all the other census information that is available for our research. If you have ancestors who were farmers, slaves, or manufacturers, you’ll want to avail yourself of the non-population census schedules. Even those Americans who had other occupations often had a farming or manufacturing business on the side. Don’t lose out on all the census has to offer. Matt will explain how to research non-population census schedules. The meeting starts at 9:30 am. See the Event Calendar of the Elgin Genealogical Society’s web site for further information.
14 November 2009 - “This and That in Genealogy”
3 October 2009
17th Annual genealogical workshop of the Lake County (IL) Genealogical Society.
Round Lake Beach Cultural & Civic Center, 2007 Civic Center Way, Round Lake Beach, Illinois (one block north of Rollins Rd., one block west of Route 83). The speakers will be Elissa Scalise Powell, CGSM (“Hiding Behind Their Skirts: Finding Women in Records,” “Thinking Outside the Index: Internet Search Techniques,” “Sailing Into the Sunset: Tips for Finding Your Ancestors on Passenger Lists,” and “Rubik’s Cube Genealogy: A New Twist on Your Old Data”) , Teresa Steinkamp McMillin (“So, You’ve Found Your German Town of Origin ... Now What?”) , and Matt Rutherford (“Using Non-Population Census Schedules” and “Introduction to Genealogy Research at the Newberry Library”). Further information is available in the conference brochure, which includes a printable registration form. Early (discounted for LCIGS members) registration deadline is 15 October.
19 November 2009 - A discussion about publishing a family history
3 October 2009
Monthly evening meeting of the Elgin Genealogical Society.
Gail Borden Public Library, 270 N. Grove Ave., Elgin, Illinois (Community Room A). Sandy Granholm will be the speaker. The meeting starts at 7:00 pm. See the Event Calendar of the Elgin Genealogical Society’s web site for further information.
16-17 April 2010 - 2010 Gene-A-Rama
29 July 2009
Sponsored by the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society.
Holiday Inn, I-43 and Hwy. 151, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Periodically visit the WSGS website for further information as the plans develop for Gene-A-Rama 2010.
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How does this list get assembled? Well, it’s partly automated, but mostly manual. The automated part is that I have tools in place which alert me whenever a web page which contains a particular society’s calendar of events has changed. Not every society’s calendar of events, mind you – just the ones which I have already found. (An exception is any calendar web page containing extraneous material which changes daily – I have found it impractical to monitor such web pages.) I also monitor several other event calendars, such as the one maintained by FGS, for new listings. A few societies whose web sites aren’t always kept up-to-date regularly send me press releases by email. There are two manual parts. One is obvious – the actual listings in this listed are “hand edited” by me, mostly to achieve greater consistency, but also to put as much information about the talks as I can into a relatively small number of words. The other is perhaps less obvious – the selection of what meetings actually get added to the list. My “rules” aren’t hard and fast, but I follow them pretty closely. I’d like to see:
- The event is sponsored by a non-profit society
- The event includes a lecture and has a title which describes the lecture topic
- The topic is relevant to the study of family history
- There is contact information usable for getting more information than I can include here, preferably via the internet (i.e., a web site or an email address)
- The name of the speaker(s), the location and the starting time are clearly identified
So what can a society do to get its meetings listed here? Let me know how I can easily keep track of them! If the problem is simply that I didn’t find the time to include some particular meeting, I’ll fess up to that (privately) – it certainly happens from time to time. And, oh yes – if you see a mistake in a listing, please let me know.
Note: Another extensive listing of genealogical events is maintained by the Computer-Assisted Genealogy Group of Northern Illinois at <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ilcaggni/calendar/>. If you don’t find what you’re looking for here, try that list.
What’s the problem with “frames technology”? Frames technology is a web page coding technology which dedicates different parts (“frames”) of the browser window for different purposes, such as a header, a list of menu choices, a display of data, etc.There are several reasons why this coding technology is not ideal, but the one which bothers this webmaster the most has to do with printing. In many situations, only one frame is printed when the viewer asks for a printout of the web page – invariably NOT the one the viewer is most interested in. If viewing a website which uses frames technology, make sure the cursor is active in the area (i.e., having been clicked while located in the area) you are most interested in when you ask for a printout.
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This page was last modified on 4 October 2009