Learning opportunities described in detail below: Oct. 10: National Archives Records and shortcuts (finding aids). FREE LECTURE Oct. 16: Genealogical records and organization of materials. FREE LECTURE Oct. 20: Passenger Lists. FREE TO Historical Society members; admission fee for others Nov. 3: Seminar including Census Records, Research Methodology, and Cemetery Research Nov. 10: What the Historical Society of Western PA Library and the Archives Service Center of the University of Pittsburgh have for genealogists. FREE LECTURE Please note: Lecture Handouts cannot be mailed to those who cannot attend. However the WPGS does abstract the programs they have permission for and prints them in their monthly newsletter. ================================================================== Wednesday, Oct. 10, 7 p.m. at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Free and open to the public. http://www.clpgh.org/clp/Pennsylvania/wpgs.html Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society will feature a presentation by Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CGRS, CGL of Washington, DC on "Using Records in the National Archives: A Researcher’s View." This very special Wednesday night program will cover National Archives records that are most often used by genealogists. Many of these records are available, on microfilm, in locations through out the U.S. The main thrust of the lecture is to describe the all-important finding aids to NARA records. The session deals more with how to locate the records rather than the information contained in the records. By describing the finding aids and how they work it is then possible for the researcher to locate records other than census, pension, bounty land and complied military service records. There is a brief mention of the finding aids that are available on the Internet. There is an explanation of how and why the records are arranged the way they are. So many different government agencies created the same or very similar types of records that even if the records desired are missing there many be other records that would furnish the same type of information. Time is spent on an explanation of "archijive." These are the short cut phrases used by archivists, which genealogists need to be familiar with, in order to understand what they are being told. A small case study is used to show the additional amount of information that can be obtained on a soldier who attended the U.S. Military Academy. Proper source citation is also included. Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CGRS, CGL, is a full-time researcher since 1979, specializes in Union and Confederate records at the National Archives, Washington, D.C. She was certified by the Board for Certification of Genealogists in 1980 as a Genealogical Records Specialist and in 1995 as a Certified Genealogical Lecturer, and is currently a BCG Trustee. She has been the Assistant Director and a lecturer for the National Institute on Genealogical Research [NIGR] since 1987. She has lectured at NGS and FGS conferences since 1988. She lectured at Samford University's IGHR special Military Track. Marie joined the Association of Professional Genealogists [APG] in 1983, and has served as vice president, and trustee. Marie received APG's Graham Smallwood Award of Merit in1999. She was a co-director for the NGS Research Trips to Dublin, Ireland in 1999 and 2000. Marie has been one of the Co-Directors and a lecturer at the Irish Genealogical Congress in 1997 and 2001, held in Dublin, Ireland. ================================================================== Tuesday, Oct. 16, 7 p.m. at the Northland Public Library, 300 Cumberland Road, Pittsburgh, PA by the North Hills Genealogists. Free and open to the public. "Find Your Roots Before You Are Planted" Every person has a family, and every family has a history. This program will give you the beginning steps of collecting, organizing, and analyzing that history for clues to who your ancestors were, what they did, when and where they lived. Reasons to do family history will be discussed as well as different records available, preservation, and the Internet as a research tool. This lecture should give the beginner a solid foundation of how to record the information they gather with source citations and gives them many tips on staying organized with preservation of materials and artifacts for future generations in mind. It will also be a good refresher for anyone who has been doing genealogy for awhile. Elissa Scalise Powell, CGRS is a past president of both the Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society and the North Hills Genealogists [of Pittsburgh] as well as a past newsletter editor for each. She is a co-compiler of the "Pioneer Cemeteries of Allegheny County, PA" series. She is currently the President of the North Hills Genealogists, the Program Chairperson for the Western PA Genealogical Society, and a Trustee for the Association of Professional Genealogists (2000-2001). Certified in 1995 by the Board for Certification of Genealogists as a Certified Genealogical Record Specialist, she is one of only nine certified associates residing in the state of Pennsylvania. Elissa is a genealogy instructor at two local community colleges. She is a frequent speaker at national and regional genealogy conferences and appears in Episode 207 "Cemetery Records" of the PBS TV station KBYU's "Ancestors 2" series. ------------------ CGRS, and Certified Genealogical Records Specialist are service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by Board-certified associates after periodic competency evaluations. ================================================================== Saturday, October 20, 5:30 p.m. at the Sen. John Heinz Regional History Center, 1212 Smallman St., Pittsburgh. Free for members; otherwise an admission charge. http://www.pghhistory.org Come early and enjoy the exhibits before the lecture. "Sailing into the Sunset: Tips on Finding Your Ancestor's Passenger List" presented by Elissa Scalise Powell, CGRS (see Biography above). Passenger lists are a wonderful resource for finding out more about the origins of immigrant ancestors. Most people have at least one immigrant ancestor who arrived by ship, but the records that have been kept over the years are mostly chronological. This lecture reviews the history of why passenger lists were recorded in an attempt to understand what types of records exist. Various indices, research aides, examples of records and where to find them are all discussed. Internet sources will also be presented including the new Ellis Island Database. Reservations are required by calling (412) 454-6369. ================================================================== Saturday, November 3, 2001, Mahoning County Chapter, OGS held at Boardman, Ohio in St. Charles Church auditorium, located on USRoute 224 just west of the intersection with Ohio Route 7. The location is very near the Southern Park Mall. The building is handicap accessible. The mailing address is 7325 Westview Dr. Registration will start at 8:30am and the first session at 9am with the day ending at 3:00pm. A continental breakfast and box lunch will be included. The admission fee per person will be $18.00 for Mahoning Chapter members and $20.00 for non-members. Registration deadline is October 25 and should be sent to: Mahoning County Chapter, OGS PO Box 9333 Youngstown, OH 44513-9333 There are 2 morning sessions and 2 afternoon. Judy Bishara will start the morning and Elissa Scalise Powell, CGRS will do 3 sessions: "Dancing Around the Neighborhood with the Census Taker," "Research Cycle, Don't Pedal Backwards" and "Message from the Grave, Listening to Your Ancestor's Tombstone" For more information, contact Pkreutzerj@aol.com. ================================================================== Saturday, November 10, 2001, 10:00 a.m, Carnegie Public Library Lecture Hall, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 "Family Archives at the Western PA Historical Society Library" By Steve Doell and David Grinnell "Can I Do Research in the Archives of Industrial Society?" By Dennis East This special Saturday morning program will give you insight into two of Pittsburgh's repositories for family history research that you may not use frequently. The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania Library is located at 1212 Smallman Street, Pittsburgh, PA in the Sen. John Heinz Regional History Center. Two archivists will relate how to access the archives as well as what types of family information is available to researchers. Records of historical importance to western Pennsylvania may be found here, including over 3500 archival collections in the library. Current, on-line initiatives like the Historic Pittsburgh Project and the Jewish Cemetery Database will also be presented. Some of the resources at the Archives Service Center of the University of Pittsburgh, 400 North Lexington Avenue, as well as current projects regarding some of those collections, will be discussed in the second part of this program. The Archives of Industrial Society is the name of a body of 600+ collections related to the ethnic, industrial, social, political, cultural, and environmental history of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. Some of these are the Allegheny county Coroner’s records, church, city, county, business, and fraternal organization records. Steve Doell has been the Director of Archives of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania for over three years. He has worked as an archivist with the Historical Society since 1993. He holds a M.A. in History, a B.A. in American Studies and is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists. David R. Grinnell is currently the Acquisitions Archivist of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. He is responsible for arranging the transfer of books, publications, photographs and manuscript collections to the History Center from the individuals and company officials who are donating these items. A native of Michigan, David can trace most branches of his ancestry to the pioneers of that state, who settled there prior to 1840. For the last 25 year, he had researched and compiled a great amount of information on his family. He moved to Pittsburgh in late 1995. Since 1998, David has been an archivist at the History Center. Including Genealogy, his major interests include the history of religious organizations, abolitionist in Western Pa, and African-American history. He is a member of the Mid Atlantic Archives Conference, the Archives and History Team of the Western PA Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Board of Directors of the Allegheny City Society. Dennis East has been head of the Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh since May 1999. In 1988, he took advantage of early retirement from his position as Associate Dean of Libraries and Learning Resources at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. During his ten years at Bowling Green he was in charge of the special collection libraries, fund raising, grant writing, and facilities management. Prior to coming to Bowling Green, he served two weeks shy of twelve years as State Archivist and Chief of the Archives-Library Division at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus. In that capacity he oversaw the state and local government records program, manuscripts, library, microfilming, and conservation departments. Between his graduate degrees, he served as Supervisor of Field Service for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Justin Justin Kirk Houser Genealogist/Researcher of Central PA and Beyond Main Lines: Houser, Breon, Shawley, Ranio/Hrynio (and others) President, BAHS Class of 2003 Student Representative, BASD Board of Education Listowner, PACENTRE-L@Rootsweb.com Historian, Schürch Association of North America (specialty Central PA lines) Member, Valley View United Methodist Church "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"