Morris Area Genealogy Society (MAGS) President s Annual Report

Morris Area Genealogy Society (MAGS) President s Annual Report 2014-2015 This document has been divided into four sections. In the last three sections the headings have been alphabetized in order to easily find the reports. The sections are Officers, Committees, Websites and SIGS. Officers President MAGS has had another very productive year with the completion of cleaning out and reorganizing our archives at the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center located at the Morristown-Morris Township Library, trimming costs of membership renewal notices, and increasing the number of participants in our SIGs. A new SIG was added, Computer Genealogy bringing the number of SIGs to eight with three being held in the evenings. The Speakers Bureau talks were placed on the website, the By-laws were changed in that audits would now occur every two years or when there is a change in the treasurer instead of every year, a new committee for Special Projects was formed and this spring the speakers are being audio recorded for members not able to attend a general meeting. We were able to give the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown-Morris Township Library a gift of $400. We held board meetings on October 10, 2014, January 9, 2015, February 13, 2015 and May 15, 2015. Susan Simon President, Morris Area Genealogy Society Vice-President/Program Chair 2 Sept. - City Records: New Dimensions in Family History (Maureen Wlodarczyk, Author) 7 Oct. - History, Herstory, Mystory, Yourstory: What Every Genealogist Ought to Know to Breathe Life into their Family Tree (Michael & Alex Courter, writers) 4 Nov. - How to Use Digitized Newspapers for Genealogical Research (Brian Armstrong, historian, genealogist) 2 Dec. - Annual Holiday Party, featuring stories by Carol Flatley, Mary-Jo Solomon, Ruth Otey, Bonnie Mangold and Dave Marr 6 Jan. - Preserving Heirlooms and Old Photos- cancelled due to snow 1

3 Feb. - A Genealogy Potpourri + Where to Keep Your Family Tree (Ruth Daniels) + Comparison of Billiongraves and Find-a-Grave (Susan Kehr) + What s New at FamilySearch.org (Martha Corson) 3 Mar. - Researching Revolutionary War Soldiers- cancelled due to snow 7 Apr. - Introduction to British Research (Melissa Johnson, genealogist) 5 May - Finding Naturalization Records (Sharon Hodges, genealogist) 2 June - Perserving Heirlooms and Old Photos (Carolyn Dorsey, librarian, Preservationist) Martha Corson Vice-President/Program Chair Treasurer s Report A new membership renewal process invited members via email to renew early. The success of new process is reflected in the large increase in income from membership dues of $5835, exceeding Budget by nearly 60%. This increase represents dues that would have been collected over the coming summer rather than increased membership. Contributions from Hospitality ($60); Donations ($140) and income from Research ($33) brought the total income to $6068. Overall, expenses for the year were slightly below budget. Insurance continued at the new lower rate with a premium of $308. Two donations of $400 each were made to MMTL, one in June to catch up from the 2013-14 fiscal year and one in November for the current year. Again, we were unable to arrange a donation to Morris County Library. The Newsletter costs have stabilized at about $250 per issue and were close to budget. Publicity was slightly over Budget ($38) and Speakers Fees came in $102 under budget. In total, Supplies and Copies came in $280 under budget. The result for the 2014-2015 fiscal year was a net gain of $2615 mainly due to the new membership renewal process. This impact should level off over the coming year. A Budget for FY June 2015 - May 2016 was presented to the Board and approved at the May meeting. We will continue to donate to MMTL and have decided to present gift baskets to staff at Morris County Library. The Speakers budget has been increased to $900. With the introduction of Audio Recording at monthly meetings an allowance of $150 has been added. A substantial surplus in the MAGS checking account allows us to run a negative net projection of $150 for the Budget. Mary Keane Treasurer 2

Recording Secretary Minutes for all MAGS general meetings and board meetings were taken and distributed to all Members by uploading a PDF version to the MAGS Members Yahoo Group. General meeting minutes contain attendance, announcements and highlights of the evening s presentation. Board meeting minutes contain summaries of the Treasurer s Report, Committee and SIG updates, and Old and New Business along with voting approvals, deferrals and non-approvals. A supply of Welcome Letters for newcomers at the general meetings was prepared, and they were distributed with the aid of member volunteers. General meeting attendance averaged at 81 attendees up from last year at 78.6 attendees over the nine months of presentations. This year there was a high of 111 at the May 2015 meeting, whereas last year s high of 106 occurred at the September 2013 meeting. We should note that the April 2015 meeting also exceeded 100 with 104 attendees. This year s low attendance was the 42 attendees at the Members Only Holiday Party, lower than the 50 at the December 2013 party. Excluding the Holiday Party, attendance at the six general meetings with presentations averaged to 88 attendees, higher than the average of 82 for last year. Two General Meetings were canceled due to weather though one will be presented in June 2015. The Secretary s Notebook has been maintained containing board and general meeting minutes for the last four years, President s annual reports, officers lists, membership lists, a program listing for the last five years, and copies of the current by-laws and Policies & Procedures of the Society. Marianne Totaro Recording Secretary Corresponding Secretary Mail was picked up at the Convent Station Post Office and delivered to the appropriate officer or committee head. The largest volume of correspondence was membership dues envelopes which were delivered to Linda Mathew throughout the year. Research Requests were scanned and forwarded to Linnea Foster. Items for Gleanings were deposited at MMTL Cabinet as was a thank you note from the Morristown / Morris Township Library. Correspondence from MAGS included sympathy notes to members and a Note to Marion Harris to inform her of the Board s decision to offer her Complimentary Membership in the Society for all her work in preparing Gleanings. Nancy Lack Corresponding Secretary 3

Committees Document Retention Committee The Document Retention Committee was formed in February 2013 and has completed its work this spring. In broad terms the committee established a policy for maintaining and archiving MAGS records in the Officers Boxes and at the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center. Specific products developed by the committee include the following: A Document Retention Schedule identifying location and retention for various MAGS documents Archive Responsibility Checklist defining who is responsible for delivering documents to the Archive MAGS List of Selected Members who have access to the Restricted Material in the Archive The committee reviewed all of the material in our archive with the MMTL Archivist Jeff Moy who was extremely helpful. Revisions were drafted for the online Finding Aid at the MMTL website. When the archive is updated with the 2014-15 materials the Finding Aid will be uploaded to the website by Jeff. Revisions reflecting the new DRC policies were made to MAGS Policies and Procedures with Ruth Daniels and Susan Simon. The committee will reconvene in the Fall to see how the system is working. I would like to thank all the Committee members for their great input and perseverance: Linnea Foster, Ruth Daniels, Nancy Lack, Roy Lindsey, Ruth Willis, Claire Kissil, Susan Simon and Martha Corson. Mary Keane Chair, Document Retention Committee Indexing During the past year the MAGS Indexing Group met the third Monday of the month at the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown-Morris Township Library. In addition, daylong sessions took place in July, October and March. The group continues with its current project, sorting and organizing a large collection of material concerning many cemeteries in Morris County and other areas, a recent donation to NJHGC. When this phase of the project is completed, an index to the material will be prepared. In addition, Volume 27 (2014) of the MAGS Newsletter was indexed. Members of the Indexing Group are Martha Corson, Ruth Daniels, Linnea Foster, Evelyn Huey, Susan Kehr, Linda Mathew, Stephanie Reidinger, Marianne Totaro, and Ginny Walton. Linnea B. Foster Chair, Indexing Group 4

Historian The completion of the MAGS Document Retention Project by Mary Keane has provided a good foundation and a well-defined process for future documentation retention. Information for MAGS 2014 2015 will be forwarded to The North Jersey History and Genealogy Center (NJH&GC) at the Morristown-Morris Township Library (MML) in June 2015. A MAGS Archive Responsibility Check List was prepared to summarize members that are required to submit information and when to the Library Liaison or Archivist at MML. Roy Lindsey, Historian Hospitality Many members contribute to the success of the hospitality committee. Dave Marr and Jim Malcolm continue to take care of the coffee pots and ancillary items. Carol Flatley is the Assistant Hospitality Chair. She also makes sure that we have seasonal decorations at each meeting along with the refreshments. At the end of year meeting a sign-up list for providing refreshments is passed around the audience. Two people sign up for each month. Gini Anderson reminds the people each month, and makes sure all goes well with the food at each meeting. With the money placed in the basket for the paper products and coffee, the committee was able to give the general fund $60. Gini Anderson Hospitality Chair Liaison to Morristown-Township Library Because I worked Morristown/Morris Township History and Genealogy Center for many years, I am able to act as the liaison between MAGS and that library. There is a special attachment between the Morristown Library and MAGS rising from the fact that MAGS was founded by that library and the two institutions continue to hold a unique bond and useful connection to each other. Probably the most important aspect of this responsibility is to collect various items for the MAGS archives and deliver them to the archivist at the History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown Library. This is done so that there will always be a paper archive of important items and these will be kept in the climate controlled atmosphere that is available at the Morristown Library History Center. It is important that this historical material is available for MAGS members to use for various projects and to maintain the continuity of the history of the Morris Area Genealogy Society Organization. Claire Kissil Liaison to Morristown/Township Library 5

Membership As of May 15, 2015 there were 259 members: 7 courtesy members, 7 institutional members, 36 family members, and 209 individual members. 199 members live in New Jersey and 60 live outof-state. 20 joined for the 2014-15 membership year and, as of this date, 9 have joined for 2015-16. 39 members were dropped because they did not renew their memberships. 88 members receive the newsletter by USPS and the others by email. In late March we sent an email to all for whom we have an address requesting that they pay their dues early so that we can save on postage and stationery by not having to mail them a renewal packet. The response was very good. As of May 15, 137 members had already paid their dues for the 2015-16 membership year. Linda Mathew Membership Chairman Newsletter This year we published our usual four quarterly 16-page issues of the Morris Area Genealogy Society Newsletter. Stephanie Reidinger was the editor for the September 2014 issue. In August I met with Stephanie and she showed me on her computer the layout of an issue. I took notes. For my first issue, December 2014, Stephanie read the 1 st draft and made suggestions. The December 2014, the March 2015 and June 2015 issues owe their polish to the superb comments and proofreading by Ruth Daniels, Linnea B. Foster and Susan Kehr. Stephanie and Ruth gave me newsletter notes. In May Ruth Daniels helped me with some formatting techniques. At this point in time I am still a novice in this job. I am very grateful for all the time that Stephanie, Ruth, Lyn and Susan have generously given me. The feature New Acquisitions and Holdings in the North Jersey History and Genealogy at the Morristown/Morris Township Library continues to be written by Stephanie Reidinger and Carolyn Dorsey. Bible records from the Adelaide J. Howell Collection have been used again this year. The collection of the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center of the Morristown Library was the source for Bible records and records from the First Congregational Church of Chester. Bonnie Mangold and Linda Mathew have written articles about Giving Back to the Genealogy Community. On the Seasonal Genealogy Ideas page there are activities and websites that members have shared at the General Meetings and at Special interest Group Meetings. Two Beginners and Beyond SIG meetings have been the source for two articles, Remembering the Civil War and Our Ancestors and A Family Heirloom travels over 900 miles from home and then back again! The Special Projects Group wrote about the Dover Area Historical 6

Society. We continue to use Alpha Graphics in Morristown as our printer. And we use first class mailings with the emphasis on encouraging our membership to receive the newsletter in PDF format only. The PDF version of the Newsletter, after being proofed by Ruth Daniels, Linnea B. Foster and Susan Kehr, is imported into our website [MAGS members-only Yahoo Group] so that all of our members are able to access it at any time, with the links working, and the colored pictures in view. Every member that has an email address receives this PDF from our Membership Chair, Linda Mathew, or Ruth Daniels at an earlier date than they would receive the printed copy. Our printer, Alpha Graphics, does all the collating, folding, wafering and mailing, with the addresses being supplied by our Membership Chair, Linda Mathew. Mary Keane delivers Postage Stamps to Alpha Graphics. Alpha Graphics emails the bill to Mary Keane and the extra copies are picked up by the Membership Chair and delivered to our storage cabinet at the Morristown-Morris Township Library. Mary-Jo Solomon MAGS Newsletter Editor MAGS Publicity For each monthly speaker event, a flyer and press release are created. At the last several meetings, new people were asked where they learned about the meeting. The majority are seeing the notices in the newspapers or online. We will modify our distribution starting in September 2015 to deprioritize the flyer approach. The two approaches are described below ie Press Release and Flyer Approach. THE PRESS RELEASE APPROACH Each month press releases are created for the upcoming presentation and are emailed it to the following print newspapers and websites individually as was done in 2014: morris@starledger.com newsroom@dailyrecord.com ipeditors@njnpublishing.com pnardone@recordernewspapers.com parsippanylife@northjersey.com historicalsociety@rosenet.org NJMorris-L@rootsweb.com The following website and/or email addresses from 2014 are no longer active and thus were removed from the 2014 list. rglover@starledger.com hometowns@dailyrecord.com 7

In addition a copy of the press release is faxed to the Madison Eagle at 973-377-7721 since they do not accept e-mails. The Parsippany Life press release includes an extra sentence to say that MAGS has members in Parsippany, Boonton, Denville, Dover, and Wharton. They will not publish the release unless they are told that we have members in some of the towns that they consider their territory. No checking is done to determine whether the newspapers or calendars added our event though occasionally MAGS members will let me know that the event made their newspaper. Modified versions of the press release are added to the following websites as was done in 2014 and new this year was the addition of our event to Dick Eastman s internet calendar (address below in red): http://www.starledger.com/editorial/editpreleases.asp http://calendar.northjersey.com www.dailyrecord.com http://www.nj.com www.wmtram.com www.wdhafm.com calendar.eogn.com The press releases are modified because some of the sites limit the length of the posting and also some require information such as location and time in a specific section of the online page. THE FLYER APPROACH A flyer is also made for each month's upcoming presentation using the desktop publisher software Page Plus by Serif and 100 salmon colored copies are prepared and distributed. The pdf file is emailed to the Bernardsville Print Center and they make 100 copies on our paper for $5. Twenty six flyers are mailed via the US Mail. These go to the following libraries; Boonton Holmes, College of Saint Elizabeth Mahoney Library, Fairleigh Dickinson University, County College of Morris, Denville Free Public Library, Montville Township, Mount Arlington, Mount Olive, Mountain Lakes, Rockaway Free Public Library, Roxbury, Rockaway Township Free Public Library, Washington Township Free Public Library, Westfield Memorial Library, and James Lewis New Jersey Information Center Newark Public Library; the following Family History Centers; Ledgewood, Caldwell, and Scotch Plains; the following Senior Centers; Montville, Parsippany, Roxbury, Wharton Centennial; and the following Genealogy Societies; Genealogy Society of the Westfields, Genealogy Club of Passaic, and Genealogical Society of Bergen County. The rest of the flyers are distributed by myself or other members to the following( a single copy unless otherwise noted): Mendham and Mendham Twp. Libraries, Randolph Twp. Library, Chester Library, Garabrant Center, 5 to Parsippany Library flyer bin, Whippany Library, Whippany Seniors, Madison and Chatham libraries, Morristown and Short Hills Family History Centers, Morris Plains and Florham Park libraries, Summit Library, New Providence Library, 8

Berkeley Heights Library, Harding Twp. Library, Madison & Chatham Seniors, Drew University, 20 to Bernards Township Library, 20 to Morristown Library, 6 to Morris County Library (1 downstairs and 5 upstairs). Copies of the press release and the flyer are sent to the MAGS members in charge of the MAGS website, the MAGS newsletter, the MAGS Historian, the MAGS Vice President, and Ruth Daniels The cost to print 100 flyers and mail 26 of them is about $23 monthly (paper, printing, stamps, envelopes, address labels). 1 FACEBOOK Board approval was obtained to set up a MAGS facebook page to publicize the talks. This will be set up during the summer of 2015 Bonnie Mangold Publicity Chair Research Research is limited to sources available in the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center of the Morristown-Morris Township Library. Requests from members for research have dropped dramatically, possibly because of the availability of sources online. Only one request of any depth has been handled. Most requests have been for copies of information from various publications and manuscripts. Indexes to these items appear on the MAGS website. Linnea B. Foster MAGS Research Coordinator Speakers Bureau After discussion and approval at Board meetings the Speakers Bureau went into full production this year. Speakers subjects are listed on our MAGS web site and requests come in via email. Bob Stein Chair Special Projects Committee A special projects committee was established with a mission to explore ways to increase awareness and accessibility of genealogical and historical information for the benefit of MAGS members. 1 If we mail out only 14 per month the cost drops to ~$15.50/month. To drop the cost by about half, we d need to only print about 50 copies (higher price/copy to print) 9

The initial project was undertaken to create an inventory of Morris County genealogical relevant material. The committee will create a summary of records stored at local area churches, historical societies, local colleges, etc. As part of the project, the repositories will be visited, the archivist interviewed about the collection, and a photo taken. From this project, MAGS gains a collection of useful information for members-only to drive membership benefits and the newsletter has an available source of stories. As a benefit to participating in our inventory, the repository will be able to tap into any MAGS volunteers and have their volunteer projects announced in a forum of interested parties Two places were visited to test out the repository questionnaire, ie the First Presbyterian Church of Rockaway and the Dover Historical Society. Summaries of the visit have been written and the Dover Historical Society is being highlighted in the Summer newsletter. Neither repository requested immediate help by MAGS. Research was conducted into getting local bank grants to assist with archiving local church records. Two bank websites were investigated, ie Bank of America and PNC bank but nothing useful was found as most grants on the PNC site related to historical building restoration. In one instance (Bank site??) religious groups were specifically excluded from grants. Goals for next year are to expand the membership of the committee and cover more locations using the tools developed in the first part of 2015. Currently the membership consists of Bonnie Mangold, Chair, Mary Jo Solomon, and Marianne Totaro. Roy Lindsay researched bank grants. Bonnie Mangold Chair, Special Projects Committee Surname Research List Maintenance The MAGS public website has a Surname Research List that lists surnames which MAGS members are researching and have an interest in. Each member is allowed to have up to 5 surnames on the list. The general public may send an e-mail to the address shown on the list and request to obtain or exchange information with the member that has posted the name. I receive the e-mail via my address surnamemags@gmail.com, which is automatically forwarded to my personal e-mail. The procedure is to forward that e-mail to our member and ask them to respond to the person who sent the e-mail. I do not copy the sender, so our member is not known to the sender until they decide to answer the e-mail. The surname list has a member ID number for each surname. A separate list that I maintain identifies that person to me. I ask our member to copy me so I know that the correspondence is happening. As new surnames are to be added, I update the list as required and send the revised list to the MAGS web mistress who posts it on the MAGS website. Many revisions are due to new members having surnames of interest. It is also common that existing members fill out the list of 10

surnames when they renew their membership. I usually update the list only once a month if changes have been received that month. The surname list still has surnames from former members. I forward e-mail queries to former members as required. If the former member's e-mail address is no longer valid, I advise the sender that the person is no longer a member and could not be reached. If that is so, then I also delete all the former member's surnames. If the former member has a valid e-mail but does not respond after a couple of follow ups, I will also remove that member's surnames. This year there were no requests to add or revise names on the Surname Research List. There were six queries this year from outsiders on surnames. These were forwarded to 8 members or ex-members since in two cases there were two people who had posted interest in the surname. Seven of the eight people were no longer members but four of them still responded. Three of the eight did not respond or could not be reached. I am still waiting on a recent contact of an ex-member so it is too early to tell on them. And the one member that I contacted did not respond. I have removed, or will remove, the surnames of the ex-members who did not respond. Ed Simon Surname Coordinator Websites MAGS Public Website While the Indexing group has been concentrating on the Coulther Collection, they managed to provide one Newsletter Index to upload. The Documentation Retention group was busy organizing the MAGS papers and in conjunction with the MMTL have created an archive record on the library s website. A new evening SIG was created to satisfy member desires, and has been listed on the SIG page. A need for an easy place to find genealogy-related glossaries was identified, and a new section was created linking to PDFs and web URLs. Indices: Added link to MAGS Newsletter Index Volume 27 Year 2014. Links: New link added to MAGS Archives Records, located at MMTL, North Jersey History and Genealogy Center. SIGS: A new SIG Computer Genealogy Evening was added to the SIG page. Search: Added instructions on the FIND command to assist in searching MAGS indexes. Glossaries: Added new Home Page Section entitled Glossaries. This new page contains Glossaries and Other Miscellany links to internet sites, and to PDFs. Susan Kehr Webmaster 11

MAGS Yahoo Groups MAGSmembers We currently have 97* members (the same as last year) registered on the MAGSmembers Yahoo Group (started Dec 2007). We have all our Newsletters posted here, plus our recent meetings minutes, recent President s Annual Reports, our By-Laws and Policies & Procedures, recent gleanings and our Officers Master List. We also have photos of most of our meetings back to 2002 and a few more back to 1998. Unfortunately the links to audio recordings had to be removed as they are no longer valid, but this year we uploaded 12 audio recordings from 2004-2008 to MAGSmembers Files area. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/magsmembers/ MAGSbrickwalls We currently have 38* members (the same as last year) on the MAGSbrickwalls Yahoo Group (started Jun 2009) for the Brick Walls SIG. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/magsbrickwalls/?yguid=107500599 MAGS Italian and Western Europe SIG We currently have 19* members (same as last year) on the MAGS Italian and Western Europe SIG Yahoo Group (started Jun 2011) for the Italian and Western European SIG. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mags-italian-and-west-europe-sig/?yguid=107500599 MAGS-CompGen We currently have 44* members (an increase of 2 from last year) on the MAGS-CompGen Yahoo Group (started Aug 2012) for the Computer Genealogy and Family History Writing SIG with access also given to the Beginners and Beyond SIG and, new this year, to the evening Computer Genealogy SIG. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mags-compgen/?yguid=107500599 MAGS-Board We currently have 18* members (an increase of 2 from last year) on the MAGS-Board Yahoo Group (started Apr 2013) where we will maintain an archive of our Annual President s Reports, keep a copy of our membership list and have some of our forms available for Board members. This group is by invitation only. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mags-board/?yguid=107500599 MAGS-Pond We currently have 11* members (an increase of 2 from last year) on the MAGS-Pond Yahoo Group (started April 2014) for the Crossing the Pond SIG. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mags-pond/info *includes the universal ID: UNIMAGS Ruth Daniels MAGS Yahoo Websites Administrator 12

Special Interest Groups Beginners and Beyond SIG The Beginners and Beyond Special Interest Group usually meets the third Monday of each month, September through June, at the Morris County Library. There are 52 members on the contact list. Attendance ranged from 14 in December to 23 in October and April. One meeting was canceled because of snow. Part of the meeting focuses on a particular topic. The remainder of the two hour session is spent discussing research issues brought up by members of the group. Some of our topics this year were: Military Records, Family Holiday Photos and Stories, Finding a Woman s Maiden Name, Newspaper Research, Identifying Individuals of the Same Name Living in the Same Place at the Same Time. Presentations were given by Ruth Daniels, Roy Lindsey, Linda Mathew, and Marianne Totaro. A highlight of the year was John Kitchell sharing his story at the December meeting about his grandson finding a Family Bible at a garage sale. This led to locating basic information about the family using Find A Grave. Eventually John, with the help of Mary-Jo Solomon, was able to reunite the Bible with family members in Iowa. Linnea B. Foster Chair, Beginners and Beyond SIG Brick Walls SIG Brick Walls SIG meets every second Friday of the month at 10:00 a.m. to Noon in the conference room of the Morris County Library. There are thirty-eight members on the roster. The average attendance per meeting has been ten members. Three brick walls were discussed during the past year. When there isn t a brick wall up for discussion we go around the room and talk about what we are working on. By sharing our work we are able to help each other in breaking down barriers in continuing in our genealogical research. We also share resources, again another way of helping each other in our search for ancestors. Susan Simon Moderator, Brick Walls SIG Computer Genealogy SIG Our evening Computer Genealogy group met for the first time in October 2014. We met in an upstairs meeting room of the Morris County Library and use the MCL portable projector (when available) to display what is being done using one of our laptops. Each month we must schedule the room for our next meeting. We had 10 people who attended one or more meetings this year and we averaged 5 people per meeting. They can request access to the MAGS-CompGen Yahoo website. 13

This past year we have looked at and/or discussed: 2014 Nov Dec 2015 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Working in Family Tree Maker (which non-ftm users can translate to their own preferred brand of genealogy software) Online Immigration Resources Cancelled weather Cancelled weather Learning Genealogy with Online Videos The Steve Morse Search Engine Finding Online Obituaries This is a lively group, most of whom are just learning about online resources. We have put into the MCL lottery for the Conference room on the 1 st floor so we can move into better quarters. We are looking for someone to take leadership of this group. Ruth Daniels Temporary Leader - Computer Genealogy Evening Computer Genealogy and Family History Writing SIG The Computer Genealogy group and the Family History Writing group met jointly on the third Friday of each month this year except December. We meet in the large meeting room of the Morris County Library and use the overhead projector to display what is being done using one of our laptops. We had 48 people who attended one or more meetings this year and we averaged 24 people per meeting. This past year we have looked at and/or discussed: 2014 Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2015 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Tips & Tricks Working with Ancestry Local Research Genealogy & Photography perfect together Working with FamilySearch.org Cloud Storage No meeting, bumped by MCL We do not meet in December How are you spreading the word: What s Your End Product? How to Divide a Family Tree What types of reports do you use (or want) in your genealogy research? Google Day Online Sources of Social History Finding That Obituary 14

Many of our attendees helped present the various topics. Also many people shared their published genealogies and family histories in the making. Ruth Daniels Leader - Computer Genealogy and Family History Writing Special Interest Groups Crossing the Pond SIG Our evening meetings have been attended by an average of eight members. Our focus is helping members perform research on both sides of the pond. Unfortunately weather and a power failure at the library canceled a few meetings this year. Bob Stein Moderator DNA SIG The DNA has met nine months this last year, usually on the second Tuesday evening of the month. We currently have 34 members, of these 3-5 usually attend any one meeting. It is rare that one of our long-time members attend. A meeting usually consists of newer members and those that have recently been tested and received their test results. A typical meeting usually includes answering questions new people may have about how DNA testing works, how it can help identify ancestors, how to determine which test best meets their needs, and anything else that may be brought up to the group. We use a computer and LCD projector to visit various WEB sites. We also discuss any tests that the members have made in the past month. We decided that we would not be meeting during the summer, but will resume in September. Jim Short Chair, DNA SIG German and East European SIG The MAGS German & Eastern European Special Interest Group Meeting meets on the 3rd Tuesday of the month from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the Morris County Library. These meetings are attended by between 10 to 13 people per session and occur every month of the year. We have regular attendees as well as new attendees at our meetings. Our focus is on the roots in Europe including census, church and civil records. However, we do entertain other subjects related to the pursuit of genealogy information that can be easily answered by one or more of the experts attending these meetings. US census records and related data are also of interest. Lou Andrews Moderator, German and East European SIG 15

Italian and Western European SIG Our membership as of May 12, 2015 is seventeen, an increase of one member. We meet monthly on the second Tuesday of the month from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Morris County Library conference room. Average attendance is seven. We usually follow a roundtable discussion of what each member has done since the last meeting, and answer questions that members may have on researching Italian and Western European records. Susan Kehr Moderator, Italian and Western European SIG 16