Selected FGS Focus On Societies Day Recordings Available Now

New Resource for FGS Member Societies!

To help society leaders improve their society management skills, FGS offers a whole day at national conferences every year devoted to societies for all society leaders (FGS members or not) and their members followed by three days of excellent genealogy and family history sessions and workshops — open to anyone and for all skill levels. 

In an effort to expand some of the society management learning opportunities to more of our FGS Member Societies and thanks to the generosity of our speakers, FGS is now able to provide access to selected "Focus on Societies" Day audio recordings of selected past national conferences to FGS Member Society leaders! 

The first series of selected FGS "Focus on Societies" Day audio recording sessions that are available in the Members-only Area of the FGS website come from our FGS 2014 National Conference, "Gone to Texas" in San Antonio, Texas. Take a look at the lineup:

• Plenary Session and Strong Business Strategy = Sound Society Strategy, David E. Rencher and Ed Donakey — Run your society as successfully as a business. For all society delegates, members-at-large, and other interested parties.
• Strategic Planning for Society Leaders, Jordan Jones — The National Genealogical Society recently completed a strategic planning process. Come hear the President of NGS discuss strategic planning and how your society might benefit from it.
• Preparing for Change: Transition Planning and Your Society, D. Joshua Talyor — As new officers and committee members come into your society, it is essential that information is easily passed from one to the other. Learn ideas for planning transitions within your society (both the expected and unexpected).
• Embracing Technology: Tools You Can Use Today to Move Your Society Into Virtual Space, Jen Baldwin and D. Joshua Taylor — Learn about a variety of tools available to create a more efficient and organized collaborative online presence for your society.
• Is WordPress Right For My Society?, Randy W. Whited — It's not just for blogs anymore. The popular Content Management System (CMS), WordPress, powers about 20 percent of all websites. Learn more about the basics and extended capabilities of this tool and decide if it is right for you and your organization.
• Innovative Programs: The How-To, Cindy Foreman — Society programs can become stale and repetitive. Identifying topics and finding speakers can be challenging. Come learn a system that will help you develop fresh, interesting resources and programs.
• FGS Supports Member Societies (Sponsored by Dell), Ed Donakey — Learn how FGS supports societies and individuals by cooperating with for-profit and non-profit organizations to deliver tools and services for genealogists.
• It Sometimes Takes Two: Partnering with Other Societies or Organizations, Sandra J. Crowley — Learn how your society or organization can identify potential projects and organizations to partner with to help you both achieve your goals.
• Virtual Presentations for Genealogy Societies, Thomas MacEntee — Learn how you can expand your genealogy speaking opportunities to include virtual presentations from the comfort of your home or office.
• Creating a Community Indexing Project, Thomas MacEntee — Learn the available options for taking a set of genealogy records, creating an index, and sharing it with the genealogy community.
• The Dotted Line: Sign Before Other Steps, Paula Stuart-Warren — Handshake? Text message? Email? Available on__? Does this protect organizations, speakers, or researchers? Nope. No way. No how. Details need to be clear and agreed to by all parties. Leave this session prepared for the next event.
• Volunteering from a Distance, Paula Stuart-Warren — Learn how you can expand your genealogy speaking opportunities to include virtual presentations from the comfort of your home or office.
• Effective Advocacy, Teri E. Flack — Records are the lifeblood of genealogical research; however, their preservation and access continues to be threatened. Advocacy by the genealogical community, and your society in particular, can help mitigate the threats, but only if we act effectively.
• Electronic Publishing Fundamentals for Society Leaders, Jordan Jones — Your society may publish books, journals, and newsletters on paper, as PDFs, or in e-book format. Whether your society already publishes electronically, or you?re only considering it, learn ways to do it successfully.

To start listening to and learning from the experts, FGS Member Society leaders just have to log-in now to the Members-only Area of the FGS Website and click on "Focus on Societies" in the menu! 

Is your society not a member of FGS? Join FGS to start taking advantage of the suite of tools and services FGS provides its Member Societies!

Don't forget! If you like these topics, you'll love the lineup of our "Focus on Societies" Day at the FGS 2016 National Conference, "Time Travel: Centuries of Memories" this year in Springfield, Illinois, August 31 — September 3, 2016, with plentiful built-in networking opportunities for all society leaders (FGS members or not) followed by three days of excellent genealogy and family history sessions, workshops, luncheons, and special events open to anyone with an inkling of finding more about their family history. Take a look at the program now. Registration opens soon!

FGS 2014 Awards: The Inaugural Technology Advances Award Recipient

The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) presents awards for excellence in a variety of areas related to genealogy and history. At the recent FGS conference in San Antonio, Texas, an array of awards were presented and accompanied by a Power Point presentation extolling the reasons for the awards. Over the next several weeks, watch this blog for postings about the specific individuals and organizations who were the recipients.

FGS was pleased to present its inaugural Technology Advances Award to GEDmatch.com in recognition of an innovative product that enhances the genetic genealogy experience. GEDmatch is a free website that allows us many ways to compare and analyze our autosomal DNA results from different companies and ​with that of fellow DNA testers. There are other components of the website that do require a small fee but the basic comparisons may be done at no charge.

Curtis Rogers and John Olson, the Co-Administrators of GEDmatch, acknowledged the award with these words:

“We are thrilled, and humbled by this award from an organization so long established and recognized as the Federation of Genealogical Societies.  It is an indication to us that our efforts are achieving some success in reaching our goal of helping family history seekers by providing useful genealogical tools. It is all about people.”

They further said “we know that our volunteers, while few in number, will be equally honored and encouraged to continue improving GEDmatch. Please thank your Awards Committee and membership for this strong endorsement of our activities.”

If you or your genealogical or historical organization is interested in nominating a person or project for an award, please visit FGS Awards.

Awards will be presented at various times during 2015 but if you are interested in a nomination for an award to be presented at the next FGS conference, the deadline is 1 January 2015. Full details and a nomination form are on the FGS website. The next conference will be held 11-14 February 2015 in Salt Lake City in conjunction with RootsTech. Details are on the FGS website and everyone is welcome!

Societies: Here's a Great Program Idea

Briscoe Center for American History (Credit: Caroline M. Pointer)

While compiling information on what's happening this month, I was struck by two things: 1) American Archives Month was set up to teach the public about the importance of maintaining historical records and 2) Many of the announcements regarding Family History Month events are posted online only a day before or, in many cases, the same day as the event.

The reason I mention the purpose of American Archives Month, is that it clearly shows the communication disconnect between the resource repositories we use as researchers and us. You don't have to go very far to find a campaign that shows just how generous family historians and genealogists are when they are called to preserve history: The Preserve the Pensions campaign exploded during what was to be a simple event at FGS2014 and turned into an enormous, and dare I say incredibly entertaining, success. Just read what Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist, said about her experience; you can't help but smile about the effort and the outcome. While money is very important, there are so very many aspects that play into the success of a repository.

The professional archives world is working to educate us and there's plenty of education to have. There are lots of Archives that run programs for the public to help us understand what it takes to be the stewards of the materials we use. The communication disconnect happens when we don't take advantage of those programs and the repositories, or those who oversee the repositories, believe that there's no interest in the educational process or the materials.

The irony in this situation is that many genealogy societies struggle to get people to attend their meetings and/or educational sessions. It's a battle between getting people to join the Society, getting them to invest their time in being active members and finding ways to keep the members you have engaged, right?

Why not kill two birds with one stone? Contact a local repository and ask about bringing your group to see the collection that they have. This provides the opportunity for the local repository to do something they want to do (educate the public), allows your Society to do something you want to do (engage your members) and does something that many researchers would like to do (see an archives and understand what value it has for them and their research). Additionally, you could ask the archivist at the repository if they would be willing to come to your meeting to present to your group. Both of these options help to open the communication between those who care for the primary materials we need and us.

Family History Month continues with lots of programs going on across the United States. But, those programs may not have the attendance you'd like if the notices aren't posted with enough advance notice for people to get there. Why not try posting your event, with appropriate permissions of course, to local Facebook and Google+ groups? If you are a FGS Member Society, enter your event on our Upcoming Event Calendar. Announce them on Twitter with the hashtag for your location, or out on listservs for other groups, like history, historic preservation, etc. Don't forget the home schooling groups; they're a great way to get the next generation interested in joining your society!

Reserve Your FGS 2014 Hotel Room Now!

You can now make your reservations at the Marriott Riverwalk for the FGS 2014 Conference, “Gone to Texas,” to be held 27-30 August 2014, in San Antonio, Texas.

AFTER September 15th you can reserve directly with the hotel at (210) 224-4555 and mention FGS. (We realize that the wrong area code is printed in our four page brochure – be sure to use area code 210.)

A quicker way to reserve is through their electronic system at the following link: https://aws.passkey.com/g/20192270 which is also posted This link is also posted on our website. The room block for FGS is from 20 August – 5 September, 2014.

Reserve your room now since demand will be high for rooms at the host hotel and we expect to sell out. We’ll see you in San Antonio!

Recap: Important News Items from FGS 2013

You may have missed some of these news stories coming out of the successful FGS 2013 conference held in Fort Wayne, Indiana last week. Over the next few weeks FGS Voice will provide additional information on many of these items - stay tuned!

• FGS 2014: The next FGS conference will be held in San Antonio, Texas 27-30 August 2014. Make your hotel reservations now! The FGS Conference website and the FGS Conference Blog will be updated with 2014 information in the next few weeks.

• FGS 2015: For 2015, FGS will hold its national conference in Salt Lake City, Utah in tandem with RootsTech. This was a huge announcement and has generated quite a few questions as to logistics and future FGS conferences. Check back at FGS Voice to learn all the details so you can plan your FGS conference activities!

• RootsTech 2014 Discount: RootsTech is offering an exclusive discount for FGS members! Take an additional $20 off the Early Bird Discount price by using code RT14EXCLSV during registration. The discount code expires 9 September 2013, so don't miss out!

• Call for Volunteers: FGS is looking for energetic and committed volunteers willing to donate their time in skills. Look for a listing of specific projects and committees where help is needed.

• Dell Discount: FGS has negotiated a unique member benefit with Dell when purchasing a variety of items including computers, televisions and accessories. Dell is also the new sponsor of the FGS Youth Award.

• Preserve the Pensions: More than $20,000 was raised at the FGS 2013 Conference to help preserve and digitize the War of 1812 pension files. Preserve the Pensions will announce a new matching program for member genealogy societies in the coming weeks.

• FGS Awards: Several awards were given out at the FGS 2013 Conference and a complete list will appear here at FGS Voice soon.

Host Hotel Reservations Now Available for FGS 2014

The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announces the availability of room reservations at the host hotel for the FGS 2014 Conference, “Gone to Texas,” to be held 27-30 August 2014, in San Antonio, Texas.

All attendees are encouraged to make reservations at the Marriott San Antonio Rivercenter/Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas using this link: https://aws.passkey.com/g/20192270. Reserve your room now since demand will be high for rooms at the host hotel and we expect to sell out. We’ll see you in San Antonio!

FGS 2014 Conference Donation Package To Benefit Preserve the Pensions Project

Over $1000 Prize Package To Be Awarded at FGS 2013 Conference

15 August 2013 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies 2014 Conference Committee announces an exciting fundraising effort to benefit the Preserve the Pensions project: the 2014 Conference Donation Package. This amazing prize package consists of the following items:

• One (1) full conference registration for the FGS 2014 Conference in San Antonio, Texas, August 27-30, 2014.
• Four (4) nights at the Marriott River Walk Hotel (during the FGS 2014 Conference), donated by the Marriott Hotel San Antonio.
• Riders On the Orphan Train by Alison Moore (FGS 2014 keynote speaker).
• Rider On the Orphan Train Music CD by Alison Moore and Phil Lancaster (FGS 2014 keynote speakers).
• First Families of Texas, donated by the Texas State Genealogical Society.
• Our Heritage Recipes, donated by the San Antonio Genealogical and Historical Society.
• Texas water bottle and mug, Texas salsa and barbecue sauce, tortilla warmer, stone mortar and pestle, and San Antonio Classic Dessert cookbook all in a San Antonio bag donated by the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The total value of this package is approximately $1,000. Attendees at the upcoming FGS 2013 Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana can enter the drawing by making any of the following donations:

• 1 ticket - $5 donation
• 5 tickets - $20 donation
• 12 tickets - $50 donation
• 25 tickets - $100 donation
• 55 tickets - $250 donation
• 110 tickets - $500 donation
• 225 tickets - $1000 donation

Donations may be made at the FGS booth in the Exhibit Hall. The FGS 2014 Donation Package winner will be announced Friday evening, August 23, 2013, at the Allen County Library Social Event (donors do not need to be present in order to win).

2014 FGS National Conference Call for Presentations

Deadline for Submissions is June 1, 2013

February 6, 2013– Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announces a Call for Presentations for the FGS 2014 Conference, “Gone to Texas,” to be held August 27-30, 2014, in San Antonio, Texas. The conference will be held in conjunction with the Texas State Genealogical Society and the San Antonio Genealogical and Historical Society as local hosts. The deadline for submission of lecture proposals is Saturday, 1 June 2013.

The conference begins with an all-day Focus on Societies program for genealogical society officers, board members, volunteers and other interested parties followed by a three-day genealogical conference in which a variety of topics will be presented.

The program committee seeks proposals for engaging, collaborative and dynamic presentations, workshops and sponsored talks. The categories of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Society Management
• Basic and introductory genealogical instruction
• Methodology and problem solving techniques
• Ethnic research (African American, Czech, German, Hispanic, Native American)
• Technology, software and social media
• Genetics, DNA and family medical history
• Transportation, migration and immigration
• “Gone to Texas” topics
• Southern and western regional topics

Speakers based more than 50 miles from the conference location are strongly encouraged to submit multiple proposals (more than four), as those speakers will be invited to present a minimum of three lectures at the conference. There is no limit to the number of proposals a speaker may submit.

Submission Requirements

Presentations will be one-hour long, which includes a ten-minute question/answer period. Send proposals in Microsoft Word, RTF or similar format. File names should include your last name, first initial, and proposal topic. (Example: SmithR - TechStrategies). Please submit one file per proposed topic. Each proposal document should include:

• Speaker(s) name.
• Speaker(s) contact information, including mailing address, phone, email and website, if applicable.
• Prior speaking experience. Speakers who have not spoken at a national conference are encouraged to submit a video, audiotape, or CD recording of a recent presentation.
• Speaker(s) biography.
• Speaker(s) abbreviated brochure biography (350 characters, including spaces).
• Lecture title and description for brochure (230 characters combined, including spaces).
• Lecture outline/summary (1 page or less)
• Audio-visual requirements. FGS does NOT provide projectors, computers, or internet access for speakers.
• Intended audience level: beginner, intermediate, advanced or any level.

Send proposals, as an email attachment, with “FGS 2014 Call for Presentations” in the subject line, to 2014program@fgs.org no later than Saturday, 1 June 2013. If submitting lecture recordings by mail, please email 2014program@fgs.org for the appropriate postal address.

Invitations to speak will be extended between 2 September and 20 September 2013. All submitters will receive notification of their selection or non-selection by 27 September 2013. The deadline for acceptance and submission of signed speaker contracts is 1 November 2013. Syllabus format guidelines will be sent to all speakers upon receipt of their signed contract as every presentation will require materials to be included in the conference syllabus.

For additional guidelines regarding the selection process for FGS 2014, please refer to the supplemental document at http://www.fgs.org/cpage.php?pt=114.

Compensation

Selected speakers receive an honorarium, travel compensation, and conference registration as well as per diem and hotel nights based on the number of lectures presented. (Sponsored speakers only receive conference registration and syllabus materials. See more about sponsorships below.) Non-sponsored speakers receive compensation according to the FGS Conference Speaker Policy at http://www.fgs.org/cpage.php?pt=44.

Sponsored Lectures

Societies and businesses are encouraged to submit proposals for sponsored talks. The sponsoring organization will cover its speaker's costs to present the lecture. Sponsored speakers will abide by all speaker deadlines and syllabus requirements. Sponsored speakers will receive complimentary FGS conference registration and electronic syllabus materials.

Additional Information

Camera-ready handouts will be required for every lecture or workshop presentation and will be compiled in a syllabus distributed to conference participants. The deadline for submissions of syllabus materials is 1 June 2014.

FGS 2014 Deadlines

• 7 Jan 2013: Call for Presentations
• 1 Jun 2013: Proposal deadline
• 27 Sep 2013: Last date for invitations or declines sent to submitters
• 1 Nov 2013: Signed speaker contracts due
• 1 Jun 2014: Syllabus materials due for all presentations