Week 13 Local Societies - 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy Week #13

Week 13. Local Societies: Local genealogical and historical societies are the lifeblood of genealogy. Members and volunteers give their time and money to preserve local history and promote family history. Tell us about a local society for which you are thankful.

When I first started searching for information on my family, I wrote a letter to the Mercer County Genealogy Society in Celina, Ohio to inquire as to what resources they might have. Much to my surprise, I received a package in the mail that included obituaries of my great-great-grandmother and great-grandparents, an application for my great-great-grandfather's will and a family tree that listed my great-great-grandparent's children and some of their spouses. The secretary of the society also said that she had searched for an obituary for my gg-grandfather Timothy Creeden in the local newspaper but could only find a thank you note from his wife and children which she enclosed. None of this information was available online and this gave me a great start in researching my family.

I've since joined the society and ordered several publications from the society, including listings of cemeteries, births, and deaths. Most of this information is not online and would be difficult for me to access since I'm a long way from Ohio. The society's newsletters are published as paper copies only and contain many nuggets of information that aren't available anywhere else. I've found this to be the case with most genealogy societies, so it can be very worthwhile to join the ones where your ancestors lived.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.