Founded 1991
1500 Shenandoah Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22308
Telephone: (703) 768-4101 |
MVGS 2019 Conference
June Monthly Meeting
 Presenter: John Philip Colletta, has been a previous briefer and is one of America’s most popular genealogical lecturers. Knowledgeable, experienced and entertaining, he resides in Washington, D.C. For twenty years, while laying the foundation for his career in genealogy, he worked at the Library of Congress and taught workshops at the National Archives. He received his Ph.D. from Catholic University.
Presentation Description: In 1860 close to one out of every four residents of the District of Columbia was a man, woman or child of African descent. Of these people of color, about three-quarters were born free, the others were born into lifelong servitude. Discovering their stories poses peculiar challenges…but may result in a surprise ending. Philip Reid assisted Clark Mills in casting the Statue of Freedom in bronze for the dome of the U. S. Capitol. When the casting process began, Philip Reid was enslaved to Clark Mills; by the time Freedom was secured in place Philip Reid was a free man, married, with a baby girl. Two families whose legal status changed from chattel property to free citizens demonstrate a variety of public records for identifying and tracing 19th-century people of color in the District of Columbia.
Pictured right is Janell Blue, MVGS President, and Dr Colletta.
MVGS 2019 Writing Contest
 We’re looking for short, no more than 3 page papers, written by our members that tell the reader about someone or an activity they participated in, regarding a person in the author’s family tree.
Entries are due by 10pm on 21 Aug 2019.
Library Catalog Always Online!
 The Mount Vernon Genealogical Society library catalog has now been ported to the website as a fully functional interactive on-line application. The cataloging system software in the Research Center was no longer supported by the developer.
You now have access to all the information in our library holdings from anywhere you have internet connectivity. A number of features, not found in the index system previously online, are now available to members and the public. Searches by “Subject”, “Location” and “Media Type” can now be made on almost 2800 holdings in the library. Further searches can then be done on “Title”, “Author” and “Call Number”. Once the desired list of records is found they can be “printed” to a PDF document by clicking on the “PDF List” icon. Additionally, each record can be viewed and printed by clicking on the “eye” icon. Clicking on the “Broom” icon will clear the information in the selection or search box. In addition to searching the database for individual records by "Call Number", "Title", and "Author", the entire database or any filtered selections can be sorted by "Call Number", "Title", or "Author" by clicking on the word at the top of each column.
Clicking on the “View Categories” icon provides another method of search for desired material. Categories of holdings can also be filtered by “Subject”, “Location”, and “Media Type”
The library catalog will always be current now because library accessions are available for viewing as soon as they are put into the online system. Previously the indexes were only updated periodically.
This additional Society benefit would never have been possible without the hard work of volunteers who planned and executed the library database conversion; thank you Jeanne Wilson, Anne Barber, and Gerry Ward.
You can find the library catalog HERE.
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August 5
Entering Information onto Family Search's Family Tree Workshop
Instructor: Linda MacLachlan. Purpose of the workshop is to learn how to post information onto the family tree on the Familysearch.org website. Workshop is limited to 10 folks. There are 6 computers in the room for folks to use. ...
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August 5
African American Genealogy Study Group
Instructor: Steve Walker Join fellow genealogists researching African American ancestors in this facilitated study group. Share your brick wall challenges and research success stories. We'll learn from each other. Centreville & Virginia Room program. Follow the Virginia Room genealogy program HERE. Two more ...
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August 5
New England SIG: "Summer Vacation"
Moderator: Linda MacLachlan We will continue in September, enjoy the summer.
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August 7
MVGS Methodology SIG: "Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps – Record Group 35”
Instructor: Charles S. Mason, Jr. The CCC was established to provide vocational training and employment for youth, some war veterans and American Indians. How did these programs change our ancestor’s lives? Was one of your ancestors a CCC worker? ...
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August 15
Solving Research Problems and Dead Ends Pt 1
Instructor: Chuck Mason. This will be a 2 part class on advanced methodology research. Do you have an ancestor who you cannot find or conflicting evidence about an ancestor? In Session 1 you will learn how to gather and ...
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