Founded 1991
1500 Shenandoah Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22308
Telephone: (703) 768-4101 |
November Monthly Meeting
Dr. John Phillip Collette's lecture explained how a significant population of German-speakers came to reside in France and explored the peculiarities of researching ancestors of Alsace, Lorraine, and Elsass-Lothringen. It discussed when, why and how people from these areas came to the United States during the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries.
Dr. Colletta 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 half-time at the Library of Congress and taught workshops at the National Archives.
Indispensable Websites were reviewed, as well as books and manuals, and the large body of records available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
Inclement Weather
It's that time again when Mother Nature gets excited and decides to disrupt us humans. Did you realize our February monthly meetings for 2015 and 2016 were cancelled because of bad weather?
Let's presume you are scheduled for a SIG meeting or a census training session today at Hollin Hall, and when you get up it is snowing. Do you get dressed and prepare for the class or stay home and miss the class?
The answer is fairly simple – check the status of the Fairfax County Government HERE. If the Government is closed OR delayed, all "scheduled" activities (that's MVGS and your SIG class) will NOT meet. Hollin Hall will be CLOSED.
I gave you the simplistic answer, but if you want to read the Hollin Hall inclement weather policy just click HERE.
If you are not sure, call the Senior Center at 703-765-4573 to verify closing information.
It looks like we will be having a cold winter... 2018 MVGS Writing Contest Winners
Congratulations to the 2018 MVGS writing contest winners. First place went to George McKittrick for his "Visiting God’s Mother;" second was Jim Drewery for "Doctor, Soldier, Founder;" and third was Chuck Gearhart's "Oat Farming in the Forties & Fifties." Pictured with their ribbons are Chuck, George and Jim.
Library Catalog Now 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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December 17
German SIG: "Under Development"
Speaker: TBD For further information contact Mark Lazaroff at mark.b.lazaroff@gmail.com
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December 18
MVGS Christmas Party
Coordinator: Maureen Cunningham The first use of Christmas trees as they're known today dates back to the 1500's. Some claim the tree originated in Germany in the mid 1500's, others claim it was Latvia in the early 1500's, and a ...
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January 7
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 people. There are 6 computers in the room for folks to use; ...
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January 15
Finding Records of Claims Against the Federal Government.
Presenter: Claire Kluskens Discussion: The idea of looking for ancestors in records of claims against the U.S. Federal Government (or against foreign governments) would be an afterthought, at best, for most researchers. Yet, they can contain valuable data. French Spoliation Claims before 1800 ...
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February 4
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 that can be used. ...
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