Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Genealogical or Historical Societies Have You Joined?

For this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver asks about our membership in groups, something I'll have to think about to answer, at least for the past ones.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

1.  What genealogical or historical societies have you joined to pursue your family history research over the years?

2.  Write your own blog post, leave a comment on this post, or write something on Facebook.

I am pretty sure the first genealogical society I joined was the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society.  I found out about it from someone who came to the Oakland Family History Center.  That was way back about 20 years ago.  For several years that was my only membership.  I have stayed a member continuously since joining.

I was a member of the California State Genealogical Alliance from 2006 or 2007 until the group was dissolved in 2017.  In fact, I was one of the board members who voted in favor of and helped with the processing of the dissolution.

I think the next group I joined was the California Genealogical Society, in 2011, after giving a presentation to them about online newspapers.  I remained a member of CGS until I moved to Oregon.  I think my last year was 2018.

Soon after CGS I became a member of the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California (how's that for a mouthful?), in 2012.  That membership also ended when I moved to Oregon in 2017.

I think I was a member of the Southern California Genealogical Society for a couple of years in conjunction with having given presentations at Jamboree, but I can't remember which years.

The first group I joined after my move to Oregon was the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.  As I recall, I joined not long after arriving in September 2017.  I had a break in membership for about a year but returned and am currently a member.

I began participating in the African American Special Interest Group of the Genealogical Forum of Oregon also soon after I moved here, but that group is open to the public and didn't require joining officially — until I volunteered to take over as coordinator after the founder of the group stepped down.  To be a SIG coordinator, you have to be a member of GFO.  So I joined and have maintained that membership through to the present.

I was a member of the Oberlin African American Genealogy and History Group in 2020 and 2021, but I forgot to renew for 2022 and they didn't remind me.  Earlier this year I sent a message asking about current benefits of membership but was told that I would find out about benefits only after joining.  I didn't consider that the best way to market the group and still haven't decided if I'm going to renew.

I joined the Jewish Genealogical Society of Long Island in 2021 as a life member, so that's still current.

I was given a membership in the Virtual Genealogical Society because I gave a presentation at its 5th birthday party this year.  Hmm, I don't think I've received any messages from them since then, but it was only a month ago.

I can't recall ever having joined a historical society.

So that makes my current memberships SFBAJGS, JGSO, JGSLI, GFO, and VGS.

My Summer Speaking Trifecta

I am so excited!  I'll be attending three genealogy conferences this summer, because I've been fortunate enough to have talks accepted at each of them.

In June I'll be at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in beautiful downtown Burbank, California (anyone else remember Laugh In?).  The conference begins on Thursday, June 2, with an all-day Genetic Genealogy event.  The Genealogy Jamboree proper will run from Friday, June 3, through Sunday, June 5.  My talk on finding religious records is scheduled for Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m.

Come August I'll be in Seattle, Washington at the 36th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.  The conference begins on Sunday, August 7, and continues through Friday, August 12.  This presentation will be about the research I've done to learn about my cousins who immigrated to Cuba from Eastern Europe.  The program schedule hasn't been released yet, so I don't yet know when this talk will be, not even which day.

One month later, I'll be at the International Black Genealogy Summit (IBGS) in Arlington, Virginia.  That conference will take place Thursday–Saturday, September 1–3.  The first day is registration and an opening reception, with the programming on Friday and Saturday.  I'll be talking about online historical black newspapers in the first workshop session, bright and early Friday morning at 9:15.

This is the first time I'll be speaking at Jamboree and IBGS, and my first time attending IBGS.  I'm really looking forward to these educational opportunities and the chance to get together with so many other genealogists.  I'm going to have a lot of fun this summer!