ESGR Breaking Down Brick Walls Special Interest Group (SIG)

The Erie Society for Genealogical Research has decided to offer some special interest groups (SIGs) that will meet outside of our regular monthly membership meetings; and, I’m excited to announce, I am spearheading the Breaking Down Brick Walls SIG. We will meet on the 4th Tuesday of each month in the Heritage Room at the Blasco Public Library 6pm-8pm. The group is only open to members of the genealogy society; however, once a quarter, the meetings will be open to the general public. The first public meeting will be April 26, 2016. Closer to the time, I will create a Facebook event on my Lantern Genealogy Facebook page inviting everyone to attend the meeting. The library will also be publicizing the event. If you aren’t on Facebook, it would be helpful if you could post a comment here, to indicate you’ll be attending the public meeting, as the library’s staff would like to know how many guests to expect that evening.

The group is still in the formative stage, but my initial thought on the meeting structure is it will be something like this:

Any attendees looking for help with a particular brick wall will have a chance to explain their problem and the group will brainstorm ways to push beyond the wall. Meetings are two hours long, so, depending on the number of problems, we’ll have to limit the brainstorming time to, say, 15 minutes per problem. It might be a good idea for people to post a summary of the problem on either the Facebook page or here, in a comment, ahead of time, so there’s more time for problem solving during the meeting. I’d also suggest bringing a list of the sources you’ve already searched.

If there’s any time left, we could end the session with a discussion on strategies for solving brick walls: perhaps one strategy per meeting, with a handout.

Here is the tentative schedule for the year:

March 22, 2016

ESGR members only

April 26, 2016

Open to the public

May 24, 2016

ESGR members only

June 28, 2016

ESGR members only

July 26, 2016

Open to the public

August 23, 2016

ESGR members only

September 27, 2016

ESGR members only

October 25, 2016

Open to the public

November 29, 2016*

ESGR members only

No December meeting

Happy holidays!

January 24, 2017

Open to the public

*This meeting will be held on the fifth Tuesday, to avoid Thanksgiving week.

These meetings will be work sessions. If you have an active library card, you will be able to access the Internet using the library’s Wi-Fi, so feel free to bring a laptop or tablet. We will also have access to the Heritage Room’s resources, including their computers, and the library has generously offered to make additional staff available to us on the nights we open the meetings to the public.

As I mentioned, we are still in the planning stages for this SIG. I welcome any and all comments!