Calendar of Events
The Board meets monthly on the second Monday at 6:30pm in the Board Room on the third floor of The Wichita Public Library and is open to the members.
The Society Business meetings are held quarterly and are part of the regular meeting schedule. The business portion of the quarterly meetings is usually short and precedes the regular program.
All regular meetings are held on the third Saturday of the month at 1:00 pm. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings except the Board meetings are held in the Lionel Alford Branch of the Wichita Public Library at 3447 S Meridian in Wichita. These meetings are open to the public and are free except for the seminars which may have a nominal fee.
The meetings and subjects are listed below. Any changes to the regular schedule are posted there.
2010 Meetings
All meetings are at 1:00 p.m. in the Community Room of the Alford Branch Library, 3447 S. Meridian, and are open to the public. All questions may be directed to (316) 261-8509.
Note time change for this meeting is 2:00 p.m.
This educational and entertaining event by Rod Frederking shows what can be done to preserve your family history for generations to come via photo restoration and animation. Photo's, slides, text, music, sudio, video tapes, and much more can be combined to tell any story. Excerpts of other videos showing Life Celebration/Memorials, retirements, birthdays and many other special events will be presented.
Mike is a respected paleontologist and adjunct curator of palenontology at the Sternberg Museum of natural History in Hays: His exciting tales are not fiction about the huge fish that got away, but are true stories about the 85 million-year-old fish he discovered buried in Kansas soil, which had never been seen before in the former Kansas ocean.
Researching your family can be your most exciting hobby. It is fun to search for your ancestors or other family member's ancestors. It gives you the opportunity to know your own family better or meet new family members. Knowledge will be gained in using libraries and research maps and connecting dates in history with wars or other important events. Each part of your research will make you more aware of the hardships your ancestors encountered as they made their mark in history. This session is planned to give everyone a review and kick start your research for a new year.
The Courthouse contains many records that will give you clues to your family history. Many people are intimidated by all the offices and records available. This session will help you decide where to look and what you will be looking for at the courthouse. We will review terms used and what records may not be open to the public.
For more information click NGS
Ms Penner will present an introductory story of how and why three German groups (Catholic, Lutheran or Protestant, and Mennonite) went to Russia, their villages, colonies, and where they lived in Russia, then concentrate on why they left, and how they ended up in Kansas (and other areas of Germans from Russia).
Maureen Taylor, the Phote Detective, is the featured speaker and will cover the following topics:
- Identifying and Dating Family Photographs
- Family History Research: A Toolkit of 21st Century Techniques
- Kodak Moments and Technicolor Dreams
- Telling the Family Story: From Blogs to Scrapbooks
Mary Brown will be our speaker and will share her extensive family Quaker research.
For more information, click FGS
Reading older documents takes patience and practice. The original writer did not write with the intent that researchers would be able to read handwriting several years later. In some cases the writer's objective may have been to create an impressive looking document. Whatever the reason for writing, the scribe obviously had some latitude in using his own abbreviations and punctuation. We will examine and compare words, letters and characters to help understand what was written on the documents.
The Wichita Genealogical Society announces the 2010 trip to the largest genealogy public library, The Allen County Public Libraray, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.Tour dates: September 25 - October 3, 2010.
Cost: $665.00 Double Occupancy - $925.00 Single
For more information click About the Allen Co. Public Library Trip . To reserve your space, complete the Trip Registration Form and mail to:
The Wichita Genealogical Society
c/o Sage Joyner
11822 SW 50th
Towanda, KS 67144
WGS is hosting an important Conference with speakers from Ancestry.com and the National Archives and Records Administration. Click here for the Conference details.