Ginger Frere

will speak at the PGSA August 10th meeting

Her topic will be

Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places: Searching for Marriage Records.

You've looked through civil records; you've looked through church records. What else should you do if you simply can't find your ancestor's marriage records? In the United States, the requirements for a valid marriage have changed over time and varied from state to state. Today couples in a hurry might rush off to Las Vegas. During the late 1800's and early 1900's, numerous towns across the nation were known as "marriage mills" or "Gretna Greens". Come learn about some of these locations and find out why you might be looking for marriage records in the wrong place.

Ginger Frere, founder of Information Diggers, is a family history researcher and speaker. She also works as a reference librarian in the Local and Family History Section of The Newberry Library. Frere is an alumna of the National Institute for Genealogical Research. Her primary research interests include Chicago history, company histories and the creation of online tools for genealogists. She has an extensive technical background as well as master's degrees in Business Administration and Library and Information Science.

Board meeting will start at 12:00 pm followed by the general meeting at 2:00 pm

On November 9th at the PGSA Meeting we will have Mike Karsen to speak on "Write Your Family History NOW!"

We genealogists are very good at doing research and collecting many facts about our families. For any of a number of reasons, however, most of us delay publishing the results of this research. Mike Karsen shows how you can publish your findings in books that vary from a simple 30 pages to one that contains detailed biographies and places your family in historical context. Your goal should be to organize your findings and share them with your family as soon as possible.

A professional speaker, Mike Karsen is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), the Genealogical Speakers Guild (GSG), and is currently President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois. He speaks on family legacy topics locally and nationally, presents conference programs and is on the faculty of Newberry Library and Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. Mike is the author of the JewishGen website "Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Chicagoland" and has published articles on genealogy.

He holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics/computer science and a master's in operations research alongside 30 years in telecommunications management.

The Polish Genealogical Society of America
presents its 30th annual conference

"Honoring Our Ancestors"

September 19 & 20th
At
Meadows Club in Rolling Meadows, IL
Please save those dates and watch for more information.

READ MORE ABOUT THE CONFERENCE >>