Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting - August 12, 2010
The August 12, 2010, meeting of the
Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Madison County Historical
Society Archival Library.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the
meeting to order.
Reports:
*Note:
The Board of Directors voted to combine the General Fund and the Lifetime
Membership Fund on July 26, 2010.
GIFT
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE
Do you have a family member that is
interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison
County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will
be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $20.00
Patron Annual Membership $30.00
Life Membership $250.00
Contact our Secretary, Barbara Hitch, at racerbarb@aol.com,
about a gift membership.
August
Meeting
On August 12, 2010, the regular meeting
of the Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Madison County
Historical Society Archival Library.
The introduction to the program was made by Mary Westerhold,
Operations Manager for the Library. She gave a brief general description
of the library's holdings.
Mary then introduced Marty Porter, Archivist at the library, who talked about
the work being done to put the Madison County Poor Farm records into electronic
form and to make them searchable. The same type of effort is being done on the
books of the former Doerr Funeral Home of Bethalto, Illinois. The original
records of both institutions will still be available for viewing if desired.
After Marty finished his portion of the program, he introduced LaVerne
Bloemker, another Archivist at the library. LaVerne talked about the library's
extensive photo collection. She talked about the effort that was being done to
scan their photos to preserve them and improve their quality. She also
explained how the catalog of photos could be searched.
Mary Westerhold then talked about the library's collection of school photo
albums, containing photos of both old schoolhouses and of some of the student
classes.
After the presentation, the many attendees had opportunities to do some
assisted research or to look at the original Poor Farm books - if they wore the
white cotton gloves provided to protect the fragile volumes.
This meeting was very well attended and generated a lot of interest on the part
of the attendees.