February 2014 genealogy meeting wrapup

Tuesday, February 11, the La Porte County Indiana Genealogical Society met at the La Porte City Parks and Recreation Department Headquarters on Pine Lake Avenue in La Porte. Twenty-two members and guests were in attendance.

After a business meeting presided over by President Dorothy Palmer, the group enjoyed a presentation by local videographer Pam Pulice. She noted that most of us tracing our families are trying to find a lot more than the bare facts of births, marriages and deaths. We seek to learn the stories and reasons why behind the facts. She emphasized that everyone has a story; you are the only one who can tell the entire story. She advised everyone to record now what you did and why. Pulice illustrated a fine example of story-telling in her video based on interviews with a lady who married the American GI who she met in North Africa, in a 17-minute video entitled Peggy’s Memoir, Recollections of an English War Bride.

Next month’s meeting, on March 11, will feature Marlene Polster, the president of the North West Indiana Genealogical Society. She will speak about preserving genealogical research. The title of her talk is “What Will Happen to your Genealogical Research when You Die?”

The society meets at 7 pm on the second Tuesday of each month, weather permitting, at the La Porte City Parks and Recreation Department building at 250 Pine Lake Avenue. The public is welcome at all meetings. For more information about the society's activities in awards, research, abstracting, transcribing, indexing, publishing, and records preservation, visit our web site at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~inlcigs/.

A decision by the Genealogist of the Year committee was announced at the meeting. Beginning in 2014, the committee will consider nominations for the award which name members of the society or non-members. Details of the criteria for the award and a nomination form can be found at the web site mentioned above.

The society also has a blog at http://lpcgs.blogspot.com/. There you can find summaries of meetings, news items about the society, and a posting of several years of the society’s newsletter.