Sun City Vistoso Genealogical Society

The War of 1812 began in that year and ended in 1815. This year marks the start of its bicentennial, which will be commemorated in various locations. The website Our Flag Was Still There is particularly useful with its maps of bicentennial events and places. One of these might provide an educational daytrip with the grandkids in the summer months.

The Federation of Genealogical Societies, the National Archives, and Fold3 have started a project to digitize War of 1812 Pension Applications. This was just started recently and is only 3% complete. They hope to finish in 2015. The images will continue to be available online for free. You may donate to FGS for this purpose if you’d like to help the project along.

DearMYRTLE has announced a series of webinars on WordPress for Genealogists. WordPress is the site Sue Huffer and I chose to host our club’s website. The series of four webinars runs once a week from June 18th through July 16th. Taneya Koonce will teach. She has a Master’s in Library Science and is the Tennessee US GenWeb State Coordinator.

WordPress, like Blogger, has developed a way to construct web sites that’s a lot easier to use. These webinars will be of interest to anyone who’d like to create a blog/website on any topic, and also to anyone who might be interested in helping develop our club’s site. Please see the page at DearMYRTLE if you’d like to register.

The Sun City Vistoso Community Association Inc.  recently adopted the DBA (“doing business as”) name of “Sun City Oro Valley.”

Pam Sarpalius sent email today reminding clubs to refer to the Association as “Sun City Oro Valley.” I had already taken care of this: our website refers to the Association by that name, and uses the new logo, in the sidebar item on our Parent Organization.

Prior to that, I corresponded with Board President Robert Hefner. I mentioned our name ”Sun City Vistoso Genealogical Society” is referenced at our website,  bylaws, and bank account. He said not to worry: “I see no conflict here in that those seeking information about amenities of a retirement community will find our genealogy club listed on our web site, while a visit to www.scvgs.org only provides information pertinent to its membership.”

No need to mumble. We’re still the Sun City Vistoso Genealogical Society.

As a follow up to our May topic, here is a small point of interest if you are into the Civil War battles. The Battle of Franklin (Franklin, TN, a small town of 2500 people in mid-state Tennessee) suddenly erupted on Nov. 30, 1864 in mid-afternoon. By nightfall 9200 soldiers (2500 Union and 6700 Confederates, including 6 generals) had died or been badly mangled. In the five hours of battle there were more casualties than in the 19 hours of D-Day and more than twice as many as in Pearl Harbor. Hard to believe.

The book “Widow of the South” by Robert Hicks (a fictional version of a true story, paperback available in our library) describes the aftermath and one woman’s attempt to put closure to this terrible event. A good read.

The meeting was called to order by President Mike Carroll at 1 PM. Mike welcomed 36 members and 2 visitors (who joined before they left the meeting).

Announcements:

• The SCVGS indexing group has submitted over 25,000 names to Family Search.
• Green Valley GS doesn’t meet again until October.
• SaddleBrooke may meet in the summer but no info is available at this time.
• Pima County GS meets at 1 PM on Saturday, May 19 at UMC. Jo Clark will speak on patriotic societies and Barbara Salyer on military and civil service records.

Minutes of April General Meeting:  It was moved, seconded, and approved by voice vote that the minutes be approved as written.

The April Treasurer’s Report was posted on the website on April 30 and will be filed for audit.

Committee Reports:

• Ancestral Search, Beginner’s Class – Barb Krecklow – sign up for next year’s beginner’s class is available.
• Display Case – no report
• Field Trips – none this month
• Genealogy Tree Photos – Karen Jonaitis – new photos up on wall in genealogy room.
• Hospitality – no report
• Library – no report
• Membership – Russ Krecklow – we have 152 paid members. (One hundred fifty-four after the meeting was over.)
• Programs – Karen Haider – Please see the Calendar page of our website for a list of speakers and topics lined up for next year.

New Business:

Mike introduced Shirley Dubansky and Mary Cornell who will take office as Treasurer and Member-at-Large, respectively. Mike Carroll, Darwin Thornton and Kathy Davidson will continue in their offices for another year.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:10 PM.

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 9, at 1 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathy Davidson, Secretary