Wordless Wednesday

Annual Membership Meeting

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Photographs by Kathryn Doyle, 1/10/2009

What You Missed: The January Annual Business Meeting

With a nod to Miriam Robbins Midkiff and her "What You Missed" posts at the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society Blog (Miriam always says that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery), I'm reprinting the minutes of Annual Business Meeting. Very special thanks to Shirley Pugh Thomson, CGS Recording Secretary who submitted these minutes as her last act as she departs the board of directors.

The annual business meeting was called to order by President Jane Lindsey at 1:00 p.m. She distributed copies of minutes of the January 12, 2008, annual business meeting to the approximately fifty-five members attending and introduced the Board of Directors of 2008.

Vice President Verne Deubler provided copies of the proposed $118,750 budget for 2009, discussed various elements of it and pointed to the need to constrain expenses in the coming year. ACTION: Resolved, seconded, passed: That the 2009 budget is adopted as presented.

Nominating Committee chair Chris Pattillo presented the list of nominees for seats on the Board of Directors: Kathryn Doyle and Chris Pattillo, for second terms, and Stephen Harris, Cathy Paris, Carolyn Steinberg and Diana Wild for first terms. ACTION: Resolved, seconded, passed: That those people nominated for directorships are hereby elected. Directors
leaving the Board in January 2009 are Jane Hufft, Laura Spurrier and Shirley Thomson. Following the election, Jane briefly described plans being considered for revisions in directors’ areas of responsibility in 2009.

Activities of the various committees were reported by chairs Bill O’Neil, Lorna Wallace, Carolyn Steinberg, Chris Pattillo, Laura Spurrier, Sandy Fryer, Linda Darby, Kathryn Doyle, Nancy Peterson, Marianne Frey, Nancy Servin and Jane Lindsey.

Jane described a wide variety of events and activities being planned for the coming year and urged that members keep up to date on such matters by frequent visits to the CGS Web site and the CGS blogspot.

The meeting adjourned at 2:30 p.m.
Shirley Pugh Thomson, Recording Secretary

Questions? Leave a comment and I'll be glad to elaborate on any aspect of the annual meeting.

Chinese Research - El Cerrito Library - 1/22/09

CGS member Jeanie Low, author of China Connection: Finding Ancestral Roots for Chinese in America will present a one hour program on Chinese Genealogical Research at the El Cerrito Library on Thursday, January 22 at 7:00 p.m. The library is located at 6510 Stockton Ave, El Cerrito, California, a branch of the Contra Costa County Library system. The telephone number is (510) 526-7512. There will be time at the end of the program for questions and answers.

Ms. Low's research specialty is Chinese American research from the 1850's to the present. She has expertise in such topics as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, confession and amnesty, 20th century Alien A-Files for all ethnic groups, basic genealogical research and finding the ancestral village. Her transparencies encompass a sampling of gravestone translation, immigration and naturalization case files and family artifacts that will inspire anyone to begin, continue, to verify and piece together their family stories.

Since 1992, Jeanie has spoken to audiences at public libraries, the Oakland Museum, Chinese Historical Society of America, and at conferences sponsored by National Genealogical Society, California State Genealogical Alliance and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Born in San Francisco, Ms. Low is the child of immigrants who entered the U.S. through the Angel Island Immigration Station. She is a graduate of San Francisco State University, with a major in Chinese Studies. She engages her audiences with humor and historical context.

San Francisco Halsted Mortuary Records Database and Index Now Online

CGS members and sfgenealogy.com founders, Ron Filion and Pamela Storm sent this press release:

San Francisco, CA - January 7, 2009 - SFgenealogy.com has completed the first phase of indexing the Halsted Mortuary Records database. The indexing was performed by over sixty volunteers during the past year.

The database includes digitized images of over 45,000 mortuary records, along with a searchable index, for the years 1923 to 1960. The index has advanced surname search options such as Soundex and Metaphone, and wildcard searching.

The database may be searched and accessed for free at:
<http://www.sfgenealogy.net/php/halstedsearch/halstedindex.php>

The Halsted Mortuary merged with Halsted N. Gray - Carew & English, Inc. around 1974. It was one of the oldest and largest mortuaries in San Francisco. Some of the records include reinterments and military burials. Years prior to 1923 are being processed by the California Genealogical Society, and the years 1961 to 1974 are still to be indexed.

Contact:
Ron Filion or Pamela Storm
http://www.sfgenealogy.com/admin/contact.htm

Ron and Pam have been supportive members of the society with links to the CGS website and blog on their site. They're also among the many CGS members who have become Facebook friends. Be sure to join their sfgenealogy.com group on Facebook.

CGSL Blog Resolutions?

As much as I had to admit it, the time is past due to report on how I did with my goal for 2008 and to do some planning for the new year. It is difficult to face my total and complete failure to achieve my one objective for the year – to get one of the local media outlets to publish an article on CGS. I did get a "Nice pitch" e-mail from Judith Gallman, editor of Oakland Magazine but nothing came of it. Colleen Huntley thought she had a commitment from Bob MacKenzie of KTVU to do a piece on the society - we even had a date for him to visit the library. That fell through. Oh well... I'm trying to keep a positive outlook.

There is solace in the knowledge that after one year the blog has garnered some recognition in the genealogy blogosphere. Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings has bestowed his "Best of the Genea-Blogs" honor on the CGSL blog several times and recently Miriam Robbins Midkiff of the Eastern Washingon Genealogical Society Blog lauded CGS and the blog in her post One Society Bites the Dust; Another One Celebrates a Milepost. Both of them are stars in the genea-blogging world and stalwart leaders in their respective societies. Their support means so much.

I've mentioned before the balancing act I perform – using my voice to create a blog that is more than just society announcements and keeping the rest of me out of it. I think I have hit on a pretty good compromise. I've also settled on a fairly doable schedule – blogging three times a week, relying heavily on word-free posts on Wednesdays. (Thanks to Jane, Arlene and many other members who contribute Wordless Wednesday photographs.)

In the coming year I will be reporting on some of the genealogical activities of our more distant members. I'm constantly amazed at the variety of ways they contribute to the genealogy world.

I also plan to share more information from committee reports and board meetings – nuts and bolts kinds of things about the society and how it is run. Transparency is a word that seems to be cropping up a lot lately and members will be proud to learn about how well the society is being managed.

I will continue to share members' contributions – reports from national and local meetings, great genealogical finds, personal accomplishments, involvement in family history projects – keep the accounts coming!