Our Help Night is October 8 at 7 pm at the Bloomfield Township Public Library, 1099 Lone Pine Rd., Bloomfield Township, MI 48032. We will meet in the Community Room.

Experts in various research field will help you as you build your family history. Currently scheduled topics  are:  Beginners, German,  Acadian/French Canadian,  DAR/SAR lineages and information, and United Kingdom.

There is no charge to attend our meetings, but you can support us by joining or renewing your membership.

September 2024

Dear Members,

As the beautiful fall of Michigan is beginning, so too our new membership year is starting up! Over the summer, your board has been busy – we have a new Recording Secretary, Nora Hummel from Oxford and a new Treasurer, Dorothy Catella from Clarkston. Please be sure to welcome them at our in-person meeting in October!

Thank you to Maureen Elliott for the creation of our Program Schedule for this year – some great speakers will be coming to you either via Zoom or in-person in the coming months. Note that our October meeting is on October 8 at the Bloomfield Township Library for our “Help Night” – an opportunity to meet with other family historians and receive help at tables dedicated to particular topics, as well as networking with other researchers over coffee or tea.

Our November 9th meeting (NOTE – a Saturday!) is our annual Joint Meeting with the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, featuring the Allen County Public Library and its holdings. Please check the list of programs for more great topics in the coming month and always check our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ocgsmi) for updates on weather, any last minute changes and information to help you from societies, libraries and more to help your research.

As you renew your membership, don’t forget that you can also “round up” your membership to help with records preservation! The OCGS receives donations for the Ruth S. Kennedy Fund which supports the preservation of Oakland County Records, the Michigan Historical Center in Lansing where genealogy collections in the Library and Archives of Michigan benefit anyone with ancestors in the state, and the Stern NARA fund which supports preservation and digitization efforts at the National Archives and Records Administration. These donations are collected throughout the year and checks are sent to the respective organizations collectively.

And finally, we need volunteers! For so many functions of our society, we are asking you to consider a role in backing up our great team of volunteers who keep our society going – from indexing projects, to help with social media posts and information, to joining a committee, consideration in running for an officer position, writing articles for our quarterly, and much more. Contact me, Judy, at  judynmuhn@gmail.com to let me know about your interest – let’s talk! Thank you to all of the existing volunteers – we hope you will join the fun.

Judy

Download the program schedule (February and March will be updated soon)

Our October Help Night meeting returns!

The meeting is on October 8 at 7 pm at the Bloomfield Township Public Library, 1099 Lone Pine Rd., Bloomfield Township, MI 48032. We will meet in the Community Room.  (Please note the change in location)

Experts in various research field will help you as you build your family history.

We are in the process of firming up our 2024-25 program schedule. Please check back on for further information which will be posted soon.

Attention: Members Interested in Telling Their Stories!

The May 2024 board minutes have been uploaded and may be accessed by logged in members on the Minutes page.

Acorns to Oaks Issue 45-3 is Available

Members may download Acorns to Oaks from the member area of the website. You must be a current member and log in to download this issue and any of the back issues. If you are a current member and do not remember your password, please use the FORGOT PASSWORD link on the right side of the home page in the login box. If you still can’t log in, please email for help: info@ocgsmi.org

Login here: https://ocgsmi.org/member-login/
Download the issue here: https://ocgsmi.org/our-quarterly-acorns-to-oaks/
Join or renew here: https://ocgsmi.org/join-us/
Download back issues here: https://ocgsmi.org/acorns-to-oaks-back-issues/

PLEASE NOTE:
Some email addresses are rejecting our email claiming we are sending spam content. We cannot control how email servers handle our outgoing mail. Please check the website for new content occasionally, and add these email addresses to your whitelist:

list@ocgsmi.org
info@ocgsmi.org

“Finding Courage to Accept the Good, the Bad and the Unexpected in your Family History”

We hope all our local members will join us on June 4 at 7 p.m. at St. Stephens Episcopal Church, 5500 N Adams Rd, Troy, MI 48098. We will be “broadcasting” via Zoom for our more distant members.

A case study will be presented by genealogist Karen Batchelor on lessons learned and wisdom gained from over 45 years of researching her unique family history with its many surprising twists and turns.

This will be a  hybrid meeting and we hope to see our local members in person!
Our more distant members may join us via Zoom. This will be a learning experience for all of us.

If you cannot attend in person, register to watch on Zoom here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrcOChqjsqHNKiUeHMsNhzmbkMqJ2g54FH

Our speaker, Karen Bachelor, a Detroit attorney is recognized as the first know black member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.