TxSGS Helps Partner Society Members by Offering Virtual Meeting Resources

In the current environment of “social distancing” and library closings, it is impossible for most genealogical societies to conduct regular, in-person meetings. For that reason, the Texas State Genealogical Society is making virtual meeting resources available to TxSGS Partner Society members. We hope by supporting our Partner Societies in this way, we can help to lessen the impact of the pandemic on our genealogical community.

We will host a TxSGS Partner Society’s regularly scheduled meeting online, at no cost to the society.

TxSGS facilitators will set up the meeting, provide you with the information you need to join the meeting, and monitor the meeting while it is taking place in case there are questions or technical issues. You will be responsible for communicating the information about the meeting to your members and/or to the public and planning the program.

Already have a speaker scheduled?

We will work with your speaker in advance to test their remote access capabilities. You are responsible for selecting and finalizing an agreement with your speaker for the meeting and for announcing and promoting the meeting to your members and/or the public.

Need a speaker? Select from ten prerecorded webinars available for you to use.

You can use any of these prerecorded webinars for a regularly scheduled meeting of your society, using either our virtual hosting platform or your own. We will also provide the syllabus for those attending the virtual meeting. These sessions were recorded live at the TxSGS 2019 Family History Conference in Houston, October 11-13, 2019. Partner Society members are eligible for one free prerecorded webinar per year. Other recordings are available on a subscription basis. To learn more, visit Partner Society Webinar Series.

1. Way Up Yonder in the Indian Nations: Oklahoma Native American Basic Research in the Five Tribes, Nancy Calhoun
2. Birds of a Feather – Y-DNA Research and Group Projects, Janine Cloud
3. Orphans, Infants, and Minors: Genealogy Nuggets, and Pitfalls in Guardianship Records, Melissa Corn Finlay
4. Advanced Y-DNA Tools and Analysis, Gale French
5. Research Treasures in the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration), Sharon Gillins
6. Organizing Your Genealogy While Downsizing and Planning for Your Retirement, Devon Noel Lee
7. From Microfilm to Hyperspace: Billions of Family Records at Your Fingertips, Andrew Lee
8. Using Digital Libraries: Search Strategies for Family Historians, Elizabeth O’Neal
9. Read ‘Em or Weep: Promise and Pitfalls in Newspaper OCR, Mary Roddy
10. Roman Catholics, Record, and Rites of Passage, Lisa Toth Salinas

To learn more about these presentations, visit our website for Partner Society Webinar Series Program.

There is no cost to your society for hosting your meeting or for showing these webinars, however, due to our licensing and contractual obligations, the society must be a Partner Society member of TxSGS. Annual dues for a Partner Society Membership are $30 per year. If your society is not already a member, you can learn more about membership and how to join TxSGS here.

We need to receive a request from you at least fourteen days before your regularly scheduled meeting in order to have time to make the arrangements to host it or to make a webinar available.

We will continue to offer these special Partner Society member benefits until you are able to resume in-person meetings, or until 30 September 2020, whichever comes first.

Want to conduct your Partner Society Board or SIG meetings virtually as well?

TxSGS offers help for Partner Society members to conduct small group virtual meetings as well. If your Partner Society is interested in learning how to set up and run their own virtual meetings, we will be happy to provide you with assistance in selecting a meeting platform and show you how to use it.

Contact us at memberinfo@txsgs.org or webinars@txsgs.org for more information, to schedule a virtual meeting, or to show a pre-recorded webinar.