IPS Is Tough To Deal With

When we read that the Indianapolis Public Schools 

were going to close a new round of elementary schools, 

we sent the following letter to the Principals of those buildings.

We knew that IPS was overly fond of dumpsters for their historical records, 

and we were hoping to avoid that this time. 

We sent copies to 83, Bellamy, 65, 94, 56, and 114, plus we followed up with an email in August.

Can you guess what kind of response we received? Can you say ZERO, boys and girls? 

The schools are now closed, so where are the records???

 

Free Lecture On Indiana Black History Sep. 7

The Indiana Historical Society is co-sponsoring this free lecture 

on a subject that many, if not most, Hoosiers know nothing about.

Let's pack the hall and change that a bit. Visit the IHS website. 

See you there.

 

Warren Township History Center

We are pleased to announce the creation of the

Warren Township History Center as part of our GSMC Library.

We were able to do this because of the recent 

donation of materials by Warren Central High School. 

We combined these items with some assets 

we already had to make this new section. 

We do have more to add and we anticipate additional donations.

Come in and take a look and feel free to browse.

 

Unscripted Program Meetings

Many, if not most, genealogists will confess that they enjoy 

the pre- and post-meeting sessions, 

where attendees can just listen, participate, and enjoy the round-robin chats.

Think about attending your next meetings in person and be part of the gang.

 

Consider Becoming Our Member Partner

Thanks Much!!

 

Job Posting At State Archives

 The Indiana State Archives is hiring a Reference Assistant! 

This role does not require an MLS and may be a great fit for someone working on an online degree or looking to get experience in the archives field. (Plus, the state has a great tuition reimbursement program!) Please share with anyone who may be interested.

 

This position will serve as the first point of contact for archives patrons, will answer ready reference questions and will provide basic reference assistance. They will direct callers to other external or internal resources, will great Archives visitors and will assist with the volunteer program. The reference assistant will also create inventories, indexes and finding aids to archival records, as well as assist with digitization and metadata creation.

 

The job is posted as Records Analyst here: https://workforindiana.in.gov/job/Indianapolis-Records-Analyst-IN-46219/1065731500/

 

State Archives Groundbreaking, Pt. 2

The Indiana Government press team released this photo of the 

ceremonial event of getting the State Archives building underway. 

We were glad to see it's finally moving. 

[For a state government regularly talking about diversity, 

does it look like a shocking lack of same at this event?

 

Greenlawn Networking Support

Barbara Cline Hutchinson and Ron Darrah of GSMC 

met recently with Eunice Trotter and Duane Perry of the Black Heritage Preservation Program. 

Both groups are working to insure the construction projects around the former 

Greenlawn Cemetery site respect the burials certain to be uncovered. 

We would appreciate your support for this effort.

 

What On Earth Is This?

This curious object turned up in a recent donation collection. 

If you are a newby doing genealogy in the last 10 years or so, it's a puzzle. 

If you're a veteran like many of us, you will instantly recognize a 5 inch floppy disc. This is a 2nd or 3rd generation storage device; I think there was a 12 inch and an 8 inch before this.

It didn't hold much data and it was slow, but we though it was fantastic,

My, how technology changes!!

 

State Archives Groundbreaking Tuesday

 A long awaited State Archives groundbreaking ceremony will be held on 

Tuesday, August 15. at 11 am, beside the Canal downtown. 

If you want to personally verify that is it happening, just be there and watch.

State employee contact below:

Great Spanish-American War Resource

 We just acquired this great book about a very misunderstood period in American history. 

It's titled, "Leslie's Official History of the Spanish American War." 

It's oversize and crammed full of photos and paintings, and produced by the War Department in 1899.

WorldCat says there's only three copies within 100 miles: 

State Library, Allen County Library, and the GSMC Library.

C'mon down and give it a look-see.

Archives Military Program Wednesday

 

On Wednesday, Aug. 23 at 10 a.m., the Indiana Archives and Records Administration will present "Modern Military Records Overview." This free webinar will be presented virtually via Microsoft Teams.

Indiana Archives reference assistant Daniel Stearns will detail the archives' collection of military records from World War II, the Korean War,

the Vietnam War and later wars. 

The presentation will cover the following topics:

- What modern military records are available from IARA?
- Why they are here?
- How they are organized?
- How they can be requested?

The presentation is expected to last 45 minutes

and will be eligible for one LEU for Indiana library staff.

Click here to view the Indiana State Library's LEU policies.

To register, please send an email to Daniel Stearns.

Directories Anyone??

 We are running into a little space problem, 

as several large collections made their way to our shop recently. 

Something had to give and these directories had to go. 

(They're digitized at the IUPUI Library!) 

If you want any of them, come to our library any Wednesday or call for an appointment.

Library Volunteers Dazzle Wednesday

Can you say 2,787?

GSMC onsite volunteers Amy Booher, Jenny Greene, and Janet Stroebel, plus remote volunteer Doug Scott really put the pedal to the metal during our Wednesday open session. 

At the end of the day our Greenlawn burial count was exactly 2,787! This section of our Cemetery Module, which is free and open to the public, has become a serious Marion County research resource. 

You owe it to your ancestors to take a look. 

We owe it to our volunteers to express the appreciation of countless researchers. Well Done!!

 Do you have any headstone photos? We can add them to our entries.

Crown Hill Program On Saturday

Coverage of Crown Hill Cemetery by Jeannie Regan-Dinius: 

It just doesn't get any better than that!

 

Warren Township Project Underway

GSMC picked up the materials shown here on Thursday. 

Our job now is to organize them and make them available for researchers. 

We will digitize some of them, but most will be GSMC library files.

We will start on Wednesday, August 9th. 

If you want to be part of the Warren team, drop by and jump right in. 

 

Ready For A Challenge??

             The Indiana Genealogical Society is reaching out to all the genealogists of Indiana to see if we can collect some names of brick walls that have connections to Indiana in some way for a WikiTree Challenge. Participating in the WikiTree Challenge will promote IGS and also areas of Indiana.            

            WikiTree has agreed to do an IGS Facebook Live event in December to explain who they are and the various challenges they do to help build a sourced family tree. 

            We need to gather about 7 names to be researched and WikiTree will make profiles if they don't have one yet ready for the challenge. IGS challenge is scheduled for August 31 to September 7. 

            Once we have the names, we check to make sure they aren't already well connected on WikiTree, and then we get the individual profiles ready for the challenge. During the challenge week, our participants work  to push the lines out as far as they can in seven degrees in all directions. 

            Shortly after the challenge week ends, WikiTree would do a "reveal" to IGS and share what we found.  They typically do this through Streamyard and stream live to YouTube. If there were a few people from the challenge who could join them in the livestream that would be great. Interested?

          Contact: jonmarie.pearson@thesimplelivinggenealogist.com.

Greenlawn 2,000+ And Counting!!

Greenlawn City Cemetery has way fewer unknown burials than a few days ago.

Today GSMC volunteers reached an impressive 2,009 grave listings in this neglected site.

Researchers should take a look to see if their folks are now part of this group.

Keep checking back, as we are not done yet.