Summary of July’s Meeting

Summary of July’s Meeting

Disclaimer: Edited for public viewing. This summary may not contain all items discussed in the business or public meetings. Names mentioned are limited to Officers of OCGS.

Hello Society Members,

Hope all are doing well in this heat.

Having had to cancel the June meeting, our meeting today was filled with Old and New business.

Old business was mainly reporting back on previous motions approved. The approval to offer a genealogical educational partnership with the local school systems fell through from lack of volunteers. Should someone wish to head this idea up in the future it can be revisited.

Several new business items came up.

Past meetings have discussed how Traci and Darrell have been attending a steering committee to form a new Genealogical Consortium made up of groups and individuals in the Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas area. The new group is going by the name of The 4 Corners Consortium, representing the four states. Approval was made allowing OCGS to join this consortium as a founding member.

Traci asked for approval to purchase 4 books, in a series published by the National Genealogical Society, referred to as the “NGS In The States Series”. The books selected were Oklahoma; The American Indian of Oklahoma; Missouri; and Arkansas. As usual, these books will then be donated to the Okmulgee Public Library’s Genealogy Department.

These books were commissioned by the NGS to document the various resource centers and other resources available, in each state, for genealogical research. The books selected for purchase were based on their ties to Oklahoma and the migration pattern of people arriving to early Oklahoma. It was felt that many of our members, and people visiting our library, will have a need to know where the resources are located in these particular 3 states.

After the books come in, please review them and if you have a State, you feel would help in your research, we will be glad to present it in a future meeting for consideration.

Darrell announced working with Kathy Huber at the Tulsa Public Library on a donation of duplicate books they have in their genealogical library. A total of 19 books were selected and donated to OCGS. We then approved donating these books to the Okmulgee Public Library for inclusion in their genealogical department. The names of these books will be sent out in a separate email to all members.

Traci Barber, who became the newest member of the Okmulgee Cemetery Association made our group aware the OCA’s website is currently offline as they seek both a webmaster to build a new site and they seek a new company to host the server needs for said website. Traci has volunteered her services to build their website.

As a gesture of goodwill, it was moved and approved to offer to OCA excess capacity which we have through our server host. It was noted the OCA has made several improvements within the cemetery grounds. One of which is the raising of over 1,500 tombstones which had been buried over time. Another effort is the ongoing preservation and conversion of their 112 years’ worth of records. The OCGS would like to show our moral support for these actions which will aid present and future genealogists and feel an offer to share resources is a small way to show our appreciation of their efforts.

Finally, it has been mentioned before, and was repeated for this meeting, how the Muskogee County Genealogical Society is hosting a Zoom webinar in November. The guest speaker is
Maureen Taylor, whose presentation is titled “Buns, Beards, Bodices and Bustles: Understanding Ancestors Through Clothing”. This type of knowledge is valuable in trying to identify the age of old photographs in your collection.

MCGS has invited the groups working towards creating the 4 Corners Consortium to be their guests for this presentation. Knowing they are doing this at no small cost, it was moved and approved to make a small donation to MCGS of $50 to offset a portion of the speaker’s fee for this presentation. Although this was not a requirement in which to attend, it was felt creating good relationships with other genealogical groups will enhance our abilities in the future to provide valuable programs to our members.

After the meeting adjourned, we were supposed to have a speaker from Arkansas speak to the group through Zoom. We lost contact with the speaker and were not able to confirm and had to cancel these plans. So, the meeting was turned to open topics where members shared their latest discoveries and attempts.

The two meeting employed our hybrid setup, utilizing the TV and 2 cameras in the conference room where Barbara and Traci led the meeting while the other members joined online. Although SuddenLink does not always provide adequate bandwidth, which is annoying, the technical pieces are all in place, and have been successfully tested, for when we resume meeting in person.

Last but not least, it was mentioned the last Campfire had a good turnout, and enjoyed quite a few visitors, when we had our speaker Annette Corbel tell us the in and outs of court house researching. We are very thankful for her presentation.

We are all looking forward to seeing each other when we can. Take care.