• PGSA Board Opening
• Make a Difference for PGSA
• Pay Membership Dues Online
• PGSA's 2009 Conference Brochure Now Available
• Support the Paderewski Room
• Revised PGSA Bylaws
• Naturalization Records Volunteer Project Milestone Reached
• Members only Login Test Phase 2.5 has begun 
• PGSA Genealogy Forum
• What's New on the Site

Board Opening!
Recently one of our PGSA Board members resigned and we are now looking to fill that position. As a Director, you are expected to attend 4-6 meetings a year, as needed, either in person or by phone. We also assume that anyone applying for the Board wants to contribute either his/her time and or expertise in furthering the goals of the organization. If you are at all interested and would like more information, please contact the Nominations Chair, Richard Stanowski, rstanowski@owc.net, (815) 337-5835.

Make a Difference
The PGSA Marketing Committee is working to get the word out about our September 18/19 conference. But a grass roots effort can make the difference between just satisfactory results and a spectacular success. You can Make A Difference by telling someone or encouraging attendance at the conference.

How can you do it? Here are two possibilities with the means to accomplish them.

1. Copy the conference poster and send it to a friend or take it to your local library or grocery or any place where it can be seen by the public. Your poster placement could be the first inkling that Poles, with strange names like Lindberg, Carter, Kirby or LaCerra, will learn that there might be a way to find their Polish roots.
2. Churches of all denomination often publish weekly announcements or a Bulletin. Would they be willing to include a notice about our conference? If you don’t know what to say, we have a few suggestions.

PS) Don’t be shy! Tell us what you did and how you did it. Our Marketing Committee wants to know what you did to Make A Difference. Contact the Marketing Chair.

Tired of writing checks?
You can now join the PGSA online. Click on New Membership and then click on the "Become a member of PGSA" link. Complete the registration form and safely pay for your membership via PayPal with your credit card. Current PGSA members, particularly those whose membership expires on July 31 of this year, can renew online but the process is only slightly different. Click on Renew Membership and sign in. Unless you changed it, your password is your membership number (see your Rodziny mailing label). You will be taken to your Membership Profile. One of the links on this page is "Renew My Membership Online". Follow the link to select the renewal option you want. Payment can be made via PayPal.

Mark Your Calendar
Make room on your calendar for the Polish Genealogical Society of America’s annual conference:

Download the conference brochure which includes a detailed schedule, speaker bios, fees, and registration form. You can now register for the conference online.

Speakers confirmed to date:

• Don Litzer, former librarian of the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN
• Kahlile Mehr, manager of the Slavic/Germanic Collection at the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City
• Dr. Michael J. Mikos, professor of foreign languages and linguistics at University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
• Cynthia Piech, Board Member and Treasurer of the PGSA
• Craig Pfannkuche, president of Memory Trail Research, Inc. and genealogical archivist at the Chicago and Northwestern Historical Society
• Julianna Smith, editor of Ancestry.com newsletters, author of genealogy books and magazine articles
• Loretto Szucs, author of genealogy books and executive director and vice president of community relations at Ancestry magazine

Support Renovation of the Paderewski Room
The Polish Museum and The Polish Genealogical Society of America (PGSA) share a common goal of preserving Polish Culture and History: both that of the individual as well as of Poland itself.

Since we work so closely together, even sharing the same facility, we would like to make our members aware of a project that is dear to the Museum and for which they would greatly appreciate any and all monetary contributions.

The Museum is in the process of renovating the Ignacy Jan Paderewski room. It is a repository of memorabilia documenting Paderewski’s career, not only as an artist, but as an influential statesman.

This project has involved tearing the room apart in order to restore and up-grade cabinets, lighting, flooring, add air-conditioning and repainting of the walls. While much of the work has been supplied by pro-bono labor, there is still a need for donations.

If you are interested in preserving and showcasing our Polish heritage for future generations of Polish Americans, please send a check payable to :
The Polish Museum of America
984 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago , IL 60642
Attn: Paderewski Room

If all goes as planned, the grand re-opening is scheduled for Friday, November 6, 2009.

Revised PGSA Bylaws
The PGSA Board of Directors approved a new set of bylaws at its May 17th meeting. Voting by the general membership to accept the bylaws will take place at the next General Meeting, August 9th, 2009. You may download a copy of the new bylaws prior to the meeting. 

Attention PGSA members!  We have begun Phase 2.5 of our Members Only testing.  All logins require your email address and your membership number (from your Rodziny label).  Informational updates of our test progress will be found in this section. 

New software has been installed that will  allow us to make this the members only feature available. But like many new things, we won't know how well they will work until we try them out.  PGSA members can get a preview of the Member's Only section.

This feature is still very much a work in progress and subject to change. When you log in, you will have the option to look at your profile and change it.  You may now keep your contact information information current so as not to miss any Rodziny.  You can change to a new email address provided you have logged in under the old one first.  You may view your membership expiration date and the details of your last dues payment. 

Visit Members log in and use your email address as your login ID and your membership number as your password. Look around and see if it works as expected.

WORLD ARCHIVES PROJECT
Thanks to your hard work and dedication, we have reached a milestone of sorts. As of June 8, over 50% of the keying has been completed. Bravo! Keep up the good work and the keying will probably be done before the end of the year. Newcomers welcome to pitch in too!

Ancestry.com is sponsoring a “community” keying effort entitled “The World Archive Project.” Ancestry is digitizing records and enlisting the help of Societies and individuals to key-in indexes for the digitized records. The resultant indexes will be free on Ancestry.com and the websites of Societies whose members contribute to the effort. In addition, the indexed images will also be made available to society members through its website.

Ancestry.com has requested the help of PGSA for the indexing of Naturalization information it has digitized for Cook County as well as surrounding areas in Northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin , northwest Indiana and a portion of Iowa . These records cover all courts.

PGSA is looking for member volunteers who would consider participating in this project. Ancestry would arrange for the download of the record batches. The task would be to key-in about a dozen pieces of information from type-written data into a file. The best part is that this work can be done in the comfort of your home and at any hour of the day or night.

Why does PGSA support this project? Wherever the index appears the forms will include the logo and contact information for the Society providing the assistance, raising the awareness of the Society.

What do you gain from your participation? You will become an expert on the source material you are indexing, make a meaningful contribution to genealogical research and raise the awareness of PGSA—and that means the potential for more family contacts.

Volunteers can go directly to the website (www.ancestry.com/worldarchivesproject) to sign up. In the middle of the page is a list of the projects, please choose Illinois Naturalizations (our project). Clicking onit will take you to the next screen which has a place for Registration. You will be asked for your name and e-mail. Continue to follow the prompts, and your response to "how did you find out about the project" should be PGSA. When you conplete the registration, the special "tool" that facilitages the process will be downloaded. When that is completed, you are ready to begin at any time.

If you have any problems or questions that are not address in the FAQ section, our Ancestry contact is Loretto Szucs.

Your effort to help PGSA with this important project is most appreciated. As of May 17, data entry was over 42% complete and increases at the rate of about 2% per week.  Help make it increase even faster.  Thank you!

Introducing the PGSA Genealogy Forum
PGSA announces the creation of the PGSA Genealogy Forum to help people help each other in conducting their family history research. See what other people are working on. Perhaps you know something that can help them? To post your own questions or responses, you will need to register by clicking the word "register" above the login box. The forum is free. Get started by posting those burning questions today!

What's New on the Site !

Members Only Area - New Additions

Immigrant Family Tree Database - Additional Families have been Uplaoded

St. Joseph County Marriage Database - New Addition

Minnesota Marriage Records - New Addition

Posen Marriage Database - http://pgsa.org/paidmembership/PosenMar.php

See this pilot database of extracted marriage records from parishes in Poland transcribed as part of a project headed by Lukasz Bielecki. If you have transcribed for the "Posen Marriage Project" we want to make your work available on the PGSA website, contact us.  webmaster@pgsa.org ... We are not competing with Lukasz,  just expanding the availability of valuable data. Please help us.

.Polish Genealogy on "FACEBOOK" -  Join PGSA member Michael Mulholland and his 100 strong following members in the study of Polish Genealogy on  this social networking site. Membership is free and its fun  

Summary of Mike Karsen's presentation on 9 November 2008.