SACRAMENTO GERMAN GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, Exhibitor at Family History Day

It is a pleasure to introduce the Sacramento German Genealogical Society as an exhibitor at Family History Day at the California State Archives.

The Sacramento German Genealogy Society (SGGS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation founded in 1983. It promotes the search for family histories of those who have a German heritage, provides educational resources for those seeking to learn how to research their German ancestry, and seeks to increase the public's understanding of the cultural history of life in the German-speaking areas of Europe and United States.

SGGS holds week-day monthly lectures featuring local and out-of-town German genealogy experts. At those meetings attendees can purchase German genealogy research books, maps and tools. Attendees can also browse member pedigree charts, use the books in the SGGS library, discuss research problems with volunteers at the help desk and engage in a question/answer discussion with local experts or the featured speaker. Establishing additional monthly meetings on Saturday is currently under consideration.

SGGS also runs a monthly workshop, weekly mentor sessions, an annual seminar and occasional special events. The monthly workshop is a small-group meeting where you can discuss your research problems with the experts leading the meeting and the other attendees. The mentor sessions occur every Thursday afternoon at the Sacramento Regional Family History Center where volunteer mentors will provide personal assistance in the use that research facility. The annual seminar is an all-day Saturday event with lectures from one or two out-of-the-area speakers. SGGS occasionally hosts special events such as its 25th anniversary which local featured German folk dancers and singers. The monthly meetings are free and open to the pubic. The annual seminar and special events are fee-based.

In addition to meetings, SGGS also provides a number of services such as an informational website, a list of approved German translators (charge a fee), surname queries and customized handshake packets. SGGS volunteers create useful publications that are subsequently sold to meeting attendees. These include a reference catalog to the German resources available at the Sacramento Regional Family History Center and a comprehensive index for all of the Der Blumenbaum journals (since 1984).

You are invited to join us. Guests are always welcome at our meetings. Joining the organization entitles you to receive the award-winning quarterly journal Der Blumenbaum, annual seminar and special event registration discounts, e-mailed notifications and the right to submit your pedigree charts and surname queries. Since SGGS is a public charity, a portion of your dues is tax-deductible.

We are excited about being at Family History Day and look forward to talking to you at our exhibit about your German ancestry research.

Sacramento German Genealogy Society

P.O. Box 660061

Sacramento, CA 95866-0061

(1) 361-2956

E-mail: sggsinfo@gmail.com

 

SHIRLEY RIEMER - Family History Day Speaker

It is a pleasure to introduce Shirley Riemer who will be a speaker at Family History Day at the California State Archives.

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Shirley Riemer earned her Masters Degree in English from Carnegie-Mellon University. She taught high school English for ten years, then worked in communications for 22 years in Pennsylvania. Following her retirement, her book, The German Research Companion, was published in 1997, followed by a second edition in 2000, now sold out. For the third edition, which appeared in April 2010, she added two additional authors: Dr. Roger P. Minert and Jennifer A. Anderson. In 2001 she co-authored with Dr. Roger P. Minert the book Researching in Germany: A Handbook for Your Visit to the Homeland of Your Ancestors. For the last 18 years, she has published Der Blumenbaum, the award-winning quarterly journal of the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. For the last nine years she has also published the quarterly newsletter, Mitteilungen, for the Sacramento Turn Verein German-American Cultural Center – Library.

In response to her never-ending awe of the history and culture of our ancestors, she will have ventured out onto her 41st visit to Germany in August this year. As the editor of German-interest publications, Shirley has worked extensively with German family history researchers known nationally for their expertise in the field – in order to disseminate information helpful to descendants of German immigrants who are actively pursuing their German family history.

Shirley Riemer will present Getting Started In German Genealogy.
This session will focus on the first steps the German family historian must take to gain an understanding of the cultural, historical and genealogical facts essential to German ancestral research. The basics of the Second German Empire as they are relative to German research will be laid out so as to create an understanding of the basic organization of German and German-American records. A brief overview of German church and civil records, some peculiarities of such records, and several other basic research tools will be discussed.