Events

Attendees are invited to share research and stories about fathers and fatherrhood from their own families.

Learn about the various types of genealogy and local history periodicals, and how PERSI can help one find articles to further one’s research.

Curt Witcher is the Director of Special Collections at the Allen County Public Library, managing the widely acclaimed Genealogy Center as well as the Rolland Center for Lincoln Research and the institution’s Fine Books Collection. He is a former president of both the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Genealogical Society, and the founding president of the Indiana Genealogical Society.

Curt has penned many hundreds of articles on topics of interest to family historians, librarians
and archivists, and has presented lectures to historical and genealogical groups across the
country and beyond. He currently serves on the Indiana State Historical Records Advisory
Board, the board of the Friends of the Indiana State Archives, the Indiana Historical Society’s
publications committee, and the executive committee of the Friends of the Lincoln Collection of
Indiana’s Board of Directors. Curt also serves on the Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogy
Society board of directors as well as an advisor for the African American Genealogical Society
of Fort Wayne.

Curt is distinguished as a fellow of both the Indiana Genealogical Society and the Utah
Genealogical Association. Over the decades he led collaborative national efforts to preserve
and make more accessible historical data. For those efforts he has received the Federation of
Genealogical Societies’ Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Humanitarian Award and the National
Genealogical Society’s P. William Filby Award for outstanding, life-time contributions to
genealogical librarianship. Curt’s passion for finding families’ stories and his belief in the power
of those stories to change lives has been recognized by numerous organizations, most recently
receiving the Indiana Historical Society’s 2019 Eli Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award for
extraordinary contributions to the field of history. Curt has completed four decades of service at
the Allen County Public Library.

Follow up discussion from the general meeting on June 17 with speaker Curt Witcher.

Angie Bush, MS, is the Region 1 Director for the National Genealogical Society, and the chair of the Genetic Genealogy committee. Her day job is as Genetic Genealogist Researcher with Ancestry ProGenealogists in Salt Lake City. Angie has been interested in her genealogy since she was very young. After college, she spent several years working in biotech while continuing to pursue her genealogy hobby. With the growing popularity and introduction of autosomal DNA testing in 2012, she decided to combine her two loves into one career. Although she spends a lot of time working on recent unknown parentage cases (adoptions, unknown fathers), her favorite type of research to do involves solving decades old “brick-walls” using a combination traditional records and genetic evidence. She is a popular speaker and presenter, and enjoys attending conferences where she can connect with others who share her passion for genealogy. Ms. Bush is a Utah native and lives in Sandy, Utah.

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[This meeting will be held online with Zoom and an invitation will be sent out to the VCGS DNA SIG via email about 12 hours prior to the meeting. If you are not already on the email list you may contact the webmaster at webmaster@venturacogensoc.org to be added.]

Attendees are invited to share stories about their early American ancestors, or others whose lives and experiences embodied the spirit of American Independence.

The VCGS Mexican-American Special Interest Group meets to discuss historical literature, research strategies and current information pertaining to Mexican-American Genealogy. We strive to encourage our members to assist one another, as well as the general public in learning about family history. Members and attendees are encouraged to propose topics for discussion and to share ideas and knowledge in Mexican-American genealogy so that we can grow as a group.

Our meetings are open to the public and you don’t have to be a VCGS member to attend. We currently meet six times a year on zoom, The meetings are held in odd months of the year, (January, March, May, July, September, and November) on the first Saturday of the month.

Our next Zoom meeting will take place on Saturday, July 1, 2023 from 10:00 a.m to 11:30 a.m. 

To request to attend our meeting please contact Juan Venegas @ jvenegasgenealogy@gmail.com or Nancy Lehnhardt @ nancylgenealogy@gmail.com

Learn from 4 case studies how DNA was used to overcome a brick wall that stood since the 1950s using Y-DNA, solved the mystery of the mother of two sisters using mtDNA, a surprise revealing step-grandpa was really dad using autosomal DNA, and lastly, one that solved a case of an unknown father by using the X match. Also included is an overview of the 4 types of DNA used in genealogy: Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), autosomal DNA (Family Finder) and X Match and how to decode the confusing terms of DNA.

Professionally, Cheri Mello is a math teacher with degrees in psychology, sociology, human and child development, and master’s in education. She became a National Board Certified Teacher, the most prestigious and highest teaching credential in the educational world.

The genealogy bug was planted in Cheri, a South Bay native, with the 5th grade history project. Her maternal grandmother gave her some material for her project. She used it later for a Girl Scout badge and pulled out the information many times and wondered about her family and how she could learn more. Some of this material is still incorporated into her current presentations.

Cheri began her active adult research over 25 years ago, after the death of her remaining grandparents. She has done research in many states, even taking trips overseas in search of her Portuguese ancestry. Thirteen years ago, she became involved in DNA, and was recruited as the Project Administrator for the Azores DNA project. She runs five DNA projects and manages mailing lists involving PortugueseAzorean genealogy. Cheri lectures now not only on Portuguese and DNA topics, but a host of other topics including software programs and Find-A-Grave.

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[VCGS and Conejo Valley Genealogical Society DNA SIGs are coordinating topics and are alternating hosting meetings for our combined DNA SIG memberships. (Note that CVGS’s DNA SIG meets on Friday afternoons.) This meeting will be held online with Zoom and an invitation will be sent out to the CVGS DNA SIG via email about 12 hours prior to the meeting. If you are not already on the CVGS DNA SIG email list you may contact Colleen Yinger (csyinger@roadrunner.com) to be added.]

Norman Bambridge will present the third in his series of talks on the history of Freemasonry.