Genealogy Club Slates Organizational Meeting

By Jan Howard

An organizational meeting for area residents interested in forming and participating in a Genealogy Club based in Newtown will take place Wednesday, September 12, at 7:30 pm at the C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street.

At this meeting, objectives, topics, and meeting times of the club will be discussed, as well as dues and whether refreshments would be offered.

Genealogist Harlan Jessup, who fostered the idea of a Genealogy Club, envisions the group meeting on the second Wednesday of each month in the library’s board room or community room. The group would also have access to the library’s genealogy room. The meeting would last about an hour and a half, from 7:30 to 9 pm.

“An active group at the Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury inspired me to start this,” Mr Jessup said. The Naugatuck Valley group meets once a month on Saturday at the college.

The central purpose of the Newtown club “depends on what they want to do,” Mr Jessup said. “I see it as a place to share experiences with other people and to learn from one another.”

The group might want to invite speakers in the future. Mr Jessup said he would also be interested in leading field trips to such places as the Connecticut State Library, Connecticut Historical Society, and the National Archives in Pittsfield, Mass.

About a dozen people signed up on a list Mr Jessup placed in the library’s genealogy room, and he has sent postcards about the meeting to 30 people.

“I would hope that at our first meeting we will form an executive committee,” he said. While he is willing to offer help and advice, Mr Jessup said he is not interested in being an officer of the group.

He hopes the club members would be willing to participate in service projects associated with the library’s genealogical collection. Some he would like to see accomplished include offering advice on what additions should be made to the collection, helping to organize the collection, doing some indexing of genealogical materials, and indexing historical data, such as obituaries in The Newtown Bee.

Mr Jessup would also like to see the club co-sponsor events, such as an upcoming workshop he will present on October 27, at 10:30 am, at the library entitled “Newtown Records: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue.”

Mr Jessup has been involved in genealogy seriously for about ten years and has been doing it professionally for about six years.

Residents unable to attend the September 12 meeting but who want to be on the mailing list should contact Harlan Jessup at 203-270-7887 or by email at jessup@snet.net.