Maryland Genealogical Society
Maryland Genealogical Society

Welcome!

Since 1959, the Maryland Genealogical Society has been promoting genealogical study and research.   Through our publications, programs, resources, and outreach, the Society can help you explore your family history.
 
If you are already a member of the Society, you can log in by clicking on the Members Only link. If you are not already a member, we encourage you to become a member and begin receiving all the benefits of membership.  
 
And we hope that you'll follow us on Facebook for timely news and information.
 
        
    
                      

 

Join Us at the Next MGS Virtual Meetup!

Our next online Zoom meetup for MGS members will be held on Wednesday, March 27th, from 7:00-9:00pm. The topic will be Ethnic Research, with the following breakout rooms: 
  • African American  (with guest speaker LaJoy Mosby, President of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society)
  • German
  • Irish/United Kingdom
  • Jewish  (with guest speaker Lara Diamond, President of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland)
  • Polish
Handouts will be provided with links and tips for each topic. 
 
MGS Meetups are open only to MGS members and are free to attend. Registration is required. In the Members Only area of the website, click on "MGS Virtual Meetups" on the left navigation bar to access the registration link.
 
Hope to see you there!
 

 

Finding Your Roots Online Webinar Series

The Maryland Genealogical Society is pleased to once again partner with Maryland Public Television (MPT) to offer a new beginner-to-intermediate genealogy webinar series. Finding Your Roots Online will include four (4) two-hour sessions focused on the fundamentals of key online sources of genealogical records and how to use them to research your ancestors. Sessions will be held at 7:00pm ET on April 17, May 1, May 15, and May 29. 
 
Sessions include:
  • Doing a Deep Dive Into Ancestry’s Collections
  • Digging Deeper Into FamilySearch’s Free Records
  • Ancestors in Black and White: Resources for the Era of Slavery and Beyond
  • Crossing the Pond: Resources for Finding Our Ancestors in the U.S. and Abroad
Registrants will also receive a one-year introductory membership to the Maryland Genealogical Society (not applicable to current MGS members) and a one-year MPT Passport membership or membership extension.  You can register on the MPT registration page.
 
The cost of the series is $100.00. Each session will feature a combination of lecture, small and large group discussion, question and answer time, and a homework assignment relating to your family search. Handouts will be provided for each session. The webinars will be recorded. 
 
The workshop series will be led by nationally known speaker Annette Burke Lyttle, who was the presenter for the 2023 MGS/MPT webinars on records and research. Her company, Heritage Detective, LLC, provides professional genealogical services in research, education, and writing. She is coordinator of the Virtual Intermediate Foundations course for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, president of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and editor of The Florida Genealogist.
 

 

All Issues of the MGS Journal Now Online

We’re excited to announce that all issues of the Maryland Genealogical Society Journal, from 2008 to the present, are now available online to MGS members! The Journal’s predecessor publication, the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin, already was online, which means that members can now access over 60 years of informative articles on Maryland families and genealogical records. 
 
To access the issues, sign in as a member and select “MGS Bulletin & Journal” from the dropdown menu under "Members Only" on the left navigation bar. To learn what articles appear in each issue, you can consult the Journal cumulative table of contents and the Bulletin cumulative table of contents. Cumulative indexes for all volumes also are available for review.
 
New issues of the Journal will be posted as they are published.
 
 

 

January 2024 MGS News

 
The January 2024 edition of MGS News is now available. If you are a MGS member, you should have received the issue by email. If you are a member and haven't provided us with your email, please contact us at info@mdgensoc.org so that you can begin to receive MGS News
 
Archived copies of this issue and previous issues are available in the Member's Only area
 
 
 
 

 

MGS Journal

 
In the most recent issue of the Journal, Helen Hinchliff investigates the curious story of multiple people named Harriet Davidson and Jacob Shott who were married in Baltimore in the early 1800s. Were these all different people? Or were there errors in the records? The author sorts through all the available evidence and provides a chronology of the lives of each of the Harriets and Jacobs, with the goal of coming to a supportable conclusion about who married whom. Michael Hait examines the case of two Civil War soldiers with the same name: Isaac Hawkins. One Isaac Hawkins came from Prince George’s County and the other from Calvert County, but there are many parallels in their experiences. John Deeben relates the story of a battalion of Maryland soldiers who met with disaster in the Battle of the Wabash, one of the worst disasters in U.S. military history. The author provides a list of the names of Gaither’s Battalion. Bridget Sunderlin explores the question of the identities of the parents of Martha Cecelia Wright. In this case study, she demonstrates the use of various kinds of records, including church records, civil records, and DNA, to bring together the evidence for identifying Martha’s parents.
 
Fredric Saunders offers a correction to an earlier article on the identity of Jane Cornish, based on newly available digitized records from Tiverton, in Devon, England. Sandy Quick brings us the third part of her series on using GPS for genealogical purposes. Part 1 of this series described what GPS is and explored why GPS coordinates are essential elements in our genealogical records. Part 2 described how to capture this valuable data. And Part 3 demonstrates how to use GPS data in genealogical research. And Allender Sybert reviews current books and genealogical resources in our review section.
 
The full table of contents for the newest issue is available to review, as are the tables of contents of earlier issues. Earlier issues of the Journal are available for sale, and members receive a discounted price. We are actively seeking articles for the Journal, and encourage you to take a look at our submission guidelines
 

 

Used Genealogy Books For Sale

(Image by Emma Lopez, posted on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.)MGS has an inventory of used genealogy-related books available for purchase on the For Sale page. MGS members receive a 12% discount on purchases. (Be sure to be signed in on the website as a member before ordering!) All prices already include shipping and handling. Sales are first come, first served!

In addition to books on Maryland, our current inventory includes the following topics: family histories; U.S., British, German, New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia research; photography, lineage societies, royalty and nobility, heraldry, and general interest. We will be adding books as they become available.
 

 

We're Looking for Your Photos!

 
Would you like to see images of your ancestors included on the MGS Web site? Members are encouraged to submit photos for inclusion in the gallery of images at the top of the page that rotate and change each time visitors go to a new page on the Web site. (Each has a caption that you can read by hovering your cursor over the image.) For more information about submitting images, click here.