New changes at local genealogy society

Because so many new and exciting things are happening with our little corner of Nebraska genealogy society, I'm going to put a bit of the "brag" on in this column!

First and foremost, thanks to the generosity of our landlord, McCook National Bank, we were able to obtain the suite next door to our library and double the amount of space for records and meetings. The new "digs" allowed us to place rarely used items in storage and then we were able to clean, inventory and expand visually the large amount of research material in the library.

While the creation of our dedicated classroom is still a work in progress, thanks to the hard work of our members, the library is organized in a manner that is user friendly.

The second important change is our moving to our own website which was created and is maintained by our current society president, Tom Corey.

One problem that is still being worked out concerns the fact that when you search for our group on other sites, the new www.swngs.org may not always be shown as a link. Just remember you no longer have to access our pages through another source, just type in the above address and then add the site to favorites on your computer.

Initial searches on our Society page are free! We are constantly updating and adding research material to the already impressive on line information we provide.

While there are areas that allow only members to view, the majority of the basic information will be displayed from search requests. Our site searches are powered by FreeFind, which in my estimation does an excellent job with surname requests, but always remember that variations in spellings and possible transcription errors may prevent you from finding every instance that surname appears on our site, so visiting the actual pages, IE: Cemeteries, 1906 City of McCook Census, Graduates (High School graduates of Red Willow County), may reveal an ancestor that doesn't show up in the search.

I've mentioned this before but it is worth talking about again and that is the fact that we have the original early Red Willow County marriage certificates in our library and you can search the index for these precious documents by going to Marriages on our website. Should you find a certificate you wish to have a copy of, you can visit our library and one of our members will copy the certificate for you for a small fee.

We also have a searchable index of court records from the inception of Red Willow County to 1930 online. The original public documents actually cover up to 1975, but because the society respects the privacy of the living, you may only search the records from 1931-1975 by visiting our library.

Finally and probably most important, we have expanded our open library hours. Now we are not only open the first and third Saturdays of each month, but we are also open every Tuesday and Thursday from 1:30-4 p.m. The Saturday schedule is 1:30-3 p.m.; the first Saturday will be open library and a business meeting, the third Saturday will be open library and free Legacy Tree classes, 110 West C Street, Suite M-3 in the Merit Building.

Sherrie Dack's college class offerings for next week are as follows: Tuesday, March 15, and Thursday, March 17, 7-9 p.m.-Genealogy 101: Military Research, Lineage Societies and Land Ho. For more information go to www.centerforenterprise.com.