A look at some other initials…

It’s FGS week here at The Legal Genealogist and that means — to put it mildly — it’s going to be busy.

Today is a travel day, headed to Fort Wayne, Indiana, for the Federation of Genealogical Societies’ annual conference; tomorrow is filled with meetings; and the conference itself kicks off with Society Day on Wednesday.

So you know what that means, right?

Yep.

There isn’t going to be a whole lot of time available to blog.

But so the space isn’t vacant the whole week, as time allows, we can still take a look at the 2018 alphabet soup — and today’s entree will be three letters: F and G and S.

Yes, that does stand for Federation of Genealogical Societies, and it really is worth your time to explore even if you’re not personally the leader of a genealogical society.

As individual genealogists, FGS serves us in a number of key ways:

• It’s a founding member of and provides a web home for the Records Preservation and Access Committee, a joint committee of genealogical societies with a mission “to advise the genealogical community on ensuring proper access to historical records of genealogical value in whatever media they are recorded, on means to affect legislation, and on supporting strong records preservation policies and practices.”

• The FGS blog keeps us all aware of developments we need to know about, not just on records preservation, but on upcoming events and more.

• The FGS FORUM is published quarterly as an interactive electronic magazine providing current information essential to the informed genealogist, and is available by individual subscription ($15 for one year, $25 for two years, $30 for three years).

• It has spearheaded special projects ranging from the Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System to the Preserve the Pensions effort.

And if you are a society leader, there’s a lot more that FGS does for you and for your society, from assistance with the day-to-day management of a genealogical organization to partner membership benefits and even a webinar series focusing on society issues. Just recently, Cari Taplin presented on Building an Education Plan for Your Society. Not to mention being included in the directory on its brand-spanking-shiny-new website, FGS.org.

FGS. Good letters for genealogy.