Hello All –

This e-mail is being directed to the members of the Franklin Co. Gen.  & Hist. Society who are on-line.  If you do not wish to be included  in this group e-mail please let me know and I will delete you from  the list. Also, if your mail box cannot handle e-mail messages of  this size, let me know.  This one is especially big but I do not  envision subsequent messages to be this large.

If you have suggestions for this forum please let me know.

As President of our society for the remainder of 2007, I wanted to  establish a way of connecting with the membership in a more timely  and personal way beyond our quarterly newsletter 'The  Franklintonian.'  Hopefully, this will give you quick access to  select topics from our monthly business meetings, as well as an  up-to-date medium for items that cannot be published in our  newsletter when time is of the essence.  Mostly it will be used for  time-sensitive reminders of current events.

Here is  what you can expect with this communications medium:

-     This forum will be used on an as-needed basis - perhaps once a  month.  It is anticipated that only the President of the society or  the President-Elect will initiate these e-mails, although other  officers and trustees may so do on occasion.

-     The Nominating Committee presently has two vacancies on the  Executive Committee - Assistant Treasurer (some experience with  bookkeeping required) and the President Elect position (some  experience in a similar position most desirable.)  This latter  position automatically assumes the presidency of the society in  January 2010, meaning you will have two years to get up to speed on  our extensive agenda.  If you are interested please contact me,  e-mail as above.

Presently, Jayne Davis is our President-Elect and will begin her two year term in Jan 2008.  A recent appointment - Harold Sword is  filling the vacancy on the Trustees, Class of 2008, vacated by the  resignation of Cheryl Poling Best.

-     Our current hours are M-W-F, 10-3.  Call 469-1300 to verify  someone is there during inclement weather.  We anticipate being open  less often in the winter months.

-     The Dublin Irish Festival is the first weekend in August.  We  will have a table there to help researchers and to promote our society.

-     We have several projects in progress and need additional  volunteers to help extract and index.  A few of these projects are  time-sensitive in that we may have to return the original documents  to their appointed repository without ever having had someone  available to extract them.  We cannot expect to be able to hold these  valuable records indefinitely.  The historic documents we extract are  those we plan to publish.

-     The Pioneer Families deadline is December 31, 2007 for  induction May 2008.  We had a fine turnout this year and took in 3  new members who documented their ancestor's residence in Franklin  Co., OH by 1830.   The Grubb, Kalb, Stephenson and Oberdier pioneers  came in this year.

-     Several us worked The Ohio Genealogical Society Convention in  April - we had a table, sold some publications, and made some new friends.

-     Our African-American Interest Group continues to be our best  attended monthly event.  Our Lorene Magee leads this group.  Next  meeting is August 29th.  See the calendar in the next Franklintonian  for all meeting dates, times and places.

-     The next Franklintonian will be mailed any day now.

Items of interest from the Executive Committee meeting held July 9th were:

-     Dates & times are set for the Ohio Historical Society genealogy  classes through the end of the year.  Some of our society officers  lead some of these classes and attendance has been outstanding at  these classes, which represent a source of income for our society.

-     Beginning Sept. 25th we will resume our general membership  meetings and we have some outstanding speakers lined up for you.  We  will meet from 7-9 pm at the Franklinton Branch of the Columbus Metro  Library, 1061 W. Town St., between Cypress and Dakota Avenues, in  their meeting room.  Light refreshments.

 -    Sep 25 - speaker Franklin Co. Historian - Ed Lentz - slide  presentation - 'Columbus, A Look At Our Past.'

 -    Oct 23 - speaker State Library of Ohio genealogist - Paul Immel -  'Genealogy In Government Documents at the SLO.'

-     Nov 27 - speaker Russ Pollitt of Columbus Metro Library  Genealogical Dept., 'An Update on the library since the SLO  collection was merged.

-     Our Annual Meeting will taken place at Noon, November 10th at  Schmidt's Restaurant in German Village.  Our speaker will be Richard  Barrett who will bring us a slide presentation 'Treasurers in  Germany.'  Richard has just returned from Germany where he had a  great time meeting family and sharing photographs.  I believe anyone  with German ancestry will greatly enjoy this presentation.  Richard  has been seen on WOSU TV with his famous post card collection of  Columbus and Franklin County.  He is a long-time historian, collector  and presenter of Columbus history.

We have room for 35 at the Annual Meeting and need to know who plans  to be there.  We will be in their upstairs banquet room.  IF YOU PLAN  TO ATTEND THE ANNUAL MEETING AT SCHMIDT'S, SEND ME AN E-MAIL - JOHN  GRAY AT REVJGRAY@WOWWAY.COM, OR CALL ME AT 277-3501 AND WE WILL  RESERVE A PLACE FOR YOU.  COST IS $13.50 PER PERSON.  A CHAIR-LIFT IS  AVAILABLE FOR HANDICAPPED.

The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be at Harrison  House, 7pm, August 13th.  All members are welcome but seating is very limited.

Kind Regards to all,

Rev. John Gray, President FCGHS