USGSMD Facebook GroupUSGSMD Announcements
MEMBERSHIP MEETING
Please join us as we continue having our membership meetings in each of our five county focus area in this, our 50th Anniversary year! Our March Membership meeting will be held on March 9, 2024, from 1-2:30 PM at the Dorchester County Historical Society (DCHS), 1003 Greenway Drive, Cambridge, Maryland 21613. The director of the DCHS, Zoe Phillips, will be giving a talk about the history of the county, followed by a walking tour of both their museum and the Meredith House. It should be a lot of fun and have very interesting conversation.
As we have been doing since 2020, we will do our best to provide for remote attendance for the meeting for those of our members out of state, or who are unable to make it to Cambridge. In person is always your best option, as even with the best of intentions, sometimes remote meetings have issues. We will host the meeting using Microsoft Teams. The Teams meeting information is:
https://teams.live.com/meet/9318300237621?p=3i1NRfwmqE55Xe72
UPDATED INVENTORY AVAILABLE!!
The latest version of our Research Center/Library Inventory has been posted, which includes all of our recent acquisitions, including our Maryland State-Level holdings and now including our Delaware holdings, including state-level, as well as holdings from all three counties in Delaware (Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex). Just click on the link in the left menu titled Family Research Center Inventory to look through the PDF of all of our inventoried holdings.
Check Out Our Bookstore!
Go to the USGSMD Bookstore and check out our prices! USGSMD Members get 20% off select publications!
Individual Issues Now Available!
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Individual past issues of the Chesapeake Cousins from volumes 1 through 50-1 are now available for purchase.
Each issue is $9 for CD (PDF) and $17 for book format (if available). All volumes (1 through 50-1, 96 issues) are also available on CD (PDF) for $50 and USGSMD Member price is $40 (20% OFF). The table of contents has been updated and can be found on the Chesapeake Cousins page and at the USGSMD Bookstore. |
Dorchester County Cemetery
Preservation Organization
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Edward Dean formed a new non-profit organization to help preserve Dorchester County cemeteries.
It all began with trying to preserve the Anchor of Hope Cemetery (aka: Travers Family Graveyard) on Hoopers Island, and it has grown from there. Please join the Dorchester County Cemetery Preservation Organization Facebook group to get updates on their progress and to see days and times of volunteer projects. Pictures on the left are of the Anchor of Hope Cemetery, one of the many cemeteries in Dorchester County that needs preservation. |
New Family Group Sheets
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FRE Instructions We have created new family group sheets for the Family Record Exchange (FRE) and for submitting to the USGSMD journal, the Chesapeake Cousins. These new family group sheets may be filled out on your computer and emailed to usgsmd@yahoo.com for submission. We still accept handwritten forms, though they will not be text searchable. These forms are listed on the Chesapeake Cousins page.
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Locating and Preserving Cemeteries
From Inadvertent Damage
As a result of many issues where older, lesser known, cemeteries in Maryland were inadvertently discovered in the course of developments or highway construction projects, a concept for a statewide database of cemeteries was developed to include modern (GPS) location information to preclude further damage or destruction of these cemeteries. While many larger, currently operating, cemeteries are easily identified, many older and/or private cemeteries are not. The Maryland State Highway Administration and Preservation Maryland worked together to create The Cemetery Documentation Project.
It started with a test phase, in which they located and documented 100 small and historic cemeteries, not all of which had precise location information about them. The cemeteries were located and then registered in a database using an application that was developed. The database is maintained by the state in the Maryland iMap ArcGIS system. Since the test was a success, the next phase is to identify organizations that also have an interest in locating, identifying, documenting and preserving these cemeteries.
They are seeking volunteers across the state, primarily through organizations like Upper Shore Genealogical Society of Maryland (USGSMD) (or historical societies), to “crowd source” data collection effort. They will work with counties that already have their own databases similar to this (like Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Wicomico, Howard, and Baltimore counties) to obtain their data about these types of cemeteries. The effort is NOT designed to collect data on identifying the graves in a cemetery, rather to identify and locate the cemetery itself. If you are familiar with the website “Find-A-Grave”, this database is more of a “Find-A-Cemetery” to protect it from accidental damage or destruction. They want to gather details about cemeteries, such as the cemetery name, address, size, overall photographs, caretaker or owner information, and other important notes about the cemetery. They will respect the wishes of cemetery owners who do NOT want their cemetery information to be public for some reason.
The general public cannot get access to the data at this stage of the process. They plan to address expectations of data quality and data security before data is publicly available. They want users to come through partner organizations, like USGSMD, so that there is some initial level of quality control. They will provide user accounts to volunteers to help with data collection. For USGSMD, identifying, locating, and preserving locations and information that helps fellow citizens research and document their family history and ancestry is an important function. Our prior work to develop the cemetery records for the five counties in our area are evidence of our commitment to this kind of work.
Recently, we were notified that they are registering volunteers to assist in this effort. If you are interested in volunteering, please send an email to the USGSMD email account of usgsmd@yahoo.com. We will provide the details for volunteers to create user accounts with the State Highway Administration to submit data.
David W. Baker, President
Caroline County Administrative Accounts Indexes
1703 - 1776 and 1790 - 1817
This index to the Caroline County Administrive Accounts of the Register of Wills records, was compiled by USGSMD member, Gary Willis, and can be found on our research links page. Thank you Gary!
Will and Probate Records Indexes
1634-1940
This is a joint project by the Maryland State Archives, Comptroller of the Treasury, Register of Wills and FamilySearch. This project began in 2013. The volunteers are working on indexing all the counties in Maryland. Baltimore, Caroline and Carroll counties have been completed so far. If you would like to volunteer to help with this project, please email usgsmd@yahoo.com. These indexes can be found on our research links page.