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Society Membership
Memberships are open to anyone with an interest in genealogy!And, who is willing to share with the other members.
Membership dues are $20.00 a year for an indivdual (January to December each year) and includes the quarterly newsletter, Delta Pedigree Press, with free queries. You are encouraged to submit a surname list with your membership.
To become a Society Member, scroll down to the membership form below, copy, paste into an open blank document, print, fill in and mail it to: Delta County Genealogical Society, Box 442, Escanaba, MI 49829-0442
Society Meetings - The public is always welcome!MINUTES OF THE MOST RECENT MEETINGS OF THE SOCIETY
Delta County Genealogical Society Officers Present: R. Reiffers, D. Mohler, D. Pepin
1,2. The October 2025 DCGS meeting was brought to order at 6:36pm by President Richard Reiffers. Four members and three guests were present.
3. President’s Report: R. Reiffers reported the announcement for our October DCGS meeting was published in both the Daily Press and the Action. It was also posted on our FaceBook Page. Email announcements were sent to all members.
4. Vice President/Corresponding Secretary’s Report: Correspondence and phone call to M. Krouth regarding a book collection. The books are located in Manistique. The family wants the books out of the house as soon as possible. She has not called back to tell me when we can get together.
5. Secretary’s Report: Minutes for the September 22, 2025 Meeting: No changes or additions. Motion for approval by Pepin, Seconded by Mohler. Unanimously approved.
Treasurer’s Report: Income for the month of August includes two dues renewals. No Expenses. Cash Balance end of September 2025 = $383.25. No changes or additions. Motion for approval by D.Pepin, Seconded by D. Mohler. Unanimously approved.
6,7. Activities: Newsletter not available yet. There has been one article submitted. R. Reiffers gave D. Mohler a notebook with several past Newsletter copies. It was learned that years ago, copies of the Newsletter had been sent to the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne Indiana. Perhaps they have them online?
Website: Fr. D. Pepin reports he has been adding the meeting minutes to the DCGS Website monthy.
UP Logon has yet to return call in regards to adding Visitor Counter. However, Fr. Pepin found some statistics on the UP Logon website that list DCGS numbers of Visitors, Number of Pages they visited and Hits. For the year 2025, the number of visits to our webpage range from 1000-5300 visits!!!
8. Other Business: D. Puro stopped by and donated two boxes of genealogy materials from the Archambault family, saving them from the dumpster. D. Mohler took possession of them for the time being.
9. Adjournment Motion made by R. Reiffers. Seconded by D. Pepin. Unanimously approved. Meeting adjourned at 8:07pm.
The next DCGS meeting is scheduled for November 24, 2025 at 6:30pm. Meetings are held at Bay College, Escanaba, in the Heirman Building room 961.
Delta County Genealogical Society Officers Present: R. Reiffers, D. Mohler, D. Pepin
1,2. The September 2025 DCGS meeting was brought to order at 6:36pm by President Richard Reiffers. Seven members were present.
3. President’s Report: R. Reiffers reported that despite him submitting the ad for the Sept 22nd meeting two weeks previous, the announcement not published in either the Daily Press nor the Action. It was posted on our FaceBook Page on Sept 22. Email announcements were sent to all members.
4. Vice President/Corresponding Secretary’s Report:Correspondence with alivitob regarding previous query. They plan to visit Escanaba to do research. Their query is out of our hands due to privacy.
5. Secretary’s Report: Minutes for the August 25, 2025, Meeting: No changes or additions. Motion for approval by Pepin, Seconded by Mohler. Unanimously approved.
Treasurer’s Report: No Income or expenses for the month of August. Cash Balance end of August 2025 = $343.25. No changes or additions. Motion for approval by Clairmont, Seconded by Pepin. Unanimously approved.
6,7. Activities: Summer Newsletter outlined. No new articles have been submitted. R. Reiffers will send past copies.
Motion by R. Reiffers regarding privacy concerns: No living person’s name to be included in Newsletter. Second: Mohler. Motion Passed.
Website: Fr. D. Pepin reports that adding information to the website is getting easier. UP Logon still hasn’t returned call in regard to adding Visitor Counter.
8. Other Business: R. Reiffers received another phone call from M. Krouth who has acquired a number of books of local historical & genealogical significance and would like someone to take the books. Estimated three truck loads! There will probably need to be more shelving if housed at Escanaba Library with our current collection. Perhaps Bay College Library, NMU Library, or the Delta Co. Historical Society Museum might be interested in some of them.
Mohler offered to help with project in November.
K. Wengert delivered and donated a copy of “St. Mary’s Catholic Church Baptisms 1811-1900” for our book collection at the Escanaba Public Library. The book has Upper Peninsula Baptisms, including Native American Baptisms. Thank you very much, Ken!
Misc:
-Bethany Lutheran Church is having a recognition of Native American Boarding Schools on Sunday, Sept. 28 at 11 AM.
-There was a documented pirate on the Great Lakes named Capt. Seavey!
-There was a Mormon named ‘King James Strang’ on Beaver Island, Michigan. Mormon King of Beaver Island, Michigan. He had something to do with starting a Mormon mission in Schoolcraft Co. The Mormons had a mill on Parent Creek south of Thompson on the Garden Peninsula.
-Bishop Baraga’s house in Marquette is open to the public. Bishop Baraga was ordained in Cincinnati Ohio and active throughout Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin in the early to mid-1800’s.
DCGS had not met in November in past years because the organization met on the fourth Wednesday which conflicted with the Thanksgiving holiday. Since we now meet on the Fourth Monday of the month, D. Mohler motioned we hold a meeting in November this year. Seconded by G. Clairmont. The motion passed with 6 yea’s and one no. That meeting will be held on November 24, as long as the college allows us to use the room.
On February 5, 2026, R. Reiffers will be giving a talk on Genealogy at the Bay Sages meeting held at Bay College, Escanaba, in the Heirman Building. 10:00 AM.
The next DCGS meeting is scheduled for October 27, 2025, at 6:30pm. Meetings are held at Bay College Escanaba in the Heirman Building room 961.
9. Adjournment Motion made by R. Reiffers. Seconded by D. Pepin. Unanimously approved. The meeting adjourned at 7:52pm.
Delta County Genealogical Society Officers present: Richard Reiffers, Fr. Darryl Pepin
Members: Joe Durbin, Virginia Clairmont
President R. Reiffers opened meeting at 5:05 pm, welcomed members and shared the regrets of Deb Mohler who is ill.
Reiffers initiated a discussion of correspondence from Alivitob@aol.com. Noting that the 1987-1990 inquiry is more current than the digitized Daily Press ( -1964) and would require extensive time to research the microfilm for those years, it was concluded that more information is needed.
Minutes Approved for July 28, 2025 Meeting - M/S/P Durbin/Clairmont
Corresponding Secretary Report: Ken Wengert (IL) will bring the St. Mary's Baptisms book to the September meeting.
Treasure's Report for July 2025
Beginning Balance July 1: $303.25/Income: 40.00 (Ken Wengert Dues $20.00 + Donation $20.00.) Expenses: 0.00. Cash Balance end of July:$343.25. M/S/P Pepin/Clairmont
Newsletter was emailed August 25, 2025. Submit articles about family, local history, family history, family secrets, etc. to Deb Mohler @ garthridge35@charter.net.
Old Business: UPLogon -The processing of the July 1 payment issue has been corrected according to Courtney.
The books donations are still pending as the woman who contacted DCGS did not give the potential donor's phone number to Richard Reiffers.
New Business: Fr. Pepin shared tips from his research on the DeGarmo family. The 1850 census has more details, including the names of all individuals, whereas the 1830 census and 1840 census emphasizes statistics.
Later, all members shared in the challenging "deciphering" a handwritten name on a document.
Another research tip when researching the census records is to search several pages pre- and post- your individual as family members often lived near one another [in earlier times].
FAN = Family/Friends, Acquaintance & Neighbors
Fr. Pepin shared information on "Ancestry DNA Auto Clusters" and distributed "80 Old Time Illnesses and Their Current Names" from The Ancestor Hunt 2021. Ginger Clairmont noted the Ancestry Labor Day sale of AncestryDNA [ends 03 Sep 2025 at 10am ET].
The next meeting of the Society will be September 22 meeting will be at 6:30pm.
Meeting adjourned at 6:25pm. M/S/P Pepin/Durbin
Submitted by Virginia L. Clairmont, Acting Secretary
Delta County Genealogical Society Officers Present: R. Reiffers, D. Mohler, D. Pepin
1,2. The July 2025 DCGS meeting was brought to order at 5:00pm by President Richard Reiffers. Two visitors. Six members, one of whom recently joined.
3. President’s Report: R. Reiffers reported the ad for the July 28th meeting was in the Daily Press, Action and on our FaceBook Page. Email announcements were sent to all members.
4. Vice President/Corresponding Secretary’s Report: Correspondence with our newest member, K. Wengert, regarding his research on Groleau, Hardwick, Sagataw, and Ross families.
5. Secretary’s Report: Minutes for the June 23, 2025 Meeting: No changes or additions. Motion for approval by D. Pepin, Seconded by G. Clairmont. Unanimously approved.
Treasurer’s Report: No Income for the month of June. Expenses were $94.70. Cash Balance end of June 2025 = $303.25. No changes or additions. Motion for approval by G. Clairmont, Seconded by D. Pepin. Unanimously approved.
6,7. Activities: No Spring Newsletter as yet. There have be no articles submitted. It was suggested we reprint an old newsletter. Only one newsletter is on file at the Escanaba Library, that being the Sept. 2023 issue. R. Reiffers says he has past copies. D. Pepin believes he gave all of his copies to our previous newsletter editor, S. Whitman. D. Mohler will contact S. Whitman for past copies.
Website: Fr. D. Pepin reports there have been Program changes/software “updates” by UP Logon.
He is having issues uploading info onto the DCGS website. UP Logon was contacted about the issues, with minimal results. UP Logon to let him know about a visitor counter on the website.
8. Other Business. D. Pepin says what used to be the website Seeking Michigan.org is now michiganology.org
R. Reiffers received a phone call from Mary Krouth who has acquired a number of books of local historical & genealogical significance. She would like to donate the books to DCGS with the stipulation they aren’t sold in a rummage sale. One book of interest is “The Durant Roles”, a listing of Chippewa and Ottawa people in the Sault Ste. Marie area ca. 1907.
The membership voted to get more information about the acquisition; motion by D. Mohler seconded by J. Durbin; Unanimous approval.
R. Reiffers will contact Ms. Krouth to find out how many books there are and their titles
Someone needs to check with Carolyn Stacy, Escanaba Librarian, to get her thoughts on adding more books to our collection, where to display the books and if more shelving is needed.
Someone will need to go through the books already at the library to see whether the donated books are needed or will be duplicates.
Also, someone needs to contact the Bay College librarian to see what local historical/genealogy books they have and if the donated books might be a good addition to the Bay College library.
Thinking ahead to future projects, DCGS should update the cemetery book and those records that our on our website.
There was a query regarding the Pioneer Park Trail Cemetery. It’s believed K. Rose wrote an article for the Daily Press about a cleanup of that cemetery.
K. Wengert would like to donate a copy of St. Mary’s Catholic Church Baptisms 1811-1900. The book has Upper Peninsula Baptisms, including Native American Baptisms. It is sold by the Chippewa County Historical Society.
Fr. D. Pepin suggests a couple of genealogy websites:
“Genealogy TV” with Connie Knox: Genealogy TV – Helping you go further, faster, and factually with your family history research.
“The Formidable Genealogist”: The Formidable Genealogist | Family History Research
[website(s) may require subscription(s)]
A reminder that the DCGS Annual meeting is usually held in September, which is coming up soon! Elections are usually held at the Annual meeting. Please let Richard know if you would like to work on a program for the annual meeting.
The next DCGS meeting is scheduled for August 25, 2025 at 5:00pm. Meetings are held at Bay College Escanaba in the Heirman Building room 961.
9. Adjournment Motion made by J. Durbin. Seconded by G. Clairmont . Unanimously approved. The meeting adjourned at 6:31pm.
Delta County Genealogical Society Officers Present: R. Reiffers, D. Mohler, D. Pepin
Meeting Minutes -- 27 October 2025; Bay College, Escanaba MI
Meeting Minutes -- 22 September 2025; Bay College
Meeting Minutes -- 25 August 2025; Bay College
Meeting Minutes -- 28 July 2025; Bay College
Meeting Minutes -- 23 June 2025; Bay College