I will say I had a great time this morning. The Villages Genealogical Society invited me to give a presentation to the society’s members about a technology topic. I have visited that society before in The Villages, Florida and enjoyed the first visit. I paused for about a half-second before accepting their latest invitation.
Indeed, I enjoyed this morning’s presentation as much as I did the first one. Now, let me ask you a question: Do you know of any other genealogy society that can attract more than 350 members to a society meeting held at 10 AM on a Wednesday morning?
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The Villages is an active retirement community located in sunny central Florida about an hour’s drive north of Orlando. Construction started more than 50 years ago and The Villages have flourished since then. The 2010 U.S. Census reports there are 51,442 residents of The Villages and that number undoubtedly has grown since then. You can learn more at http://www.thevillages.com/ and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Villages,_Florida.
The community is primarily known as a golfing community and I suspect there are nearly 51,442 golf carts there as well. At least, it looked like that many when I dove there this morning. There are dozens of other clubs and special interest groups as well. One of them obviously is genealogy and The Villages Genealogical Society now boasts of more than 900 members and is still growing rapidly. The Society has monthly meetings as well as other, frequent meetings of special interest groups recently completed a genealogy cruise for club members. This has to be one of the most active and fastest-growing genealogy societies in the country! You can learn more about The Villages Genealogical Society at http://www.villagesgenealogy.org.
Again, my thanks to The Villages Genealogical Society for a fun day.
If you happen to live in The Villages and are not yet a member, you need to check out The Villages Genealogical Society.
Next month’s meeting will feature Judy G. Russell, a well-known genealogist with a law degree who lectures frequently. She is also well known for her blog, called The Legal Genealogist, athttp://www.legalgenealogist.com. I consider it one of my daily “must read blogs.” I have also heard her speak and I suspect her visit next month to The Villages will include a dynamite presentation.