Western Michigan Genealogical Society

10/14/2026

It's still not too late to register for Got Ancestors?! 2026 with Tony Burroughs.

This Saturday 17 October 2026 at the Pinnacle Center in Hudsonville

01/05/2026

It is with great sadness that we share this news from the Library of Michigan...

12/04/2025

An update to the class schedule that was recently published in the Newsletter. See this page on our website:

https://wmgs.org/2025/12/04/upcoming-evening-class-schedule/

11/01/2025

Western Michigan Genealogical Society is raising funds for the Veterans Bounty Land Records Project. See this page on our website for more information and to make a donation to this important project.

WMGS is matching funds raised up to $2,250.

https://wmgs.org/veterans-bounty-land-records/

05/12/2025

Meeting Announcement: The DNA Interest Group (DIG) will be meeting this Thursday, May 15, at 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. This is our last meeting before our summer break (next meeting September 18). We meet in the Vander Veen room on the 4th floor of the Main Branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library.

For the first part of the meeting we will go over some opportunites for DNA self-study over the summer. Then one of our members is going to be presenting a DNA mystery to us. If you are brand new to DNA and have not come to a meeting before please consider joining us. We love to have new people at our meeting!

12/09/2024

From Linda Wells:

Monday, December 9th at 6:30PM, Linda Wells will be teaching a genealogy class at the downtown Grand Rapids Library. The class will be on the History floor, 4th floor, in the VanderVeen room.

We will be going over Researching Newspapers for genealogy results. The newspapers of a community chronicle the successes, failures, and everyday lives of the people who live there.

We will be going over:
• Obituaries and death listings
• Birth announcements and christenings
• Engagements, weddings & anniversary announcements
• Society news and local gossip
• Public announcements and advertisements
• Legal articles
• Church announcements
• Military news
• School news and activities
• Misc
We'll also go over a handful of great websites to use in your research.

12/06/2024

Please join us tomorrow, Saturday, December 7, 2024 for our monthly presentation at 1:30 p.m. at the Grand Rapids Public Library – Main Branch in the Ryerson Auditorium. Jim Jackson will be speaking about the War of 1812.

More specifically he will give an overview of the causes and significant events of this war, the only war partially fought on Michigan soil. Also, how to research military, bounty land and pension records online or at local, state or national archives.

10/16/2024

MEETING NOTICE: The DNA Interest Group (DIG) will be meeting this Thursday, October 17, at the Main Branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library in the Vander Veen room on the 4th floor. We have a meeting at 3:30 p.m. and one at 6:30 p.m. We are going to learn about ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy). This is a great organization with a lot of resources. Hope to see many of you at either meeting!

Need help with genetic genealogy? Established in 2005, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy is the first society founded to promote the use of DNA testing in genealogy.

08/01/2024

Meeting Update: The DNA Interest Group (DIG) is NOT meeting in August. Enjoy the rest of summer and keep working on your individual DNA projects! 🙂 Our next meetings will be on Thursday, September 19, at 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on the 4th floor of the Main Branch of GRPL in the Vander Veen room.