IIGS™ Newsletter - March/April 2000
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IIGS™ Newsletter - March/April 2000
Editor's note: Hal Brown, editor of the Brown Family Genealogical Society Newsletter graciously allowed us to share his final message to BFGS members. Brown's letter represents the bittersweet phenomenon of the growth of online genealogy resources and the simultaneous draining of resources from organizations like BFGS through which genealogists of like interests shared data and stories.Greetings,
I have a sad announcement to make. I am sorry to announce that this was the last BFGS newsletter I shall be publishing. After 28 long years, the Brown Family Genealogical Society is shutting down. Refunds for the remaining portion of your membership are being prepared and are either already attached to this letter or will be sent to you very shortly.
The printed version of the April 2000 BFGS newsletter went in the US mail March 22, 2000. The electronic version was also placed on-line.
I am sorry to have to make this announcement. It has been a very difficult and emotional decision, but unfortunately is now necessary. There are numerous reasons behind this decision. Perhaps most significantly, is the tremendous drop in BFGS membership. After August 1999, 38 members chose not to renew. After December 1999, 148 chose not to renew. As everyone knows, memberships are our lifeblood and having lost 186 members, we simply can't continue to exist. We currently have 274 members. One hundred eighty-nine of the active 274 memberships will expire in the year 2000.
A number of reasons can be attributed to the membership drop. There has been the continual increase in printing and postal costs. Second, computer crashes and worn out equipment; everything form the actual computers, to printers to scanners. However, perhaps the most significant factor has been the growth of large genealogical based Internet organizations. These organizations are absolutely wonderful - but unfortunately make small organizations such as the BFGS somewhat obsolete.
Many former members have written with the same basic story, stating that they simply can't justify membership in a small society anymore - when larger organizations can provide much, much more. Larger organizations can now provide numerous valuable data bases, text files, free web pages, list servers, free photo storage, free Gedcom uploading and vast amounts of continually growing helpful genealogical information. I can't argue with this rationale.
The fact is, the BFGS has outlived its usefulness, as evidenced in the membership drop. I am not bitter about the growth of large organizations.
In fact, I will personally continue to support such organizations such as Ancestry and Roots -- because their offerings are outstanding! The Internet was initially a wonderful boom for our society and the ready exchange of information and communication resulted in numerous success stories.
But now, our value has been swallowed up in the ocean of information readily available on the Internet. Our time has come and rather than continue to sacrifice and loose, we must close the doors. As Les Brown (yes, a Brown of course) once said; "Change is difficult -- but often essential to survival."
I thank everyone for his or her enthusiasm and support over the many years. The personal communications over the years have been very heartwarming. There are so many members -- who contributed in so many ways. I would need another newsletter just to properly thank everyone!
However, I shall be a bit briefer and want to thank the society's founder Bill Rapp for his and his wife Janet's vision back in 1972. They helped many more people then they could ever have imagined. I want to thank my brother Bruce Brown in Virginia for his hours upon countless hours of free consultation and development of our BFGS web site. I want to thank my brother Douglas Brown in Florida for a multitude of help he has provided in areas far too numerous to mention. I want to thank the smartest and most dedicated genealogist I've ever known-- Pamela Brown Courtney of Kentucky, for her generous support, research and enthusiastic encouragement the past few years. I thank my sons Daniel and Kenneth for their office help behind the scenes - when there were other things they would have much rather been doing. Finally, I especially thank my wife Charlanne who has helped with many aspects of this society. Charlanne endured my absence as I poured over computer correspondence and piles upon piles of data nearly every night, certainly every weekend and quite often even during vacations.
In closing, I leave you with the quote of Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983) who said, "Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future."
I sincerely thank you for your support and membership - which helped sustain the Brown family genealogical Society. I wish you every success in your future research endeavors.
My very best regards,
Hal Gordon Brown
THE BROWN FAMILY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY "a society dedicated to the preservation of Brown family genealogy"
19 Terrace St., Keene NH 03431DIRECTOR AND GENERAL EDITOR Hal Gordon Brown
FAX & Voicemail; (413) 812-5287RESEARCH EDITOR Pamela Brown Courtney 832 Keystone Way, Louisville KY 40223
INTERNET SITE WEB MASTER Bruce Cameron Brown 1609 Waff Rd., Virginia Beach, VA 23464
(This letter was minimally edited.)