Help Us Get More Kentucky Records Digitized

November 29th is National Giving Tuesday! This very special day encourages us to give back to those organizations that we have enjoyed and benefited from their efforts all year long. It’s a day to show appreciation to the Kentucky Genealogical Society for the many genealogical programs and opportunities that we offer. 

Share Our Mission and Share Our History

The Kentucky Genealogical Society gives so much to its members and the genealogical community. The history of our state and those that lived here is our number one priority and we strive to share that history with the community. 

Many of you have been faithful members and followers of the Society and we are grateful and thankful for your support of our mission.

 We have a three-fold mission:

• Bring together family researchers to promote fellowship and networking.
• Foster excellence in genealogy through educational programs and projects that preserve, produce, and disseminate genealogy knowledge.
• Encourage the preservation and availability of Kentucky records that are essential to genealogical and historical research.

Support Our Volunteers 

We are an ALL-volunteer organization!

Our Society accomplishes our mission through the kindness of our members and volunteers. There are no paid staff members in our organization and our volunteers do what they do for the love of Kentucky history and sharing that history with others. 

The Society does not own a building and we keep our operational costs to a minimum. We do not receive any government funding to operate our organization, we rely on our members and volunteers to help us meet our needs. 

Your donation dollars go directly to the genealogical education programs and events we do all year, every year.

This is why the annual Giving Tuesday is so important.

Support Our Digitization Projects

One of our programs is our Digitization Grant Program that we offer to record repositories. The Society awards monetary grants to repositories or other holders of genealogically significant Kentucky records for digitization. 

Since the Digitization Grant project started a few years ago, the Society has donated more than $25,000 for seven Kentucky-based projects. Our program has saved regional newspapers, local genealogists’ records, and papers for a historical society.  

As a genealogical society, one of our goals is to help those that have these records get them digitized and available to the genealogical public for research. The digitized records through this grant are made available to our members and through the public libraries.

Support Our Genealogy Programs

One of our most popular programs is our virtual genealogical webinars. We invite genealogical speakers from across the United States to speak virtually to our members and community about the genealogical research process, genealogical records and records repositories. 

In the past year alone, we have provided over 20 programs about everything from funeral programs to researching in specific Kentucky counties. Through special agreements, these programs are available on our Member Portal for future researchers. 

This is a great educational tool for us to offer to members and non-members alike. Our webinars are well attended and we pay our speakers for their time and expertise.

We also offer Front Porch Talks, which are special interest groups where members can discuss topics such as pre-1850 research, DNA, and Scots-Irish. Our Member Portal contains records along with the Kentucky Genealogical Society digital archive.

Your Donation Goes Directly to Our Mission

The Society is a non-profit organization and your donation is tax deductible. Your donation will support our mission to foster excellence in genealogy through educational programs and projects that preserve, produce, and disseminate knowledge of genealogical value. 

We maintain an extremely low overhead due to our virtual nature, so your donation will go directly to support the mission and programs we offer to our community. We would appreciate your monetary donation during this Giving Tuesday annual event or any time during the year.