Why Join OGS?

Why would anyone want to join a member supported genealogical society today? Isn’t everything free on the internet?

Simple answer, NO! For example, a subscription to Ancestry.ca for their Canadian records alone is $14.99 per month. That’s $179.88/annum. Their world record access is $29.99 a month, or $359.88/annum.

True, a member supported society does not have the breadth of records of an Ancestry, MyHeritage or Findmypast. What a local or regional society will offer however is access to local records, the small data sets as the big players might refer to them, that the big players for the most part are not interested in. Local church christening, marriage and burial records, local township records, local assessments rolls, local family histories, small town newspaper indexes, transcriptions and extracts. You might also get live presentations by local historians, librarians and other experts, sometimes streamed to or recorded for society members.  The local societies are also the “boots on the ground”, the local individuals who can answer your very local questions. The genealogy societies are the ones preserving these records for you and your descendants. Usually charging less than $100 a year, and sometimes as little as $10 or $15, these societies are worthy of your support.

But, did you know that sometimes you can have the best of both worlds?

OGS members have the same access to some 8 billion MyHeritage records, with more added every day. OGS members also have free access to 18 hours of DNA webinars by a leading expert.

MyHeritage Library Edition