National Heritage Day 27 September 2008, Holy Trinity Church Paarl

The Western Cape Branch of the Genealogical Society of South-Africa (GSSA) held a family research exhibition where a number of organisations provided tables and people to advise visitors. Genealogy was represented by GSSA Branches North West, Western Cape and eGGSA, the Cape Town Family History Society, Drakenstein Heemkring, Ancestry24, Genealogical Institute of South Africa (GISA), Huguenot Society of South Africa and Memorial Museum, Protea Boekwinkel, TANAP and TEPC, and the Western Cape Archives and Record Service and individual researchers Rose Willis, Colonel Graham du Toit and Margie Muller.

Alta Griffiths, who represented eGGSA, reports:  We had quite a busy day with all the people walking through the doors. Some visitors were literally there for hours.

30 August 2008 - Cape Model Toy Collectors Expo, DF Malan High School, Bellville

As planned, we once again took part in the Cape Model Toy Collectors Club Expo. Our aim - to get more people addicted to genealogy!

We even had a couple of experienced genealogists dropping by and met a couple from Wales who were eager to share their genealogy experiences with us!

Martie du Toit, eGGSA member, during her visit to the GSSA stand.

news item: Alta Griffiths, co-ordinator of the eGGSA Gravestone Collection, who represented eGGSA on the GSSA stand.

8 August 2008 - 100 000 Gravestones!

The total number of gravestone pictures in the online Gravestones in South Africa collection has now passed 81 000. Congratulations are due to Alta Griffiths and her helpers.

Another 20 000 photographs have been received and are in process of being captioned and indexed behind the scenes. If you would like to help with this process, which is done by volunteers, please contact Alta Griffiths at alta@pinnaclespot.co.za

We hope to have all 100 000 captioned and online before the end of the year.

For more information, please see here.

GSSA agreement with Western Cape Archives about document copying:

On the 14th July 2008 representatives of the GSSA met a representative of the WCA and issued a statement about the photography of documents in the WCA.  More information can be found here ....

eGSSA serves its members by:

• providing genealogical skill development through information, publications, research education, and networking opportunities.

• establishing important links with other groups world-wide.

• increasing public awareness of opportunities for discovering family history.

• promoting interest in the fascinating field of genealogy.

• promoting a number of projects aimed at expanding the availability of South African genealogical sources online.

For many years, there have been people who, for various reasons, could not join a regular GSSA branch. Some of these reasons include living too far from a branch or living outside South Africa. These people still have a need to belong to a branch and to enjoy the benefits of GSSA membership, such as receiving GSSA's journal, Familia. eGSSA has been established to meet these needs. This is an ideal opportunity to become part of GSSA and to step into this exciting era.

At eGSSA we have an online shop where you can buy the various publications of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, as well as a number of other genealogical, historical and cultural items.

There are indexes to the articles in Familia, the quarterly journal of the GSSA and those in genesis, journal of eGGSA itself. In addition we now have a download library with some free books in pdf format, a number of documents from the South African Archives as well as photographs of graves in South African cemeteries.

Check out the benefits of becoming a member!

The eGGSA Download Library

houses the collection of  South African  gravestone photographs.

Also in that library is a growing collection of Family Bible inscription pages and Estate records from the various South African Archives Repositories.