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 ....

Future 2008 Promotion dates:

30 August - Cape Model Toy Collectors Club at the DF Malan High School Bellville

27 September - Heritage Day at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church , 222 Main Road, Paarl

16 December - Cape Model Toy Collectors Club at the Civic Centre Fish hoek

Cape Model Toy Collectors Club, Methodist Church Hall, Parow, Cape Townbr> 5 July 2008

Do not ask how we got to be at the Cape Model Toy Collectors Club Expo - but the Western Cape Branch of the GSSA had a table there; and I represented eGGSA. There were five of us manning the table! By closing time we were all exhausted. We got a lot of interest from people.

Alta Griffiths, co-ordinator of the eGGSA Gravestone Collection. 

Hobby Expo, Goodwood, Cape Town, 5th - 6th June 2008

The Western Cape Branch of the GSSA had a stall at this exhibition. eGGSA also took part. For the last two days I have been running backwards and forwards to Goodwood - helping with the expo! Answering queries, and helping people with their family trees. It was a lot of fun!

The people were so excited that they went home to fetch their Family Bibles! A third Bible arrived today - published in 1885 - but with no family details in it! The person picked it up on a rubbish dump! Mariana Olivier took photos of the Bibles.

Our table is booked for 2009!

Alta Griffiths, co-ordinator of the eGGSA Gravestone Collection. 

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.