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the advice given is solid. I have a question of you....what do you mean your lodge was closed? did it turn in or have its charter revoked? please elaborate. Just a curious brother!
Yeah kinda sad, no meetings were being held, members leaving. But we are trying to get things back on track
Good luck Brother.
Yes I guess you can say that
Bad penmanship was also an issue here and there, if it's hard to read, it's hard to understand what was happening.
Brothers, I am new to the site, but I was very excited when I saw something on lodge history on the site.
I have been working on my lodges history for the last eight years now and it is extremely rewarding.
I am from a western states lodge, so our history is only 109 years old which makes it a little easier for me than for you that have two and three hundred year old lodges.
The place I started was to write down the names of every Past Master and Charter member before I started and try to remember them as best as possible. Just to have the list with me made difference, if I saw something in an old paper or something I was reading, I could pull out the list and check to see if this was someone who was a part Master or not. There were many times I found something and would have to check as to whether it was the guy on my list, or one of his relatives, so having the list with me helped a lot.
I then read through the minutes for the first 100 years. Sometimes this is a challenge because a secretary can make a lot of difference. Some through the years were very descriptive, other you could barely tell anything at all happened at a given meeting as good notes weren't taken. A good secretary is a historians best friend
I would write down anything I found important, like when the Past Masters on my list were initiated and so forth. Any gifts to the lodge and activities or significant times in our history were noted, along with the Master of record for that year and the date of the meeting.
I then went to the library and researched PM's and charter members by looking for their Obituaries. If you can find their obit, generally it will tell you the life story, however briefly, of who you are researching. As I would find them, I would get a copy, come home and write it in to the history under this mans name. While at the library you can generally do a name search for him also. This could lead you to newspaper articles etc. that might be on file there.
As many of our members were public citizens, I also went to local museums where In many cases I found photo's, and more history on each.
One of the best places is ancestry.com. You can find almost anyone in some form like census records, family tree's and other options on this site. It costs a little, but it is worth it, I garanuntee.
Fold3 is a great site for finding military records, so during the war of 1812, the Civil War, wwI and WWII, Korea etc. you can track members of your lodge through military records.
Another great resource is the older members of your lodge. Go to their homes and talk to them, they will enjoy teaching you of the past and you can learn a lot about the lodge long before you became a member. Great resource and a time you will keep in your heart for the rest of your life.
Hope this helps someone. I have a lot of information on research that I would love to share with anyone who is interested.