“A Special Interest Group (SIG) is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to affect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize workshops.”
We would like to facilitate the discovering, gathering, preserving, and disseminating of historical and genealogical materials about and by the Indianapolis Public Schools, since the founding of the school system in 1853.
If you would like to be a part of and participate in this effort, please contact us or drop by the GSMC Library, 9370 E. Washington St., Indianapolis. Some of us will be members of GSMC, the sponsoring group, but membership is not required.
We encourage you to bring any IPS material you may have to show, tell, or scan. We have recently reorganized the IPS collection in the GSMC Library, and we welcome any ideas about further tactics and strategies for furthering the goals of IPS-SIG.
Online Sales Project
Indy Lineages Newsletter Blog [Ongoing Program]
We are now posting Indy Lineages newsletter of topical articles on our Indy Lineages Newsletter Blog. Articles of interest to members and other genealogists. Everyone is invited to develop materials for inclusion, including notices of events planned by other organizations or communities, happenings of interest, "How to" articles, personal experiences, etc. Contact the Indy Lineages Editor if interested.
Research Guide for Marion County, Indiana Genealogy and History [Ongoing Program]
This is a research guide about the offline and online genealogy and history resources available for researchers. The last edition of this publication was published in 2000. It's time for a 2021 Edition! You may not think you don't need this publication, but you do. Marion County has resource offline that you've probaly haven't heard off and the online resources are too many to count. We want these resources in one place! Volunteer by contacting Barbara Hutchinson at president@genealogyindy.org.
Indexing Projects
Flanner and Buchanan Burial Records, 1910-1970
These records are housed in the GSMC Library. Volunteers would spend time at the library indexing these records. Volunteer time can be 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours or 4 hours. Your choice.
Day Books
These are funeral home records and obituaries for the three large Catholic cemeteries of Calvary, Holy Cross, and St. Joseph.. These records can be indexed in the comfort of your home. Volunteers would index one year at a time.
Enumeration Registers
The City of Indianapolis, by state law, had to do an annual census of potential students every year during the late 1800's. We have most of the 1870's and 1880's registers that need alphabetically indexed.
[As of May 2022, we are finished with 1880!] Other years await.
Township Detectives
We are actively collecting and/or scanning township specific materials for the 9 townships in Marion County. If you have access to any township or township school records, we would like to work with you to get these materials digitized and online.
[As of April 2022 we are actively partnering with the Franklin Township and the Perry Township Historical Societies in scanning and posting materials on our website. Other historical groups are welcome to contact us for similar arragements.]
Central Canal Indexing
We are indexing a group of canal documents created in the 1830's and 1840's
and recently scanned by GSMC at the Indiana State Archives.
This work can be done at your home via digital files.
These files contain names and signatures of many Marion County residents that may not
be recorded anywhere else.
(Updated May 4, 2022)
