Beginnings

Russ Cooper and Don Karr, the Co-Founders of NEOCAG, were both members of Computer Assisted Genealogy Group-Cleveland (CAGG) when they decided that a similar organization was needed on the east side of Cleveland.  In September of 1995, they became the first members as President and Vice President, respectively.  They met at Don Karr’s house.  In this new computer era, members who learned something new, worthy of sharing with the group, gave the presentations. There was a breakout group for Personal Ancestral File (PAF).

The Orange Village Era

The group quickly outgrew meeting in homes, and the Society moved to the Orange Village Town Hall.  About 1996, Family Tree Maker was added to the breakout groups.  Anyone in charge of one of these groups became automatic Council members along with the other officers.

The St. Bartholomew Era

Several months later, thanks to Luther Olsen, rental arrangements were made with St. Bartholomew Church in Mayfield.  In 1996, Jerry Kliot created a NEOCAG web page and, because of resistance to using the new internet capabilities, several instructive programs were given to encourage its use.  It was early in this period that the group invested over $3,000 for a computer projector. After many months of discussions, bylaws, dated 5 April 1997, were proposed, and ratified 18 April 1998. Thanks to Nancy Fleming for typing, retyping, and tweaking repeatedly.

There were also many breakout groups – Intro to CAG, Improving our CAG, Computing Tools, Getting Started with Genealogy Software, Email, Websites for Genealogy, PAF and Family Tree Maker.  The second session of each meeting usually had five topics, and the third session had two.

A monthly four-page publication full of short articles on topics of interest, “NEOCAG Update for Electronic Genealogy,” was written by Russ Cooper for more than a decade. Additionally, a twelve-page quarterly newsletter was distributed and those not picked up were snail-mailed.

To begin with, some members were using CWRU.edu as their email server, and then folks began to use FlipFlop. After that, everyone got their own email providers. Early on, a large number of members did not have email at all. Back then, everything was DOS-based.  Windows came a bit later, creating a new learning curve, and members were taught the basics.

The Mayfield Library Era

With changes in church scheduling, the group moved to Mayfield Library.  During that time, the programing changed to a main program followed by Computing Tools, and then user groups. Later, programming reduced to one presentation, mostly guest speakers, and an open forum.  NEOCAG became a domestic non-profit corporation on 16 July 2003 under the laws of the State of Ohio, and is recognized by the Ohio Secretary of State and Attorney General.  In March 2011, the Facebook group debuted.

The Virtual Era

In 2019, during the Covid pandemic, meetings quickly went virtual.  The coffee, tea, and baked goods were missed, but In 2020 it was decided to make the Society permanently virtual.  The website was revamped in 2022.

Cynthia Turk, 2 September 2022, edited