Welcome to the blog of the Martha's Vineyard Island Chapter (MVI) of the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists, Inc. (MSOG). And kudos to Brenda Welch for making it happen. Thanks also to MSOG webmaster Hope Tillman for spending her wait time at the New Orleans airport this morning making sure we got linked to the world.

Martha's Vineyard is an island about seven miles off the coast of Massacusetts. I guess we are pretty well known now due to a lot of the well known making us their summer destination but the other three seasons find us living a much less frenzied life. A lot of people ask what we do in the winter and I always think that's such a funny question. We do pretty much what everyone else does and while it's true that island winters are probably happiest for those with a serious reading habit or of a contemplative turn of mind, as our population grows so does the demand for real world activities, and we are also only a short boat ride away from mainland America.

One thing a lot of us do is genealogy. For those with Island ancestry we have the Martha's Vineyard Museum which houses a library overflowing with historical and genealogical resources. Each of our six towns has its own library as well. We have an LDS Family History Center. And we have the Internet.

As this blog progresses we'll be talking a lot about "The Vineyard" and what we do here and find here in relation to our ancestral searches. Some of our chapter members are descended from the first known occupants, The Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah. Some are descendants of Thomas Mayhew, first English governor in the 1600's and other early settlers. Some have ancestors who arrived on whaling ships, particularly the Portuguese who were well established by the mid 1800's. Many of our members,however, trace their roots beyond these immediate shores and so our interests are geographically far-reaching as well.

Our main focus in this blog is Martha's Vineyard but just as our goal as a chapter is to help all our members no matter where their roots are, I hope this blog will become a lively forum for conversation and shared discoveries across the spectrum of our favorite common interest.

Marna Waller