Monday, April 16, 2007

More CVGS Member Survey Results

I wrote two earlier posts (here and here) about the results from our survey of Chula Vista Genealogical Society members. We had 24 responses, about 30% of our membership. However, these were members who attended our meetings, so they are "active" in society activities.

Q: How many years have you been pursuing genealogy research (23 responses)?
A: less than 1 year - 17%; 1-5 years - 22%; 6-10 years - 9%; 10-20 years - 22%; over 20 years - 30%.

Q: How many years have you been a member of CVGS (21 responses)?
A: less than 1 year - 19%; 1-5 years - 48%; 6-10 years - 19%; 10-20 years - 10%; over 20 years - 5%.

Q: What caused you to start doing genealogy research?
A:
* Interest in ancestors - 13%
* Wanted family info - 13%
* Curiosity - 13%
* Family papers - 13%
* Record for children - 4%
* Family member - 29%
* Doing memoirs - 4%
* History buff - 4%
* Discover grandparents name - 4%

Q: How often do you do some genealogy activity (21 responses)
A: Daily - 24%; 2-6 days a week - 10%; Weekly - 29%; 2-4 times a month - 10%; Monthly - 19%; Occasionally - 5%; Rarely - 5%

Q: In what areas of the USA do you have ancestry (24 responses, some with several areas)?
A:
* New England - 25%
* NY, NJ, PA - 54%
* MD, DE, VA, NC, SC - 17%
* GA, FL, AL, MS - 13%
* KY, TN - 17%
* OH, MI, WI, IN, IL - 54%
* KS, MO, NE, IA, MN, SD, ND - 29%
* TX, OK, LA, AR - 17%
* Mountain states - 8%
* CA, OR, WA, AZ, NV - 21%

Q: Have you been to at least one of those areas to perform research (20 responses)
A: YES - 50%; NO - 50%

Q: In what foreign countries do you have ancestry (24 responses, some with multiple answers)?
A:
* England/Wales - 58%
* Scotland - 17%
* Ireland - 46%
* Germany - 71%
* France - 25%
* Benelux - 21%
* Scandinavia - 17%
* Central Europe - 8%
* Baltic States - 4%
* Spain - 4%
* Mexico - 4%
* Armenia - 4%
* Canada - 17%

Q: Have you been to any of these countries to perform research (21 responses)
A: YES - 19%, NO - 81%

I am not sure that these responses represent all of our membership - but they sound about right to me (the exception might be the experience questions - our nonresponders may be more experienced). The conclusions I draw from them include:

1) 50% of our respondents have been researching for less than 10 years.

2) About 20% of our respondents do something genealogy related every day. Over 50% do something at least weekly.

3) Our members have research interests in many US regions, and mainly in western Europe.

4) About 50% of our respondents have traveled to do research

Are these typical of your local society? Has your society done a survey like this? How do you interpret our results?

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