Nominees for this award may be accepted and voted on at the September board meeting. Nominees may be

living or deceased. Anyone nominating someone must present a brief bio of the nominee. After the voting, all

the nominees and their bios are given to the secretary. The secretary will be responsible for presenting the 

nominees that were not selected at the next go around at the next September board meeting. This affords

those who were not nominated a continuning chance each year to get the award. Nominees do not have to be

society members, however, they must have made a substantial contribution to the field of genealogy in CNY.

The person who is nominating a candidate must be willing to obtain the plaque and make the presentation

at the October society conference. If the person who nominated a candidate is no longer on the board they

would be notified of the voting and would be expected to make the presentation at the October conference.

If an awardee cannot make it to the conference, the plaque would be received on his or her behalf in absentia.

The awardee if present would also be invited to lunch with the conference guest speaker.

Gerald James Parsons, 1924-2003

Noted genealogist Gerald James Parsons of Syracuse, New York, died on December 29, 2003, at age seventy-

nine. Mr Parsons served as head of the Local History and Genealogy Department of the Onondaga County

Public Library in Syracuse from 1958 until his retirement in 1986. A member of numerous genealogical and 

hereditary societies, he was a past contributing editor of The American Genealogist and was a Fellow of the 

American Society of Genealogists. He was perhaps best known for his genealogical work on the Parsons 

family of the Connecticut River Valley, publishing several volumes on the family.

The Awardees