Board of Directors

Doug Hill has been researching his family history for more than 50 years, “mind you not very well as a teen and well before the internet made it a whole lot easier!” he says. Also, it was long before DNA testing and the surprises that can come with test results. He now has almost 4,000 in his ancestry tree and recently made a connection to his 8th great-grandfather, taking him back to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the late 1600s. He has lived in the Walnut Hill neighborhood for more than 40 years. “I am looking forward to the opportunity to give back to the MoCo genealogy community,” he says.

Lorraine Minor, Co-First Vice President-Programs

Lorraine Minor has been working with Elaine Hornauer to plan meetings for the society and, for several years before that, programs for the area genealogy club. She also served the club as president and chair of the education committee, teaching several courses. She has been a volunteer at the Washington D.C. Family History Center for twenty-five years and currently runs their beginners special interest group. Lorraine has resided in Montgomery County for 49 years and currently lives in Cabin John. “Even though I’ve been researching my family for 30 years, I still have some major brick walls,” she says.

Elaine Hornauer, Co-First Vice-Programs

Elaine Hornauer, who says she was bitten by the genealogy bug about two years ago, has been involved with the Montgomery County Historical Society for more than 10 years. By attending the Fairfax County conferences for many years and the Montgomery History Day, which also included assisting with the Genealogy Roadshow, she helped members of the community in their genealogy pursuits. She has been planning meetings for the society with Lorraine Minor, and previously worked with Lorraine to plan meetings for the county genealogy club. Elaine has lived in Cabin John for 46 years.

Christina Lyons, Second Vice President-Communications

Christina Lyons began delving into her genealogy at least twenty years ago, and since about 2013 has been helping others explore and write about their family histories and record their own personal stories. A California native, Christina moved to Maryland in 1988 to begin working as a journalist. She has been a resident of Montgomery County for 30 years and currently resides in Germantown. She still works a bit as a freelance journalist. She also is a member of the Mount Vernon Genealogical Society and the National Genealogical Society.

Hannelore Quigley, Secretary

Hannelore B. Quigley is a writer, pilot, and polyglot, who gives talks on historic preservation and volunteers with several historical non-profits, including Rockville Cemetery Association, Peerless Rockville, and Haiti Cemetery Association, and serves as the chair of the Pinneberg Committee at the Rockville Sister Cities Corporation. Hannelore, a sixth-generation resident of Rockville, is a historian and DNA genealogist. She finds and maps historic cemeteries using GIS/GPS (with an emphasis on African-American historic cemeteries) and testifies for theconservation and preservation of historic sites. In her spare time, Hannelore builds quadcoptors, hexacoptors, and autonomous robots, and collects books with her name in them.

Cheryl Peirce, Treasurer

Cheryl Peirce has been a Montgomery County resident for nineteen years and lives in Rockville, just a short walk from the Jane Sween Library. She has served as treasurer of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs and Richard Montgomery High School PTSA, and is a bookkeeper and owner of Farallon Bookkeeping, LLC. Her family roots are in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, and her genealogy research extends to Ireland and what is now Slovakia. She is also a member of the Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society.

Bryan Main, Director

Bryan is the president of the Frederick County Genealogical Society (FRECOGS) and volunteers at Heritage Frederick. He has been working on a multi-year project to document all of the known cemeteries in Frederick County. Bryan is a native of Frederick County, where he has deep roots, but currently resides in Gaithersburg.

Susan Wilbur, Director

Susan Wilbur began researching her family history when she discovered in her father’s files a family tree handwritten by her grandfather going back to the Mayflower. She joined the county genealogy club in 2010 and served as its membership chair. Susan is a volunteer at the LDS Family History Center and her primary areas of research are Massachusetts, Iowa, northeastern Georgia, and Ireland. She is interested in helping the society grow and provide members with tools and inspiration for their own research. A resident of Clarksburg, Susan has lived in Montgomery County since 1995. She was educated as an electrical engineer and has been a program manager for defense electronics companies for the past twenty years.

Lori Kelman, Director

Lori Kelman became interested in genealogy shortly after moving from New York to Montgomery County in 2000. At the time, she had two small children and a new job as a professor of biotechnology at Montgomery College, but she also wanted to learn about her ancestors. She began to attend meetings of the area genealogy club and discovered that genealogy and the scientific method had many parallels. She said she wants to help grow the MoCo Genealogical Society and help others discover their genealogical roots.

Sue Reeb, Director

Sue Reeb moved from Howard County, Maryland, in 1995 to pursue her career as a scientific researcher in the biotechnology industry, but her passion for research started long before that. As an adoptee living in a state where background information is completely withheld, she began doing genealogical research in 1985 in hopes of finding answers to health questions. Afterward, she began helping other people in similar situations, eventually becoming involved with the area genealogy club. She served as president of the club for seven years and has been involved with the club’s transition into an independent non-profit membership society.