Bear Creek Genealogical Society
P. O. Box 842661, Houston, TX 77284
Welcome
Welcome to the Bear Creek Genealogical Society. Our society meets on the second Thursday of each month at the Bear Creek Community Center, 3055 Bear Creek Dr., Houston, TX 77084. We have approximately 50 members and hold our meeting from 1 to 2:30 PM. All genealogical researchers, whether novice or expert, are welcome to attend. Attire is casual. We also have several bus trips per year, departing from and returning to the Bear Creek Community Center. Our most popular trip has been to the Clayton Library Center of Houston Public Library, one of the top genealogical libraries in the country. We look forward to seeing you. For further information, contact Gary Tober, President, 281-398-0333 or Tom Woltz, Vice-President, 281-807-0233. Click here for a membership application. Annual dues are $10.Announcements
The Angelina College 16th Genealogy Conference will be held July 19-21in Lufkin, Texas. The early registration deadline is June 4. See their website for further details.Thursday May 10 is our final meeting of the 2011-2012 season. Participants may present a 5-10 minute description of an artifact, photo, or story. Contact Tom Woltz to get on the schedule.
On Thursday April 26 we will have a board and planning meeting the the Bear Creek Community Center, 1-3 P.M. Everyone is invited.
The Bear Creek Genealogical Society has volunteered to help with the indexing of the 1940 census. The results will allow no-cost access to the census pages for everyone. The website https://the1940census.com/society describes how to get started. Set up a free familysearch.org login if necessary and then download and install the indexing program. When asked about location, click on Groups and then Bear Creek Genealogical Society. Indexing is simple, and you can do as many or few pages as you wish. Each "Batch" is less than one hour. The pages are indexed by two people, with an arbiter to resolve any discrepancy. My biggest challenge so far has been middle intials. "John Q. Public" should be indexed as Surname "Public" and Given Name "John Q" with no punctuation.
Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates will continue on Monday nights on PBS Houston. See the website for details.
The 1940 U.S. census became available on April 2. The official website is 1940census.archives.gov, but it can be accessed on several other well-known sites. As a reminder, the records have not yet been indexed and can only be searched by enumeration district.
Effective February 15, the price of microfilm rentals through the Family History Centers will increase to $7.50 due to the increasing price and limited availabilty of microfilm. As a reminder, film rentals can now be ordered online. For details see https://www.familysearch.org/films .
NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" began its 3rd season on Friday, February 3 at 7 PM. Celebrities for this season are Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jerome Bettis, Jason Sudeikis and Paula Deen. .
The program is available for both major national genealogy conferences this year. The National Genealogical Society meets May 9-12 in Cincinnati, OH. The Federation of Genealogical Societies meeting will be August 29-September 1 in Birmingham, AL.
Clayton Library offers help with lineage groups most Wednesday evenings 5:30-7:30 PM.
Familysearch.org has prepared a set of free genealogy lessons. So far I have gone through lessons on Civil War records and German handwriting. Some of the lessons even have quizzes. You can find these lessons by clicking "Learn" and then "Research Courses" from their main webpage, or you can go directly to familysearch.org/learn/researchcourses .
The free Familysearch.org website has reached 43 million names in its indexing program for German vital records. See http://www.genealogyblog.com/?p=9531 for details.
Dick Eastman has prepared a nice explanation of the Family History Library and Family History Centers. The Katy FHC is at 1603 Norwalk near Highland Knolls, and there are several other locations in the west Houston area. Click here to view his article.
Katy Library, 5414 Franz Road, holds a Genealogy Lunchbox every Monday from noon to 1 P.M. From the library's website: "Bring your lunch and join us for an informal genealogy get-together. We'll have computers, Ancestry.com, and other genealogists to help each other with our work."
For a guide on getting started in genealogy, you may visit http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2011/01/a-genealogy-intro.html .
For a set of videos showing the efforts of the Family History Library to archive and digitize their records, visit this site. 2,400,000 reels of microfilm are a lot of data.
Some items from our library collection have been moved offsite. These items may still be checked out through the club. For a list of these books, click here.
Links
HomeMembership form
2011-2012 Calendar
Library