Join us for a tour of the historic and beautiful Julia Ideson Building, home of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center. Library staff will explain the history and architecture of the building and will provide an overview of the library's collections.
For more information and to register, please go to Learn More.
Saturday, September 10
Zotero for Genealogy with Donna Cox Baker (HGF Monthly Meeting)
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
(Munchies and mingling start at 9:00 AM)
Auditorium
Bayland Community Center
6400 Bissonnet
Houston, TX 77074
and
Online Webinar
Zotero for Genealogy: Getting Your Ducks in a Row
Donna Baker first discovered the power of Zotero in graduate school, doing her doctoral work in history. This open-source, FREE software can store and/or reference digitized versions of all sorts of documents--text, images, sound, spreadsheets, and so much more. It can replace the binders, file cabinets, and other burdens that weigh the genealogist down. It also offers the structure for inputting citation information that can be output as properly formatted footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographic references in numerous different publishing styles. Zotero data can also be retrieved from wherever you travel to do research. In this presentation, she will give us a tour of Zotero and tell us how to get started in using it as a companion to our family trees.
For more information and to register, please go to Learn More.
Saturday, October 1
Gravestone Conservation with Lowell Herzog (HGF Monthly Meeting)
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Gravestone Conservation
While researching cemeteries, genealogists routinely find gravestones in need of cleaning and restoration. In this session, you will learn of methods for safely cleaning gravestones, which methods to avoid, and when to seek help for more difficult restorations.
Lowell Herzog, a former high school history teacher, has been cleaning, restoring, and resetting gravestones professionally since 2014. For more information, please see texasgravestoneconservation.com
Registration: Online attendance will be available for all HGF monthly meetings. Unless new Covid restrictions are warranted, you may also also attend in-person at Bayland. More meeting information will available in August.
Saturday, November 5
Writing Your Family History with Lynn Palermo (All-day Seminars)
10:00 am to 3:00 pm
HGF Fall Seminar on Writing Your Family History
Genealogists know a great deal about discovering their family histories using records, DNA, photographs, and maps but what about writing their family stories. In this full day workshop you will learn how to put together a plan for your family histories, what to consider before you write, and how to structure, write, and share these stories.
Lynn Palermo is The Armchair Genealogist, a genealogy educator, author and family history writing coach. Lynn provides family historians practical guidance in researching and writing their family history. She helps family historians shape their genealogy into sharable stories through her webinars, workshops, workbooks and one-on-one coaching.
Registration: Online attendance will be available for all HGF monthly meetings. Unless new Covid restrictions are warranted, you may also also attend in-person at Bayland. More meeting information will available in September.
Saturday, December 3
Canadian Genealogy Online with Dave Obee (HGF Monthly Meeting)
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
(Munchies and mingling start at 9:00 AM)
Canadian Genealogy Online
Many Americans have ancestors or cousins in Canada, and research north of the border can be rewarding. It is important to understand the differences between research in Canada and the United States. Canada has hundreds of websites of prime value to genealogists, and the sites to use will depend on which of the 10 provinces and three territories your family called home. Several sources should be checked by everyone, but some of the best finds will be in regional or local websites. This session will quickly guide you to the top sites, where it will be possible for you to make good progress on your Canadian lines. Links are on CanGenealogy, the most accessible Canadian link site.
Dave Obee is a journalist and genealogical researcher who has written a dozen books and given more than 700 presentations at conferences and seminars in Canada, the United States and Australia since 1997. He is Editor and Publisher of the Times Colonist daily newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He has worked as a journalist in British Columbia and Alberta since 1972, and has been researching family history since 1978.
Registration: Online attendance will be available for all HGF monthly meetings. Unless new Covid restrictions are warranted, you may also also attend in-person at Bayland. More meeting information will available in October.
Saturday, January 7, 2023
A Nation of immigrants: US naturalization and genealogy with Irene Walters (HGF Monthly Meeting)
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
(Munchies and mingling start at 9:00 AM)
A Nation of immigrants: US naturalization and genealogy
In this talk we will discuss the history of naturalization laws and requirements in the United States and how this affected your ancestors and their naturalizations. We will also discuss using naturalization records for genealogical research, what you may find and how to find it.
Irene B. Walters came to Houston’s Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research from New York in 1997 after receiving her Librarian degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Irene has given talks to many groups on various aspects of genealogical research including; computers, the internet, ancestors in the modern military, knocking down brick walls, New York State, Irish, and French research. Irene started her own genealogy research as a teenager and has taken her lines back into France, Ireland and recently Germany. Her other German line and possible early Dutch ancestors are being more difficult.
Registration: Online attendance will be available for all HGF monthly meetings. Unless new Covid restrictions are warranted, you may also also attend in-person at Bayland. More meeting information will available in October.
Saturday, February 4, 2023
In Search of Your Scottish Ancestors with Christine Woodcock (All-day Seminars)
9:30 am to 3:00 pm
(Munchies and mingling start at 9:00 AM)
In Search of Your Scottish Ancestors
In Search of Your Scottish Ancestors
In order to be successful researching your Scottish ancestors, you need to know where in Scotland your ancestors were from. Only then are you ready to research. This presentation will discuss the basics of your Scottish Research Toolbox.
Navigating the ScotlandsPeople Website
Genealogy researchers have become accustomed to subscription websites and find navigating the ScotlandsPeople website to be too steep of a learning curve. Given that this is the ONLY place where you can access images of the actual documents held by the Registrar, it is critical that Scottish researchers are comfortable using the website. In this presentation, we will discuss
• Parish registers vs Statutory registers
• What’s available and what’s not
• Search strategies for success
• Hidden or little used features of the website
Breaking Through Brick Walls in Scottish Research
Scottish documents contain a wealth of information and can make researching so much easier when you really take a look at what the documents are telling you. It becomes important to really pay attention to the key words on the documents so that you know what records you need to look at next in order to break through brick walls and learn as much as you can about your Scottish ancestors.
From Scotland to America
In order to be successful researching in the Scottish records, we need to know where in Scotland our ancestors came from. Bridging the gap between finding them in the North American records (birth, marriage, death and census records) and being able to locate them in the Scottish records may seem like a daunting task. However, it is often less of a challenge and more of a reward if you understand what brought them here in the first place. Some clues can be taken from the major historic events in Scottish history that led to Scots leaving their homeland.
Registration: Online attendance will be available for all HGF monthly meetings. Unless new Covid restrictions are warranted, you may also also attend in-person at Bayland. More meeting information will available in November.
