GenealogyClassBlog

TGS Online Funeral Home Index

This morning I responded to a Tulsa, Oklahoma message board that you can find on RootsWeb.com. I realized that what I had written may not be seen there by many who might need to know about this valuable resource for Tulsa research. So, I’m offering an edited version here.

The Funeral Home Records of Tulsa was published in twelve volumes by the Tulsa Genealogical Society beginning in 1989. Through their work, it isn’t necessary to search through years of records to find the name of a person that you’re looking for.

There is an index to the first ten volumes available online the Society’s website, http://www.tulsagenealogy.org/library/FuneralHomeIndx.asp, with which anyone can search for a name of someone whose record was handled by one of numerous Tulsa funeral homes. For those names that are listed in this cumulative index, you will find a volume and page number, which would lead you to additional information.

There are a few Tulsa funeral homes that are not included, but you can see by visiting the web site above that they do have lots of funeral home records — some as late as 1984, but most up until 1980, and as early as 1906. The following are covered in the first ten volumes and the index (for information about the last two volumes, look for Publications at the TGS web site):

• Moore’s Funeral Home, Moore’s Memory Chapel, and Moore’s Eastlawn
• Ninde’s Funeral Home
• Whisenhunt’s Funeral Home
• Stanley’s Funeral Home
• Winterringer Funeral Home
• Lane Funeral Home
• Coulter-Brown Funeral Home
• Fitzgerald Funeral Home
• Heath-Griffith Funeral Home

For instance, Volume 1 includes the records of Moore’s Funeral Home for 1927-1955, extracted carefully by TGS members. TGS offers the volume for sale or will send a copy of the page with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and $1 per page (mail to P. O. Box 585, Tulsa 74101). Additional contact information, membership information, and descriptions of all of their publications may be found at their web site.

The entire set of Funeral Home Records of Tulsa may be found at the

• TGS Library, 9136 E. 31st St. (918-627-4224)
• Tulsa City-County Library’s Genealogy Center (918-746-5222; genaskus@tulsalibrary.org)
• TCCL’s Research Center (918-596-7977; http://www.tulsalibrary.org/askus/).

I would suggest an e-mail or phone call to any of these libraries to learn the funeral home, date and place of birth and date and place of death, of the person you find in the TGS online index Or, purchase or locate a print copy of the Cumulative Funeral Home Index.

Footnote.com's Interactive Census Project Page

I was excited today to see this post by Dick Eastman. Footnote.com has just announced their plans to provide access to the entire U.S. Federal Census with the help of the National Archives. Dick’s blog post includes a long statement from Footnote.com about the unique capibilities that users will have of interacting with the census images. In class Tuesday we discussed tagging the images so that they are more searchable. That is only a small example of what you could do as a member of Footnote.com.

I currently have a subscription to Footnote.com, which has a reasonable price for what they offer. We’ll visit Footnote.com some more during next week’s class.

For more information, you should follow  http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/10/entire-us-census-goes-interactive-with-footnotecom.html.

When reading my email from Dick Eastman today I learned about an article that he is recommending. The author of the article is Julie Miller and the article appeared in yesterday’s Broomfield (Colorado) Enterprise. Here is a link to his post:
Tips for Finding Females

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On Monday, 27 April 2009, I will be presenting a mini workshop for the Tulsa Genealogical Society. The topic will be “How To Be a Power Hitter,” which is all about how to be successful in online or database searching. I will explain the basic problem of trying to find what is in the record when an initial search doesn’t work.

If you cannot find your ancestor’s name, does that mean that your ancestor didn’t appear in the record? Maybe the name wasn’t entered correctly. I will describe many possible reasons and several possible solutions.

I will present the same topic as a one-hour lecture at the Federation of Genealogical Societies’ National Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Wednesday, 2 Sep 2009. The conference will last from Wednesday through Saturday, 2 – 5 September, and will be a great opportunity for attending high-quality lectures (with as many as nine offered each time slot), doing some serious genealogy shopping, and meeting new genealogy friends with only a short drive for those of us in the Tulsa area.

For the TGS mini workshop, I will be expanding the basic lecture into a workshop the second hour, for the attendees to have the opportunity to try some of the methods introduced during the first hour.

To attend, come to the Tulsa Genealogical Society’s facility in the Briar Village Shopping Center, on 31st Street west of Mingo. The Society suggests a donation of $7.50 for this mini-workshop. I hope to see you there.

Kathy Huber, Genealogy Librarian at the Tulsa City-County Library’s Genealogy Center, will be presenting a 2-1/2 hour workshop on Saturday, 31 January, to help students learn to begin the search for their ancestors. Kathy’s program will be 10:30 am to 1:00 pm.

Mark your calendar, too, for another TCCL genealogy program on Saturday, 21 February, from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm. Liz Walker, Library Associate, will present a program on Free Genealogy Web Sites. The description says that she “will show you some useful free genealogy Web sites to help you with your family search.

Both events will be in the Harmon Foundation Meeting Room at the Genealogy Center, 2901 S. Harvard, in Tulsa, are free and are targeted to adults. No reservations are required.