Be Sure to Visit my new 1900 Galveston Storm Website at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootseb.com/~barnette 

FAMILY PLANNING HISTORY

 In 1798 Thomas Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population  suggesting the world's population might outstrip the earth's resources to support them. To remedy overpopulation Malthus recommended late marriage and sexual abstinence. Hoping to bring discussions of population control to the breakfast table George Drysdale and other followers of  Malthus' principals formed the Malthusian League in the late 19th Century.

 It was two women, however, Margaret Sanger in the United States and Marie Stopes in Great Britain, who made birth control a global social movement. Both women used the controversy surrounding birth control to bring attention to their issue.

 In 1914 Sanger published a short lived magazine, The Woman Rebel,  a magazine that challenged laws restricting the distribution of information about birth control. She was indicted for mailing obscene materials and fled to Europe but returned to the United States in 1916 to stand trial. Charges against her were soon dropped.

 Sanger later opened a family planning clinic, which was quickly closed by police and Sanger arrested. A compromise was reached with authorities allowing family planning clinics to operate on the condition physicians be involved in their operation and in the prescribing of contraceptives. In 1921 Sanger founded the American Birth Control League. In 1942 this organization became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

 In Great Britain Marie Stopes led a movement for sexual equality and fulfillment in marriage. In 1922 she founded the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. The organization evolved into the Family Planning Association.

 Together Sanger and Stopes advocated birth control all over the world particularly in India and Asia.

 GENEALOGICAL CLASSES

 The Baldwin Boettcher Branch Library at 22248 Aldine Westfield Road in Humble will host a free one hour beginner class from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M. Wednesday March 28. Taught by Mormon Family History Center Director Judy Frasier the class will explore where and how to get started researching one's family history. For more information and to register, contact Cindy Groover at 281-821-1320.

 Mic Barnette  will lead a Surfing the Internet class at Houston Community College's 1681 Cartright Missouri City campus. This three hour live virtual tour of some of the best genealogical websites on the Internet will be held Wednesday April 4 from 1 to 4 P.M. For more information and to register, contact HCC at 281-835-5539.

 Taught by Paula Perkins Parke the Grace Presbyterian Church, 10221 Ella Lee near the Sam Houston Tollway, will host a three part Beginning Genealogy class. Classes will be held from 6 to 9:30 P.M. on Tuesday April 3  and Thursday April 5. The third class, held the following week, will consist of a tour and hands-on census work at Clayton Library. For more information and to register, contact Michelle Schultz at 713-267-5020.

 Leisure Learning will host Mic Barnette with a one session class, Birth, Marriage, Divorce and Death Records for Historians and Genealogists. Covering the time frame of the colonial period to the present this class will explore the development, location and contents of some of the most important evidential documents genealogists use in creating family histories. Class will be held at Leisure Learning's campus at 2990 Richmond, near Kirby. For more information and to register, contact Leisure Learning at 713-529-4414.

NGS MEETS IN PORTLAND

 Possibly the largest genealogical gathering in the nation is the annual  National Genealogical Society Conference in the States. Co-sponsored by the Genealogical Forum of Oregon, this year's conference will be held from May 16 through May 19 touting the slogan, Explore New Frontiers.

 The conference is packed with over 170 lectures, 26 labs and 16 banquets, luncheons and social events. Lecture topics will consist of a collage of basic research, methodology, using records, family health history, US and foreign immigration and migration talks. Some of the ethnic cultural groups illustrated will be Americans and Europeans moving westward from the East, Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, gold rush prospectors and a host of others.

 For more information on this exhilarating chance of a lifetime conference, visit the NGS website at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

   NEWS FROM THE BOOKSHELF

 Social historian and college instructor, Katherine Scott Sturdivant has published a book every genealogist will love to read and which may change the way they research their family history. Bringing Your Family History To Life through Social History is available for $19.99, plus postage, from the publisher, F & W Publications, 1507 Dana Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45207.

 Sturdivant explains how to bring life to ordinary everyday household artifacts that have come down in the family and how to recreate a mental image of the way an ancestor saw and used that object. She explains how to research the events of an ancestor's lifetime and draw conclusions as to how those events affected their life or changed their future. She discusses oral history and how to accurately interpret myth from fact. She also explains how to view and understand photographs, documents and family artifacts in historical context and how to preserve them for future generations.