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

MASONS: OLDEST FRATERNITY IN WORLD

 Masonry, or Freemasonry, as it is often called is the oldest fraternity in the world. It is thought to have its roots with the guilds of stonemasons who built the castles and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. The first formal organization in England began in 1717 when the first Grand Lodge was formed.

 By the time of the American Revolution many of the American founding fathers were Masons. Benjamin Franklin had joined as early as 1732. Nine of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and  thirteen of the Signers of the Constitution were Masons. Fourteen of the Presidents of the United States have been Masons, beginning with George Washington.

 When Georgia was settled in 1733 the Grand Lodge of England offered moral and financial support to help the fledgling colony. Three months later, in February 1734, the first Lodge of Freemasons was organized in Savannah. Noble Jones, intimate friend of James Oglethorpe was initiated as the first Freemason in Georgia.

 In the ensuing years other lodges were chartered in Georgia. In 1786 the existing Lodges in Georgia gathered together to form the Grand Lodge of Georgia. In 1997 there were 471 lodges with 72,451 members.

 Annual reports published by Grand Lodges can be a wonderful source for researchers. They list the name of every lodge under its jurisdiction and every member of each lodge. In many annual reports the lodges report the death of their members who died during the year. These reports may be the only place one might find a record of death for an ancestor.

TEXAS NAVY WEBSITE

 Manned by Walter Nass, the Texas Navy maintains a scholarly educational and historically informative website at http://www.hal-pc.org/~longhorn. The site has histories of each of the Texas Navies and their ships, biographies of their Admirals, a comprehensive bibliography, pictures of the uniforms of her sailors and officers and links to  other sites associated with the Texas Navy.

 Texas history buffs who thrive on the important and trivial points of history will want to return to the website each month for a taste of history about the Texas Navy. Website historian Jonathan W. Jordan will be continually posting monthly chronological vignettes of historical events pertinent to the Texas Navies.

LEARN GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

 Offered by Leisure Learning, Mic Barnette will teach an introductory course in family history. Roots of Genealogy-How To Research Your Family Tree will be held from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., Tuesday, October 10 at Leisure Learning's 2990 Richmond Ave campus. The following week the class will tour Clayton Genealogical Library and conduct on site research. For more information and to register, contact Leisure Learning at 713-529-4414

SURF THE INTERNET

 On Wednesday October 18 Houston Community College's 1681 Cartwright campus in Missouri City will feature Mic Barnette with a Surfing The Internet- For Genealogy class. The class will consist of a live tour of some of the best genealogical research websites on the Internet. The class will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more information and to enroll contact HCC at 281-835-5539.

IMMIGRATION RECORDS

 Paula Perkins Parke will address the Humble Area Genealogical Society on Monday October 9. Her topic will be Immigration Records. The Humble Area Genealogical Society meets at 7 p.m. in the Teaching Theater of Kingwood College. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the society at 281-358-6815.

GENEALOGICAL SEMINAR

 The Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries will host Christine Rose in an all day workshop on Saturday, October 21. The seminar will focus on Finding Ancestors in Land and Little Known Records. For more information, contact Bob Kellow at 972-783-8494

NEWS FROM THE BOOK SHELF

 In 1854 there were 189 Masonic lodges in Georgia. Mountain Press, P.O. Box 400, Signal Mountain, TN 37377-0400 has published the annual report consisting of a listing of all the masons and masonic lodges in Georgia for that year. Grand Lodge of Georgia 1854 is available from the publisher for $28.50, postpaid.

 The book is a facsimile reprint of the original 1854 edition. It consists of a list of each lodge in the state including all the members of each lodge. For each lodge information is given on how many men were initiated, passed, raised and resigned. An interesting tidbit of information included is the amount of dues paid and the day of month, time and place where the lodge met.

 In addition to the foregoing, the editors have added an index of lodge names and their locations. They have, also, added an all name index to the masonic members named in the book.

 Anyone with Georgia ancestry may have ancestors who were masons. Everyone with potential Georgia masonic ancestors will wish to peruse this book.