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President's Message

To all BCGS members and friends:

Cool temperatures, changing leaves, start of school are far off...or are they? As we near the end of August, these things will come to pass. If you are buying items for the start of the school year, think of BCGS. If go to www.smile.amazon.com and login to your account, you can choose a charitable organization. If you choose Bucks County Genealogical Society, Amazon will donate pennies from each purchase to our coffers without increasing the price of your item.

This September, for the first time in our history, we are impaneling a Nominating Committee to solicit members to run for office and for several non-Board, non-elected positions. There are some Board members who have served and want to retire. So, again, I ask you to think about the value of this organization to your genealogical life, and consider approaching a member of the committee to volunteer to run for a position. They may, indeed, approach you and ask if you would like to run. Any questions about the positions can be addressed to Board members or members of the Committee. Be PART of your organization. Board positions entail work, but are also lots of fun while working with great people. Elections are in November with the Ancestry Fair soon to follow. Fall is coming...

Mary C. Butash, President
Bucks County Genealogical Society
Join us for next meeting on 
Saturday, September 10, 2016
10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon

PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS A DIFFERENT SATURDAY AND DIFFERENT LOCATION FROM OUR USUAL MEETINGS!

BACK 2 SCHOOL 4 GENEALOGY!
COMPUTER LAB SESSION AT 
COUNCIL ROCK HIGH SCHOOL-NORTH LIBRARY

Council Rock High School - North  is located at 62 Swamp Rd., Newtown.
Park and enter on the right side of the building. Follow BCGS signs and volunteers to direct you to the library.
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Research your family history with your helpful peers at BCGS. Free use of Ancestry.com (Library edition) will be available on the library computers. Or bring your own laptop and use the school's free WiFi. Lookups on other sites will be available as well as advice from experienced members.  For more information, contact Cathy Ivins at  [email protected]

There is no admission charge for this workshop! Bring your friends and family!

REFRESHMENTS ARE NEEDED!

I f you are willing to get coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts - ( you will be reimbursed at the BCGS meeting), - please contact Marilyn Cook to discuss quantity and to get directions. 
 
If you would like to bring cookies, munchkins, etc., that would be great.  (We usually discount the meeting fee for folks bringing snacks; however, there is no meeting fee at the September meeting.)

Marilyn may be reached at  [email protected]

INSIDE BCGS

There are lots of volunteers doing things for Bucks County Genealogical Society behind the scenes.  (We have no paid employees.)  One of our talented, hard-working board members is our webmaster, Nancy Heath. 

Nancy has designed our website, designed the searchable database with 340,000 entries, made it possible for you to see all of the information about Bucks County cemeteries, and designed the members-only section of the database. In her spare time (we really don't think she has any!), Nancy created our membership management software which automated many things that used to take a lot of time.  There are other behind-the-scenes options on the website which Nancy has developed to make life easier for the BCGS board too.  We are very fortunate to have her on our board!

A lifelong Jersey girl, Nancy grew up in Hamilton Township, Mercer County. After graduating from Douglass College with a Political Science degree, she worked for 10 years at Educational Testing Service in Princeton as a programmer and systems analyst. After a concurrent four years attending evening law school at Temple, she earned her J.D. degree, passed the New Jersey bar exam, and took a position in a public interest law firm in Newark. It took less than two years of practice for her to realize that her real love was computers, not law practice. She and her future husband quit their jobs, bought a circa 1790 farmhouse in historic Greenwich, Cumberland County, NJ, and started their own business, Town Place Associates, doing consulting and custom programming work for school districts and county clients.

Nancy's interest in genealogy only began after the death of her father, who had been researching his family roots in Bucks and Hunterdon counties. To her eternal chagrin, she was extremely skeptical when he reported that he had discovered a direct Heath ancestor who had arrived in Bucks County with the Yardley family in 1682. Turns out he was right, and she has been trying to make it up to him ever since by learning all she can about that ancestor and others.

Nancy lost her husband 10 years ago, but continues to operate the business with no plans to retire. She now lives in a modern house in Gloucester County, NJ, just across the river from the Philadelphia airport, and much closer to her ancestral roots in Trenton and Lambertville, NJ and Bucks County. 
10th Annual 
Bucks County Ancestry Fair
Saturday, November 12, 2016

This year the event will be held at Upper Bucks Campus of Bucks County Community College, One Hillendale Rd, Perkasie, PA.

Our Keynote speaker for this event will be Judy G. Russell, the Legal Genealogist.  Judy will provide two lectures in addition to the Keynote presentation. We have confirmed several additional presenters; the schedule will be posted on the Ancestry Fair website soon.

New features this year include bigger classrooms, more time between lectures, longer lunch break, pre-registration (available in early September), and boxed lunch options for pre-registrants.

We need lots of help on the day of the event and it's not too early to volunteer. The next meeting of the Ancestry Fair Committee will be held on Saturday, September 17th, 10 AM in the 2nd floor Community Room at McCaffrey's Market, Yardley.  If you would like to be part of the committee - or just want to find out what is going on, please join us at the meeting.

Also, if you think you can spare an hour or two to help at the November event, please contact Peg Felter at  [email protected] .

COMPREHENSIVE CALENDAR OF EVENTS


The calendar is frequently updated and includes events from all over the country.  Be sure to check it every month to see what is happening. 

Here is the link:  

THE BCGS DATABASE 

This month our free, searchable database of Bucks County records has grown again! 
 
We have added over 800 new names to the database, including burials in the Neshaminy Presbyterian Church Cemetery, with dates going back as early as the 1730s, and gravestone inscriptions from the Bethlehem A.M.E. church cemetery in Langhorne.
 
Our database index now has a total of 338,708 Bucks County names, searchable by any combination of last name, first name, year, and location!  
 
Check the site on a regular basis to see what is new; here is the link:   

WOW - THE CEMETERY PROJECT IS FINISHED!!

The committee of "Graveyard Girls" logged many miles, took hundreds of pictures and with other volunteers compiled information on all 207 cemeteries in Bucks County and several elsewhere. It wasn't always easy. Some cemeteries did not want to share their information.  Others were abandoned and had to be researched. Fortunately, most were willing to answer our questions and others gave us their records so we could add them to our database. The digitizing part of the project is ongoing.

Joann Cosgrove was the motivation for this endeavor. She organized the "road trips". Figured out where we should go and how many we could do in a day. The most done in one day was 10 cemeteries. Usually the biggest hurdle on these excursions was deciding where to eat lunch. Our favorite spot was The Perk in Perkasie.

The project was completed in a little over two years.  BCGS wants to thank
Joann Cosgrove & Peg Felter
Joann, the chief cemetery volunteer Peg Felter and all of the volunteers for this monumental accomplishment.  Take a look at  Bucks County Cemeteries  for a list of the volunteers who worked on this project. 

Congratulations for a job well done!
BEGINNERS CORNER

Have you searched newspapers for your ancestors? The newspapers sometimes have births, marriages, divorces, deaths, and lots of interesting articles.  There are many subscription services available but here are links to a couple that are free:


TECH TIP

Do you have a file that you would love to convert to some other format... for instance, a PDF that you want to convert to DOCX so that you can edit it?  Take a look at https://cloudconvert.com/.   It only takes a few seconds to create a CloudConvert account, load your file by URL, or from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or Box.  Then you select the format to which you want to convert the file.  

CloudConvert is a cloud-based application; there is no software to install on your computer.  If you want to convert a few files, the service is free.  If you want to convert lots of files, there is a charge. 
Membership Fees for One Year Membership

 Individual:  $20          Dual/Household:  $35
                                         Organization: $75
 
Our membership fees help to pay for speakers, facility rental, website costs, insurance and more.  Membership in BCGS is on a rolling basis and lasts one year from the month you join. 

You don't have to have Bucks County ancestors to enjoy the benefits of membership!  Won't you join and help us continue to grow?

See a list of BCGS Member Benefits on our website: 

Join or renew by mail using our membership application/renewal form , on line on the Society's website via PayPal or by paying with cash or check at our next meeting.  And, we now have the ability to accept credit card payments at our monthly meetings!
 
If you have questions and to get access to the above discounts, contact Pat Gessner, VP-Membership at  [email protected]

Bucks County Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 826, Washington Crossing, PA 18977