04/28/2005 -- Milam County Clerk Work-Day On Friday, May 13, 2005, the Milam County Genealogical Society (MCGS) will conduct a volunteer work-day at the Milam County Clerk's Office from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. You do not need any special skills to stop by and help. Volunteers are flattening the original tri-fold old loose paper estate and probate records and placing them into the new acid-free file folders. In 2004, the MCGS raised money to purchase half of the needed acid-free file folders and the society hopes to raise additional funds to completely reorganize the 5,500 original estate and probate loose papers into acid-free file folders and have those documents microfilmed. This is a long-term historic document preservation project that will protect these original wills, estate inventories, etc., that date back to 1874. This is a critical document preservation project for Milam County. Some years ago, the Milam County District Clerk destroyed the original loose papers for civil lawsuits, divorces and criminal cases. The destruction of the original historic district court documents has left a lasting hole for researchers. While the original records were microfilmed prior to destruction by the District Clerk, the backside of many documents were not microfilm and some of the microfilming is so faint or faded as it is impossible to read the documents. The MCGS has placed on-line an Index to Milam County Probate Records (1874-1939) at: < http://www.geocities.com/milamco/ >. If you are interested in learning more about this project or volunteering at the work-day at the Milam County Clerk's Office, please contact: Randy Billingsley, President of the MCGS (254/697-2355) or Marie & Charles Hubert (512/446-3937). = = = = = -- Minerva Cemetery Work-Day On Saturday, May 14, 2005, from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., the Minerva Cemetery Assoc. will hold a work-day to clean, index and photograph the gravemarkers in preparation for making application for a Texas Historic Cemetery Designation from the Texas Historical Commission. The Minerva Cemetery is located in the southwest quadrant of Milam County on CR 232 off US Hwy 77. The cemetery can be found about one-half mile after turning onto CR 232 and is located on the left after a curve. Please consider volunteering if you have family buried in the cemetery or if you are interested in learning how to do a similar project to be able to obtain a Texas Historic Cemetery Designation. What to bring? You can help by bringing any or all of the following: 1-gallon pail; lawn equipment (weed-eater, shovel, pruning shears, pry bars); clipboards; sponges; soft brushes (veggie cleaning type - if you can use it on your face, you can use it on a gravemarker); cameras & film; GPS locator; yardsticks; lawn chair; umbrellas (golf size); aluminum foil (thin inexpensive kind); cooler with water, drinks & sack lunch; bags of ready-mix concrete; bug spray; and, ant bait. There are nine cemeteries in Milam County that have been designated as a Texas Historic Cemetery. They are: Burlington Cemetery, Bushdale Cemetery, Friendship United Methodist Church Cemetery, Hope Lutheran Memorial Park Cemetery, Jewish Cemetery (in Rockdale), Mount Home Baptist Church Cemetery, North Elm Cemetery, St. Michael's Cemetery and Val Verde Cemetery. The following surrounding counties and the number of Texas Historic Cemeteries in each: Williamson Co., 9; Bell Co., 7; Lee Co., 2; Robertson Co., 2; Burleson Co., 10; Falls Co., 4; and, Travis Co., 31. The only qualification necessary for a cemetery to apply for a Texas Historic Cemetery is to have at least one burial prior to 1955, e.g., a grave older than 50-years. For information on participating in the Minerva Cemetery work-day, contact: Charles Hubert at 512/446-3937. - - - - In this column, I will be glad to highlight and review any family history, genealogy, county history, or similar book, free of charge, if you donate a copy of the book or item. After it has been highlighted and reviewed, on a space available basis, it will be donated to the genealogy section of a library. You will receive an acknowledgment of the donation from the library. Mail item or book to me at the below address. To read back issues of this column, go to < http://www.geocities.com/lks_friday/COLUMN-001.htm >. Regretfully, I cannot help with individual genealogical research. However, you can submit queries that will be published on a space available basis. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions for column topics, genealogy or historical society announcements, please contact me at: P. O. Box 16604, Houston, Texas 77222-6604 or e-mail: < [email protected] >. Lynna Kay Shuffield - P. O. Box 16604 - Houston, Texas 77222 'Our Loose Ends' Genealogy Column http://www.geocities.com/lks_friday/COLUMN-001.htm Milam County TXGenWeb - http://www.geocities.com/milamco/ San Jacinto County TXGenWeb http://www.geocities.com/lks_friday/SANJAC-01.htm