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The Flint Genealogical Society was founded in 1956 and was granted 501(c)(3) status in 1975. It is a non-profit organization incorporated in the State of Michigan exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. It’s purpose is to encourage, aid and share, research and education in genealogy by persons, organizations and institutions having these interests; to make donations of money and materials to 501(c) recognized organizations or to public libraries for exclusively public purposes; and to procure or publish and distribute historical or genealogical material for educational purposes.
Any person interested in genealogy, history or biography, either amateur or professional, may become a member of the Flint Genealogical Society by making written application submitted with dues to the Registrar. All records and data compiled by the Society are accessible for inspection and reference to any interested parties. All research acquisitions of the Society are donated to the Flint Public Library, 1026 E. Kearsley Street, Flint, Michigan.
The Society’s current membership count is 342, with total membership since its founding of over fifteen-hundred persons. While a majority of current members are Michigan residents and include individuals from nearly every county in the state, there also are individual and organizational members residing in Maryland, Florida, Texas, California, Washington and Hawaii, as well as many states in between, and a few within Canada.
The Society is an all-volunteer organization with no paid members or officers. Regular public meetings are held at 7pm the first Tuesday of each month throughout the year (except January, July and August). Executive Committee Meetings are held at 6:30pm on the Monday following the first Tuesday of each of these same months. All meetings of the Society are open to the public and free of charge. Advance notice of meetings and activities of the organization is given in a monthly newsletter mailed to each current member.
Since it’s inception, Society volunteers have published the Flint Genealogical Quarterly, a thirty page publication presently mailed three times each year to all current members. The Quarterly contains primarily unpublished articles, records and information of both historical and genealogical interest regarding the Flint and Genesee County area.
Through immense effort of member-volunteers, over the years the Society has recorded, indexed and published listings of the cemeteries in Genesee County and offers these for sale to researchers throughout Michigan and the US. The proceeds are used for purchasing further reference materials which are donated to the Flint Public Library. For the past three years society volunteers have been updating these various cemetery books to keep them current. This is a sizable and, in truth, a never ending endeavor.
For many years now, the Society has committed itself to furnishing volunteers for the Genealogical Research Section of the Flint Public Library for every hour the library is open. This presently amounts to sixty-six hours per week, year round. The Library Volunteers assist library patrons in locating and interpreting various historical and genealogical reference materials, in operating the microfilm and microfiche readers and the computerized International Genealogical Index, oftentimes explaining, in almost it’s entirety, the basic procedures of genealogical research to newcomers.
Society Volunteers also update and maintain a large Surname Index card file at the Flint Public Library which is available to the public. This file provides ready access to every name contained within the numerous family lineage’s that have been researched throughout the years by over fifteen-hundred Society members.
The Society also provides four volunteers each Friday at the Genesee County Courthouse to assist the public in Vital Records research. Written or personal genealogical inquiries received during the week by the County Clerk’s office staff are referred to the Society’s Courthouse Volunteers who are Sworn as deputies of the County Clerk.
Additionally, the Society staffs a free public research area in the Sloane Museum’s Perry Archives Building on Wednesday of each week. The Perry Volunteers assist any interested person’s in furthering their research through the use of archived resources such as old city directories and telephone books, early funeral home record books and newspaper obituaries. They also continually update a large set of alphabetized loose leaf notebooks containing past obituaries from local newspapers.
The Society’s newest project is a funding drive to obtain indexes to and copies of vital records and early all-name Federal Population Censuses for each State in the United States and make them available at the Flint Public Library. These census records are of particular importance as they list the names of all person’s in each household. Earlier censuses recorded only the name of the head-of-household of each residence.
As well as accepting outright donations for funding of this project, the Society is offering sweatshirts for sale that are imprinted with an original artwork design created by a society member, and is compiling and publishing a twenty-two volume set of indexes to the entire 1880 Federal Population Census of Genesee County. Each volume provides an every-name listing for a township of Genesee County, with separate volumes for each of the four Wards of the City of Flint. When completed, this work will include a total of approximately 50,000 persons. These, too, will be made available at the Flint Public Library, and will be offered for sale to researchers throughout the United States and other countries. Since the Federal Population Census & Vital Records project is sizable, the Society is also attempting to obtain grant funding to cover a portion of it.
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