====================================================================== LIVERMORE-AMADOR GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY E-BULLETIN FOR AUGUST July 30, 2001 ====================================================================== Meeting Reminder The Family Tree Maker group will NOT meet this week. See details below. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A N N O U N C E M E N T S L-AGS member Doug Mumma continues to be in demand as a speaker about his DNA project. He spoke last week to the Marin County Genealogical Society and inspired Jana Black, MCGS Program Chairperson and the speaker at our June meeting, to start organizing a Bay Area seminar on DNA uses in genealogy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 1880 census for our part of Alameda County is now up on our Web site. To view the new database, go to our home page at: http://www.L-AGS.org then click on "Genealogy Databases for Eastern Alameda County, California", then "The 1880 Federal Census for Murray Township, Alameda County, California". You may notice that our home page is now a lot tidier. We have grouped a number of similar links into folders to clean up the growing clutter. ====================================================================== A U G U S T M E E T I N G S Visitors are welcome at all of our meetings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAMILY TREE MAKER FOCUS GROUP Dick Finn, Leader The FTM group will NOT meet in August. However, the FTM e-mail forum at: ftm.group@L-AGS.org is always available, 24/7/365, if you have problems or solutions to discuss with the group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING John Bryan, Acting Program Chairman Tuesday, August 14, 2001 - 7:30 PM Always the second Tuesday of the month Location: Congregation Beth Emek, 1886 College Avenue, Livermore Map to the meeting site: http://www.L-AGS.org/college.html Speaker: Jane Steiner Coordinator of the San Francisco "Great Register" Project Topic: "Men in San Francisco in 1890" Our speaker for the L-AGS General Meeting on August 14th will be Jane Steiner of the San Ramon Valley Genealogical Society (SRVGS). Her topic is "Men in San Francisco in 1890." We genealogists often miss the 1890 Federal Census, which was partially lost in a fire in 1921 in the Commerce Building in Washington, D. C. In 1932 this tragedy was further compounded by an error when the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of the Census sent a letter to the Librarian of Congress, ordering that most of the remainder of the 1890 census be destroyed! Projects have been developed to help compensate for information in the missing 1890 Federal census. One such effort has been to transcribe the voter registration records - the famous "Great Registers" - for years close to the year 1890. Jane volunteered to coordinate such a project for the California Genealogical Society (CGS). Her mission was to transcribe the voter records for the city and county of San Francisco. At the time, Jane didn't realize it would take 35 volunteers and 7 years for them to complete the effort. Her team (which included L-AGS members Jerry and Joanne Reynolds) found about 57,000 entries. These 1890 voters were all men. No women, no Orientals and few Negroes were included. I heard Jane give this presentation earlier at a CGS meeting. She shared many interesting statistics from this project including names, occupations and locations of birth. The survey found ninety different countries of birth in 1890. We can compare this with about 54 different countries that we counted at our "Genealogy Booth" at Alameda County Fair 2001. The transcribed data for the 57,000 San Francisco County voters produced a 950-page volume (price: $150). The remainder of the State of CA is found in volumes II and III. Our L-AGS library has the transcribed records for Alameda and Marin Counties. One of the first characteristics I noticed in Jane Steiner several years ago is that she seemed to be a supporter of genealogical efforts with much of her personal time. We may have seen Jane at the "CGS Genealogy Fairs" held at the Alameda County fairgrounds in the spring of 1999 and 2000. I suspect her total commitment was one of the special characteristics that helped earn Jane only the fifth-ever honorary lifetime membership award given by the SRVGS. The award was bestowed on her in June 2001. For over 20 years Jane has been active in CGS, serving as president, vice-president, treasurer, newsletter editor and program chairperson. When we have a question involving CGS, Jane is certainly the logical one to ask. Jon Bryan L-AGS President for 2000-2001 - - - - - Visitors are welcome. For information contact Jon Bryan at 925 XXX-XXXX, or mailto:president@L-AGS.org. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRI-VALLEY TMG USERS GROUP Joyce Siason and Kay Speaks, Leaders < mailto:tvtmg.chair@L-AGS.org > Thursday, August 9, 2001 - 7:30 PM Always the second Thursday of the month Location: Mocho Street LDS Church, 950 Mocho Street, Livermore URL for a map to the church: < http://www.L-AGS.org/mocho.html > Our assignment for this month is to work on the Data Entry starting with page 47 through 58 in the "Getting Started Manual". There will be extra tables set up so bring your laptop and work along with the display on the screen. Users with several years of experience have offered their assistance to those attending the meetings. With the use of a laptop and a digital projector, we are able to demonstrate techniques and answer questions. We meet every second Thursday of the month at 7:30 p.m., LDS Church, 950 Mocho, Livermore. < mailto:tvtmg@l-ags.org >. A free demo of the TMG software can be obtained from < http://www.whollygenes.com >. Non-members of L-AGS are welcome. As a beginner's group we are interested in your questions, comments, and information that can help our group understand and learn this program. If you have a topic that you would like discussed please let Kay and Joyce know. See you Thurs. Aug. 9th. 7:30 LDS Church on Mocho Street in Livermore. Kay and Joyce ------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENEALOGY STUDY GROUP Kay Speaks, Leader < mailto:study.chair@L-AGS.org > Thursday, August 16, 2001 - 7:30 PM Always the third Thursday of the month Location: Mocho Street LDS Church, 950 Mocho Street, Livermore URL for a map to the church: < http://www.L-AGS.org/mocho.html > Many people are not aware of this research tool. The August Livermore- Amador Genealogical Society Study Group topic for August will be an introduction to NUCMC. NUCMC (National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections) is a Library of Congress program, which offers free access to the U.S. national database of manuscript holdings through its integral cataloguing program. With the help of qualifying repositories, manuscripts of all types are being catalogued and indexed throughout the United States. It is the goal of the Library of Congress to have all written manuscripts catalogued and indexed in this database. They are using research libraries from all over the United States to accomplish this goal. Cataloguing of collections began in 1959 and continues to the present time. There are currently close to 500,000 records available in the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) bibliographic database. These documents come from archival and manuscript collections in research libraries, museums, state archives, and historical societies located throughout North America and around the world. This is also where NUCMC has produced its online cataloging since 1986/87. I hope you will be able to attend our monthly meeting and learn more about NUCMC. Through this database, I found indexes and abstracts for my surnames in such things as diaries, journals, corporate minutes, etc. - - - - - The L-AGS Study Group is an informal meeting of family historians and researchers. We represent those who have spent many decades learning methods and technique... to those of us who are just beginning our journey through the archives and old documents. We are learning about the joys, and yes, frustrations of this wonderful lifelong hobby. One of the many things we have in common is the willingness to share and help others. We meet on the third Thursday of every month at the LDS Church, 950 Mocho, Livermore, 7:30 p.m. I do hope you will mark us on your calendar for future meetings. The E-Mail Forum for our group is: mailto:study.group@L-AGS.org Group participants are invited to use the forum for questions and answers about the study topics, past and present. Visitors are welcome. - - - - - Members needing help with a genealogy problem may call one of the club officers, who will attempt to find someone who can help. For information contact Kay Speaks at . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMPUTER INTEREST GROUP Dick Finn, Group Leader Thursday, August 23, 2001 - 7:30 PM Always the fourth Thursday of the month Place: Livermore Adult Education Facility (formerly the Sonoma Avenue School), 543 Sonoma Ave., Livermore For a map to the school, surf to: http://www.L-AGS.org/sonoma.html Speaker: Duncan Tanner Member of the Technical Staff Sandia National Laboratories Topic: "Billions of bytes and nowhere to put them!" How do we archive all that valuable information? Duncan will review some of the past methods for archiving data and provide some examples used at Sandia. Current data archiving options for the PC user will be explored. Duncan has been at Sandia for 40 years and is currently involved in the administration of the Computer Aided Design networks at Sandia. - - - - - Please avail yourself of the CIG e-mail forum to post questions or answers: < mailto:cig@L-AGS.org >. As always, our meetings are open to discussions on other "computers in genealogy" subjects. ====================================================================== The Boilerplate We realize that not all L-AGS members have e-mail. If you have friends in L-AGS who do not have e-mail, please keep them informed about news in these e-mail bulletins. - - - - - To discontinue receiving these mailings from L-AGS please call me at 925 XXX-XXXX or e-mail me at < mailto:webmaster@l-ags.org >. - - - - - The L-AGS Web site is located at . If you ever have trouble accessing the L-AGS Web site, or find any faulty links on it, please let me know immediately. - - - - - Readability To make sure this message is readable by the maximum number of different computer systems, it is transmitted in plain text, without embedded formatting. The message was composed in 10 point monospaced Courier font, in a 6.125 inch column width. Any necessary indenting and centering was done with spaces, not tabs. If the text appears ragged on your screen, change to 10 point Courier font, or copy the message to a word processor and change the font there. ====================================================================== ROOTS HOOTS This month's Hoot, from the Tri-Valley Herald of July 15, 2001, is at: http://members.home.net/gwajr/pickles.jpg ======================================================================