======================================================================== LIVERMORE-AMADOR GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY E-BULLETIN FOR OCTOBER October 1, 2002 ======================================================================== MEETING REMINDER The Family Tree Maker group will meet this week. See details below. ANNOUNCEMENTS Membership Report Kaye Strickland, Membership Chair The total membership for September is 186 memberships and 228 members. We had one new member in September, Tim Sage. - - - - - California Vital Records Much publicity has been given to the new law restricting access to California vital records data. The bill can be read in full (18734 bytes worth!) at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1601- 1650/sb_1614_bill_20020919_chaptered.html (Note that this is a two-line URL and may not be clickable.) Provisions of the bill and their effect on our research have been widely discussed in genealogy circles, for instance, in Dick Eastman's e-mail newsletter. This announcement is not to add to that discussion, but only to point out that the information from past years is still online, and the L-AGS Web site has links to it: http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi -- Social Security Death Index 1962-Present -- Data on more than 68 million Americans who have died since 1962. http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/cabiygen.htm -- California Birth Records -- California birth index from 1905 to 1995. Use the link in the lower right corner of this page. http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/cadeathm.htm -- California Death Records 1905-1939 -- Commercially-posted images of state-published microfiche. Free access through a gauntlet of advertising. http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/camarrin.htm -- California Marriage Records 1949-1985 -- A new online database, not very user-friendly but the only known Web source for this information. http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi -- California Death Records 1940-1997 -- 9 million records of deaths in California from 1940 to 1997. RootsWeb database with highly flexible search capability. ======================================================================== O C T O B E R M E E T I N G S Visitors are welcome at all of our meetings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FAMILY TREE MAKER FOCUS GROUP Dick Finn, Acting Leader Thursday, October 3, 2002 - 7:30 PM Always the first 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 We will continue discussion of Version 10 of FTM. If you have updated to Version 10, please try some of the new features to be able to comment on them. Also, please remember to bring the manual supplement that came with the new version. We are primarily a group of Family Tree Maker users (from beginners to experts) who discuss/share problems and successes and in general help each other in the use of FTM software. If you have a problem you want to bring up at the meeting, it will help if you post it in advance to: mailto:ftm.group@l-ags.org Members owning laptops are requested to bring them to the meeting. Please bring your FTM manual also. Guests are welcome at no charge. All persons interested or potentially interested in Family Tree Maker and related software are invited to attend. For information on our group please feel free to call Richard Finn at 925.XXX-XXXX or e-mail him at XXXX@pacbell.net. If you can't get Dick try George Anderson at 925-XXX-XXXX. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MONTHLY GENERAL MEETING Mary Dillon, Program Chairperson < mailto:program.chair@L-AGS.org > Tuesday, October 8, 2002 - 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 Topic: Sharing The October 8th meeting of the Livermore-Amador Genealogical Society will feature "Sharing Your Finds and Tips". Members will be sharing many of the great finds that they have made this past year. Even more interesting might be the clever ways they made these finds. These finds and tips might include newly discovered websites, long lost cousins, and old family items found in the attic. Anything to do with family history. It might be fun to bring old items that most of us will not be able to figure out what they are used for. Bring your finds and tips and share them with us. Also, if you have a genealogy problem that has you stumped, feel free to call on the audience for suggestions. It will be helpful if you post the problem ahead of time at: mailto:members@L-AGS.org and mailto:guests@L-AGS.org to give everyone a chance to think about it before the meeting. For information contact Dick Finn at 925 XXX-XXXX or: mailto:president@L-AGS.org. Visitors are welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRI-VALLEY TMG USERS GROUP Kay Speaks and Larry Renslow, Leaders < mailto:tvtmg.chair@L-AGS.org > Saturday, October 19, 2002 - 9-12 AM Always the third Saturday of the month Location: 7077 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 110, Pleasanton. This is across Valley Avenue from Gate 12 of the fairgrounds. URL for a map to the meeting place: < http://www.L-AGS.org/koll.center.html > Subject: Tags -- A Tag is a collection of fields where information about a Name, Relationship, Address, History, or Event is stored. We will create a new sample database and enter the some of these Tags and enter data about a person's address, birth, death, burial, marriage, and divorce. For some of the tag types we will include a memo, sentence, citation and witness. A sample of these events will be provided for this session. We will use this sample database for future sessions. Please bring your laptop if you own one, although a laptop is not required for this session. The Master Genealogist (TMG), produced by a tiny private software company (Wholly Genes, Inc .) is one of two genealogical software products directed toward the user interested in event driven records. By events, I mean all happenings within a persons life, not just the standard birth, marriage, death and burial data. With TMG, you can record every variation of spelling of an ancestor's name, each location in which they reside, every award, educational or professional accomplishment, every event in their life. Once you have information recorded in TMG, you can use the Custom Report Writer (CRW) to search through and locate information. With CRW, you can create customized reports based upon criteria you designate, printing those reports to paper, a file for use with your word processor, or to a list (pick list) within TMG. - - - - - Please avail yourself of the TMG e-mail forum to post questions or answers: Visitors are welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GENEALOGY STUDY GROUP Kay Speaks, Leader < mailto:study.chair@L-AGS.org > Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 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 > Program: To be announced - - - - - Please avail yourself of the Study Group e-mail forum to post questions or answers: Visitors are welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COMPUTER INTEREST GROUP Jim Lathrop, Group Leader < mailto:computer.chair@L-AGS.org > Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 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 Program: Scanning Techniques - - - - - 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. Visitors are welcome. ======================================================================== 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 From the "Grand Traverse Herald," 27 September 1867, page 1: It is so hilly in some parts of New Hampshire that the people look up their chimneys to see when the cows come home. [Copyright 1998-2002, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. From "Ancestry Daily News" (http://www.ancestry.com/dailynews)] ========================================================================