====================================================== Livermore-Amador Genealogical Society E-Bulletin for June 2004 June 3, 2004 ====================================================== Summary of Meetings for June 2004: · Family Tree Maker Group: The FTM group is taking a vacation this summer! · Regular Meeting - (6/08/2004 Jon Bryan and Members - Genealogy Booth at the Alameda County Fair 2004/L-AGS Member Sharing · Study Group: (6/17/2004): Beth Rauch - "Producing a Quality Family History" · The Master Genealogist Group - (6/19/2004): Review of Bob Velke's NGS Conference TMG Classes · Computer Interest Group - (6/24/2004): Bob Dougherty - "Tombstones, Photography and Genealogy" ====================================================== Please check meeting location places this summer on our L-AGS website. We expect this summer to be even a little more confusing than past summers. Congregation Beth Emek, where we hold our general meetings, is moving from Livermore to Pleasanton. Our June regular meeting looks like it will be our last time at the corner of M Street and College Avenue in Livermore. We plan to follow Congregation Beth Emek to Pleasanton probably for our August meeting. For our July regular meeting, we tentatively plan to meet at the new Livermore Public Library (about a block southeast of the old library). Since the old Sonoma School is closed for the summer we have our usual summer confusion. Both the Family Tree Maker (FTM) Group and Computer Interest Group (CIG) will need to cancel or change summer locations. FTM will take a vacation until September. CIG plans to meet at the LDS Church on 950 Mocho Street in Livermore as in past summers. Note that our meeting room may change according to various requirements at the local LDS Church. ====================================================== FAMILY TREE MAKER FOCUS GROUP Dick Finn, Acting Leader ftm.group@L-AGS.org, or XXX-XXXX The Family Tree Maker Focus Group will not be meeting during the summer Months (June, July and August). We hope to see you at the other L-AGS meetings and as a volunteer at the Alameda County Fair Genealogy Booth. ====================================================== Livermore-Amador Genealogical Society General Meeting Date: Tuesday, June 8, 2004 Time: 7:30pm Place: Temple Beth Emek, corner of College Ave. & M Street, Livermore Speakers: Jon Bryan and Members Topics: The Genealogy Booth at Alameda County Fair 2004/Member Sharing Please join us as volunteers for our fifth consecutive Genealogy Booth at the Alameda County Fair 2004 from June 25th through July 11th. This year we plan to increase the time our booth is open daily from six to eight hours. As in the past two years, we plan to be housed in the air-conditioned Technology Building at the Fairground in Pleasanton. After June 8th, we plan to open our automated Internet registration on our L-AGS website like we did last year. If volunteers later need to revise or change entries, we encourage them make the correct entry and then please contact Leo Vongottfried (lvongottfried@comcast.net or 447-3597), Mary Dillon (mary@trivalleycvb.com or 846-8910) or Jon Bryan (gailvb@aol.com or 447-9407) to have the incorrect entries removed. Benefits for Genealogy Booth volunteers will include free admission and free parking passes as in past years. The Alameda County Fair 2004 website may be found at http://www.alamedacountyfair.com/fair/fair_info.html Buy tickets for your non-volunteer days before June 25th and save up to 33% at: http://alcofair.regnetwork.com Come share with other members what items of interest you've discovered over the past 6 months or more. Have you removed a 'brick wall'? Did you discover a new cousin? What did you learn from them? Did you find an obscure link to your ancestor? Where did you find it? Please share any accomplishment that you think would be of interest to the group. Future presentations: 7/13/2004 Marge Stout Writing Your Life Story 8/10/2004 Cath Madden Trindle, CGRS "Once Upon a Time" - Genealogical Storytelling ====================================================== L-AGS Study Group Kay Speaks, Leader Date: Thursday, June 17, 2004 Time: 7:30 PM Location: LDS Church, 950 Mocho Street, Livermore, CA Map to the meeting site: http://www.l-ags.org/maps/Liv-FHC.html Topic: "Producing a Quality Family History" By Beth Rauch Beth Rauch, a L-AGS member, recently attended a class at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. She will talk about the Institute in general and discuss some of the highlights of her class -- "Producing a Quality Family History," taught by John Colletta and Patricia Law Hatcher. Beth will also include information she gathered on this subject while attending the recent NGS Conference in the States held in Sacramento. Even if you aren't ready to produce your family history at this time, Beth may give you ideas to add to your ongoing research projects. GenSmarts Add-on Genealogy Live Software Demo: Kay Speaks "GenSmarts is a genealogy research software utility that uses artificial intelligence to analyze your existing genealogy file and produce research recommendations. It helps you generate and track to do lists, print worksheets to record your genealogy research results, and plan trips to libraries, court houses, etc. For online research, GenSmarts produces links that already have your ancestors name and specifics embedded - making it much easier to perform online record lookups." This software works with any genealogy software package. With a click of the mouse you can even link to those fee based website to which you have access. To read more of this software, or to download a free trail version, visit http://www.gensmarts.com. Who are we? 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 techniques. We're learning about the joys, and yes, frustrations of this wonderful lifelong hobby and passion. 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'll make our meetings a part of your permanent calendar! ====================================================== Tri-Valley TMG Users Group Meeting Date: Saturday, June 19, 2004 (Third Saturday of the Month) Meeting Time: 9:00 AM - Noon (Conference Room) Meeting Location: 7077 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 110, Pleasanton, CA 94566 Meeting Subject: Review of Bob Velke's NGS Conference TMG Classes L-AGS Co-leader: Kay Speaks, mail to: tvtmg.chair@l-ags.org Several of us attended Bob Velke's TMG classes (beginning, intermediate and advanced) while at the NGS Conferences of the States held in Sacramento last month. Our June meeting will go through his beginning and part of the intermediate sessions. Notes from these sessions will be distributed. We will also discuss Leo Hoffman's suggested study guidelines document - "How to Learn TMG in a Few Hours" found at: The outline is designed to allow a user to get an idea of how best to learn about TMG. Mainly designed as the basis for developing a lesson plan for user groups or for individuals helping new or potential users, it can also be used as a study guide for personal learning, study, exploration, and experimentation. Map to 7077 Koll Center Parkway, Birch Circle, Suite 110, Pleasanton: http://www.l-ags.org/koll.center.html. We meet the third Saturday of every month, 9:00 AM-Noon. Accommodation for laptops will be available. ====================================================== Computer Interest Group Jim Rogers, Group Leader. Speaker: Bob Dougherty Topic: "Tombstones, Photography and Genealogy" Time: Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 7:30 PM Summer Location: LDS Church 950 Mocho Street in Livermore LDS Church 950 Mocho Street, Livermore Have you ever tried to photograph a tombstone? It works pretty well if the sun is in the right place. But what if the sun isn't where it needs to be? A flash on your camera won't help much. In fact it can make things worse. Bob has an inexpensive solution to the problem. Come see what he is able to do. If you have some thoughts (or have been successful) come bring your ideas. Thanks to Jim Rogers for agreeing to chair the meetings. (I hope your arm recovers from being twisted so much.) ====================================================== Our new CIG Leader will be Jim Rogers: When you have any ideas for future CIG programs, please share them with Jim Rogers (computer.chair@l-ags.org) Thank you very much Jim Lathrop for leading our Computer Interest Group in recent years. ====================================================== One of our members e-mailed me last month asking where they might send their membership renewal check? I find this answer at our L-AGS website at www.L-AGS.org: L-AGS P.O. Box 901 Livermore, CA 94551-0901