LIVERMORE-AMADOR GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY E-BULLETIN FOR DECEMBER 2006 December 1, 2006 ======================================================= Summary of Events for December 2006 (See details on a later screen.) - Family Tree Maker Group: Thursday, December 7 - General Meeting: Tuesday, December 12 - Study Group: No meeting in December - The Master Genealogist Group: Saturday, December 16 - L-AGS Board Meeting: Tuesday, January 2, 2007 ======================================================= Future General Meetings December 12, 2006, "Vacation to Florida, MA: My experiences in my first genealogy trip to New England." Duncan Tanner January 9, 2007, "Preserving Your Family History, an Archivist's Perspective." Maxine Trost February 13, 2007, "My new book, 'Historic Livermore, California, A to Z'". Anne Homan ======================================================= A N N O U N C E M E N T S SLATE FOR 2007 Jane Southwick, President The nominating committee has filled all six positions on the slate of nominees for 2007. They are: President: .......................Anne Homan 1st Vice President, Program: .....Arleen Wood 2nd Vice President, Membership: ..Patrick Lofft & Larry Hale Recording Secretary: .............Rose Marie Phipps Corresponding Secretary: .........Beth Twogood Business Manager: ................Frank Geasa As required in the bylaws, the election will be held at the general meeting on December 12. Nominations may be made from the floor at the meeting, provided the nominee is present at the meeting or has given written consent to be nominated. It is important to have as many members as possible at the election meeting so that the successful candidates receive a true mandate to serve. We thank the nominating committee - Arleen Wood, Kathryn Bridgman and Marilyn Cutting - for the fine slate they put forward, and we thank the nominees for agreeing to serve. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DUES REMINDER 2007 Marilyn Cutting, Membership Chairman January first is fast approaching - that is the date when the annual dues are due. So before more time passes, why don't you take a minute to renew your membership? An individual membership is $18.00 and family memberships are $25.00. Names of Benefactors ($40) and Patrons ($100) are published in four issues of the Roots Tracer. You may mail your check, payable to "L-AGS", to P.O. Box 901, Livermore, CA 94551-0901, or give to Jean Lerche or Marilyn Cutting. Thanking you in advance....Marilyn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RIDE SHARING Jane Southwick, President Some members may find it difficult to attend meetings for a variety of reasons, but if one of those reasons is lack of transportation, we would like to hear from you. Please e-mail the President at mailto:president@L-AGS.org if you need a ride, or if you are able to offer a member a ride to one of our meetings. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT TO DO ON A COLD WINTER'S DAY OR NIGHT? Kay Speaks We've all benefited from those good souls who have indexed or transcribed genealogy database information. Remember when you thought, "Thank goodness I don't have to start my research from scratch!" It was most likely volunteers who did the legwork for that database or website that you love to use. There are always any number of transcription or indexing projects looking for volunteers. There are those projects Dick Finn, David Abrahams, Sandy Clark and other L-AGS members spearhead. Some involve work at a library or museum, others can be done at home. To discuss the possibilities for your participation, call President Jane Southwick. I have compiled a list of a few non-L-AGS projects needing volunteers. It is posted on our Web site at: http://www.L-AGS.org/volunteering.doc Contributing to genealogy databases can be personally very gratifying, knowing that the previously hidden data will become available to people all over the world. ======================================================= D E C E M B E R M E E T I N G S Visitors are welcome free of charge at all of our meetings. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FAMILY TREE MAKER FOCUS GROUP Leader: Dick Finn at mailto:XXXX@wecare.net Date and Time: Thursday, December 7, 7:30 p.m. Always the first Thursday of the month. Place: Room 3 (around the back), Almond Avenue School, 1401 Almond Avenue, Livermore Map to the meeting site: http://www.L-AGS.org/maps/Liv-AlmondSchool.html In addition to our usual give and take session we will review the Charting Companion for Family Tree Maker, an add-on help software. Most of our group are FTM users (from beginners to experts) who discuss problems and solutions, share successes, answer questions, and in general help each other with the Family Tree Maker genealogical software. All persons interested or potentially interested in Family Tree Maker are invited to attend. For information on our group please call Dick Finn at 925- XXX-XXXX or e-mail him at mailto:XXXX@wecare.net. Contact Dick for information about topics to be discussed. Visitors are welcome and there is no charge to attend. Bring your questions, comments, and if you have a laptop with FTM loaded (any version) and/or the FTM Handbook, you might bring them. Please avail yourself of the L-AGS FTM e-mail forum at mailto:ftm.group@L-AGS.org to post questions, answers and comments. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MONTHLY GENERAL MEETING Barbara Huber, Program Chairperson mailto:program.chair@L-AGS.org Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 7:30 p.m. Location: Congregation Beth Emek, 3400 Nevada Court, Pleasanton Map to the meeting site: http://www.L-AGS.org/maps/Pls-BethEmek.html Topic: "Vacation to Florida, MA: My experiences in my first genealogy trip to New England." Presenter: Duncan Tanner Duncan is an electrical engineer, retired from Sandia Labs. He is married with 2 children, and 3 grandchildren. He has been learning about genealogy for about 5 years. He considers himself an advanced beginner. The major surnames he is researching are Nelson (MA,KS,IA), Tower (MA), Coffin (MA), Foster (KS), Walker (KS,VT) and Mogensen (Denmark). Visitors are welcome. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STUDY GROUP MEETING Co-Leaders: Kay Speaks & Dick Finn No Study Group in December! Next meeting: 25 January 2007 Normally the fourth Thursday of each month Time: 7:30 p.m. - 9 p.m. Location: LDS Church, 950 Mocho Street, Livermore, CA Map to the meeting site: http://www.l-ags.org/maps/Liv-FHC.html Comments, questions and answers about any subject in genealogy should be posted to our e-mail forum at mailto:study.group@L-AGS.org. The forum does not close for the holidays!! We like to hear from our members - had a wonderful breakthrough in your genealogy research? Found a black sheep in your family? Have a scanning or computer related issue? Have some good tips for a Christmas gift for the genealogist in your family? Share with the Study Group! What would you like Santa to bring you this year that is genealogy related? Let us know if you have a topic you would like the Study Group to discuss in 2007. Happy Holidays! See you in January. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TRI-VALLEY TMG USERS GROUP Leader: Kay Speaks mailto:tvtmg.chair@l-ags.org Date: Saturday, December 16, 2006 Time: 9:00 a.m. - Noon (each meeting is like a mini- workshop) Location: 7077 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 110, Pleasanton, CA Map to the meeting site: http://www.l-ags.org/maps/Pls-KollCenter.html Instructors: Kay Speaks & Sue Johnston Topic: Merging Projects and Data Sets In the last few months we have covered the topics of "Projects and Data Sets" where you learned the difference between the two, and "Importing from Another Program" where you learned how to get data into TMG from another source. "Merging Projects and Data Sets" is about combining separate projects and data sets. Often this process can seem confusing, especially if you don't use this process often. Do you know when to merge Data Set A into Data Set B, or visa versa? Do you know what will happen to your customized Tag Types during the merge? What of your Source Types, Styles, or Flags? Do you know when you could use the Copy Persons feature rather than using the Merging Data Sets? Should you consider merging data sets? About our meetings: With the aid of a digital projector, Kay and Sue work as an instructional team. We discuss, demonstrate, and brainstorm best practices of the software. We use a hands-on method, so you learn TMG's features by actually entering samples of the lesson into a class TMG database. Each monthly session is like a mini three-hour TMG workshop. Guests are always welcome at our meetings. Accommodations for laptops are available. If you have a laptop, bring it with you to the meeting and a copy of the group's practice database will be provided to you. A feature of our teaching sessions is the ability to connect up to 15 laptops to the digital projector so attendees can share their ideas and projects. It also allows us to provide custom instruction to the individual user. A laptop is not a requirement as the lesson will be projected. If you can't stay for the entire 3 hours, come and leave early. TMG questions not specific to all attendees will be addressed in the later part of our meeting. Please bring samples of your problem if possible. We hope to see you at the next meeting! A free demo version of the software can be downloaded at http://www.whollygenes.com For additional information, contact mailto:tvtmg.chair@l-ags.org. =======================================================