LIVERMORE-AMADOR GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY E-BULLETIN FOR FEBRUARY 2007 February 1, 2007 ======================================================= Summary of Events for February 2007 (See details on a later screen.) - Family Tree Maker Group: Thursday, February 1 - General Meeting: Tuesday, February 13 - The Master Genealogist Group: Saturday, February 17 - Study Group: Thursday, February 22 - L-AGS Board Meeting: Tuesday, February 27 ======================================================= Future General Meetings February 13, 2007 - "The Trunk - My Trip to Germany" - L-AGS Member Chuck Wiedel March 13, 2007 - "My new book, 'Historic Livermore, California: A-Z'" - L-AGS President Anne Homan Saturday, April 21, 2007 - All-day free seminar with featured speakers Steve Morse and Susan Johnston. A special event jointly hosted by L-AGS and the Livermore LDS Church. ======================================================= A N N O U N C E M E N T S GREAT NEWS! Kay Speaks L-AGS, in association with the Livermore LDS Church, is hosting a free genealogical seminar Saturday, April 21, 2007, featuring Stephen P. Morse, famed for his One- Step search engine, and Susan G. Johnston, L-AGS member and Los Positas College faculty member. Steve will present three different topics: "One-Step Web Pages - A Potpourri of Genealogical Search Tools," "Ellis Island Search," and "Playing Hide and Seek in the U.S. Census." Sue's topic is "Adventures in Source Citations." The date is firm, but details are still in the planning stages. More information will be coming soon. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEW BOOKS IN THE PLEASANTON LIBRARY GENEALOGY SECTION Carl Cousineau Library Services Manager, Pleasanton Public Library "Ancestral Trails : The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History." Herber, Mark D. - 929.1072 HERBER. "Blue Book of Schuylkill County : Who Was Who and Why, in Interior Eastern Pennsylvania, in Colonial Days, the Huguenots and Palatines, their Service in Queen Anne's French and Indian, and Revolutionary Wars : History of the Zerbey, Schwalm, Miller, Merkle, Minnich, Staudt, and Many Other Representative Families." Elliott, Ella Zerbey - 974.817 ELLIOTT. "Jamestowne Ancestors, 1607-1699 : Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the Landing at James Towne, 1607- 2007." Davis, Virginia Lee Hutcheson - 975.5425 DAVIS. "Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Cemetery Surname Index." Closson, Bob - 929.50974815 CLOSSON. "Castro Valley." Lorge, Lucille - 979.465 LORGE. "Early Livermore." Livermore Heritage Guild - 979.465 LIVERMORE. "San Ramon Valley : Alamo, Danville, And San Ramon." Lane, Beverly and Ralph Cozine - 979.463 LANE. The last three books are part of a series featuring old photographs of small towns in the U.S. A Pleasanton book is in process. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DUES REMINDER 2007 Patrick Lofft and Larry Hale, Membership Chairmen January first was the deadline for paying your 2007 dues. If you haven't paid yet, don't worry - you won't be declared an ex-member until March 1. 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 one of us at a meeting. Please include the filled-out renewal form that came with your November Roots Tracer. Thanking you in advance....Patrick ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GENEALOGY COURSES AT LOS POSITAS Our own Susan Johnston will teach genealogy at Los Positas College this Spring. There will be two different courses, the first taught in March and the second in May. Each course will consist of four Saturday sessions of two hours each. To see details about the courses, click on: http://laspositas.augusoft.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=1070&session.addtoken then, using the pull-down menu for "Instructor," choose "Johnston, Susan" and press Go. Direct click-in to that page is apparently not allowed. Details about the courses were also e-mailed to members by Patrick Lofft yesterday. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FEBRUARY ROOTS TRACER Jane Southwick, Roots Tracer Managing Editor The new Roots Tracer in ready for printing and will be available at our February meeting. There is still time to request an e-mail copy of the Tracer in full color. You are able to print your own copy, and this saves our Tracer staff time and effort, saves our Society money, and saves a tree. Please contact Sandra Caulder mailto:XXXX@comcast.net to let her know you would like to have the Tracer by e-mail. ======================================================= F E B R U A R Y 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: Today, Thursday, February 1, 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 some of the little known features for Family Tree Maker. Bring your questions and your FTM finds. 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 Arleen Wood, Program Chairperson Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 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: "The Trunk" Presenter: Chuck Wiedel L-AGS Member Chuck Wiedel has had a 15-year journey researching his German roots on his Wiedel surname. He will do a photo presentation and talk about how he found another branch to his family unknown to him and his visit to the family home in Bavaria. March Program: "My New Book: 'Historic Livermore, California: A-Z'" - L-AGS President Anne Homan Visitors are welcome. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TRI-VALLEY TMG USERS GROUP Kay Speaks, Leader Contact Mail: mailto:study.group@l-ags.org [For a formatted version of this announcement, go to: http://www.L-AGS.org/temp/TMG_Meeting_Feb07.doc ] Meeting Date: February 17, 2007 (Third Saturday of the Month) Meeting Time: 9:00 AM - Noon (each meeting is like a mini-workshop) Meeting Location: 7077 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 110, Conference Room, Pleasanton, CA 94566 Map to the meeting site: http://www.l-ags.org/maps/Pls-KollCenter.html Instructors: Kay Speaks and Sue Johnston Topic: Using Accent Colors, http://tmg.reigelridge.com/accents.htm To quote Terry Reigel, one of TMG's better features is the ability to apply Accents to mark persons with most any characteristics. Selected people meeting specific criteria appear in distinctive colors in the detailed person's window. Accents can be: males and females, living status, end of line ancestors, born in a specific state, civil war candidate. The list is endless. Accents help to highlight details and aids in your research. 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. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ STUDY GROUP MEETING Leader: Kay Speaks Contact Mail: mailto:study.group@L-AGS.org [For a formatted version of this announcement, go to: http://www.L-AGS.org/temp/SG_Meeting_Feb07.doc] Date: Thursday, February 22, 2007 Always the fourth Thursday of the month Time: 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM Location: LDS Church, 950 Mocho Street, Livermore, CA Map: http://www.l-ags.org/maps/Liv-FHC.html Topic: Using Timelines As A Research Tool Timelines provide a record of historical events during your ancestors' lifetime. What major events happened during the life cycles of your ancestors? When and where did these events occur? How did they affect your family, their community, and their migration patterns? Epidemics, war, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters - what type of records did these events generate? Have a genealogy brick wall? Let the Study Group help you brainstorm your research options. Don't forget to use our L-AGS Study Group forum for any genealogy topic discussion or computer interest question. L-AGS is blessed with people willing to share their knowledge! E-mail the forum at: mailto:study.group@L-AGS.org. You can also post any suggestions for future Study Group topics. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ L-AGS BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING Date: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 Time: 7:30 PM Location: 2639 Tahoe Drive, Livermore, CA Members are invited to attend meetings of the Board of Directors. =======================================================