CIG Notes

February 14, 2002

Notes from the February 14, 2002 meeting of the Rochester Genealogical Society, Computer Interest Group.

The meeting was opened by Rochester Genealogical Society Vice President/Computer Interest Group, Roy Thurston. There were 30 attendees including 3 new members. Jim Hall noted that corrections of the membership list will be made in the Spring 2002 issue of "Hear Ye, Hear Ye."

Gil Smith announced the Ontario County Genealogical Society visit to the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg on April 9 & 10.

Larry Schongar, Rochester Genealogical Society Vice President/Programs, noted the several changes in the Rochester Genealogical Society meeting schedule for the rest of the year. These are listed in "Here Ye, Hear Ye." Big changes include the March meeting on the 7th, the May meeting on the 30th, and the June picnic is planned to be at the Pultneyville Yacht Club on Saturday, June 15th.

Paul Blake, Rochester Genealogical Society President and Computer Interest Group Program Chair, noted the planned presentations for the March Computer Interest Group meeting (listed in the March meeting announcement). He also asked for corrected e-mail addresses for the Computer Interest Group meeting announcement.

Acronyms presented by Roy were: CDDA, DVD and CD+G. (Answers are at the end of these notes.)

Main Program:

The speaker was Patricia Uttaro of the Ogden Farmers' Library. She described the collection briefly and noted that her presentation would be directed at the library's collection of software and microfilm, and use of online databases.

The Software Resources include Family Tree Maker; Family Search of the LDS; Family Quest from Heritage Quest (mostly digital microfilm, i.e. CD's); and a list of CD's available (from the Library's website) by number and by subject, mostly from Family Tree Maker.

Family Tree Maker, part of Genealogy.com, is the largest part of the library CD collection. This concentrates on New York, New England, Ohio Valley, Pennsylvania and national indices.

Family Search is a new acquistion, from LDS, starting with the 1880 census, over 100 CDs, very affordable at just under $50. Census and vital record CDs are available. Future acquisitions anticipated include, Immigration and Freedman's Records, and Pedigree Resource Files. Family Quest, a product of Heritage Quest, includes some New York census as "digital microfilm" from 1800-1920. Early census are copies of copies and, therefore, not very good quality. She is trying to decide if additional items should be purchased in the future, for church records, county records, emigration and immigration, marriage records, military, naturalization and ship passenger lists.

The library budgets about $20,000 per year for print and non-print items. They are buying formerly high cost print items as digital, at a much lower cost. Some on-line items are almost free and release much needed shelf space.

Other resources include purchases from E-Bay, mostly digital images of books or records. By locality, she is obtaining Connecticut, Riga-Churchville and Rochester; by type, she is getting land records.

Microfilms are primarily about Monroe County. Cemetery records, 1920 census, military records, newspapers (Brockport and Spencerport), church records, mostly Methodist, from Ogden and Parma towns; governments of Monroe County, vital record indexes of Ontario Province, Canada (marriage, deaths, etc. up to 1927 - these are updated yearly). Interest is primarily about Loyalists to and from Canada.

A list of the microfilms is on-line at the library web-site, about 10 pages long. Census films are identified by town and ward, with a suggestion that the list be viewed prior to a visit. The web-site is at

www.OGDENNY.com/LIBRARY/GENEALOGY.HTML.

Online resources include subscriptions of Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com, available on 4 computers. They had access problems getting onto World Family Tree. They are on a T-1 line throught the Monroe County Library System. Future addition is Pro Quest Local History and Genealogy ONline. (Pro Quest bought UMI, University Microfilms Inc. formerly a Xerox subidiary.) They have purchased Heritage Quest, the Local History and Genealogy Online functions.

WEB ACCESS TO HOLDINGS:

The major catalog of the holdings is on LIBRA Library Catalog, WWW.LIBRARYWEB.ORG. The Ogden Library website (see above) is access for Adobe printouts of CD and microfilm holdings and for a list of print resources not entered in the library catalog. Most microfilm is not cataloged.

LIBRARY INFORMATION:

Questions can be directed to Pat Uttaro by phone at 352-2141 or e-mail at uttaro@ogdenny.com. The hours are Mon.-Thurs. 9A.M.-9P.M., Fri. 9A.M.-6P.M., Sat. 9A.M.-5P.M. Best hours are early after opening and after 6P.M.

The library is easily accessible from 490 west to 531, then left onto Union Street in Spencerport, then the first left. The address is 269 Ogden Center Road, Spencerport, New York 14459.

Examples of resources were displayed by Pat.

A question of the status of the digitizing of the City of Rochester Marriage Records from about 1870 to present was asked, but no status was available. A call to the City Archives at 428-7331 may give the status.

The Heritage Quest CDs for Connecticut were described, showing the detailed records available. She also described the collection of Family Tree Maker CDs in the collection. These are not on a server.

Next, Pat displayed a Heritage Quest CD for the 1800-1850 census of New York. These are images of the census, but they cannot be enlarged and printed as in microfilms. There is little image enhancement from the microfilm to the digital images. Copies can be downloaded to a hard drive then e-mailed to yourself.

A sample search was performed on the LDS 1880 census CDs for Rochester. Jim Hall requested looking for his KLEM great-grandparents and their children. These were found quickly, with Jim noting the presence of his paternal grandmother at age 6. The library is on Roadrunner for fast access to the Internet.

Pat was given a well-deserved round of applause.

Answers to Acronyms

Thanks:

Jim wishes to thank Gloria Church for her continued service as keyboarder of these notes. Also, we owe a great note of thanks to Ken Johnson for his duplication service over the past several years.

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