CIG Notes

March 14, 2002

Notes from the March 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, as he described the agenda. There were 51 members and 3 visitors in attendance. Larry Shongar, Rochester Genealogical Society/Vice President/Programs, listed the changes in the remaining meetings, April 18; May 30, and June 15, as listed in the Winter 2001 edition of "Hear Ye," with details on the June 15th (Saturday) picnic in the Spring 2002 edition.

Reports:

Rochester Genealogical Society Membership Secretary, Jim Hall, asked about delivery of the Computer Interest Group meeting announcements. One Computer Interest Group member, without Internet access has requested a hard copy of the meeting notes. Jim also noted the end of the membership year is approaching (June 30th) and reminders will be in the "Hear Ye" and on mailing labels.

The video tape of the Family Tree Maker, version 9, is available for borrowing for a week or so. Call Jim at 265-9514 to enter the queue.

Paul Blake, Rochester Genealogical Society President, reported that volume 2 of the Mt. Hope Cemetery Interment records (8/1860 - 12/1881) is 99.44% finished. Jim Paprocki reports that volume 3 (1/1882-12/1892) is about 50% finished.

Paul also reminded the attendees (and readers of these notes) to strongly consider accepting the nomination for Vice President/Computer Interest Group for the rest of 2001-2 (3 months) and all of 2002-3 (12 months). We need an administrator/facilitator, with lots of help from the Computer Interest Group members. As Jim noted, the position is not a MALE THING, and you ladies should really get more involved in running the Computer Interest Group.

The April Computer Interest Group meeting was tentatively scheduled for a presentation by Paul Norder. Unfortunately, Paul is moving out of state and is not going to be available. The Computer Interest Program Team is urging the Computer Interest Group members to contact them (P. Blake, R. Thurston, G. Church, R. Wambach, J. Hall and L. Lavery) with program topics. See the April 11, 2002 meeting announcement for the new program and presenter.

Roy continued the meeting with his listing of a few acronyms: WWW, CERN and LDAP. (Answers at the end of these notes).

Tech Talk/Problems/Solutions:

A problem with Family Tree Maker version 9 and MicroSoft XP was apparently fixed in a downloadable version 9.1.

Cookies were described as miniprograms to quickly access previously visited websites.

A question on .TMP, temp files, was responded that the previous day's temp files can be deleted, but you should delay the deleting of temp files from current work. Once the temp file is erased, it is gone.

Main Program:

The planned presentations included: 1.) A review /visit to the Ellis Island website; 2.) An update of the Rochester Genealogical Society site and 3.) Logon to the attendees favorite genealogical site.

Paul Blake began the presentations:

1.) The Ellis Island website is at : http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/
(The writer suggests that the reader go to the website before proceeding) the first action at the site is to register. A signup link is at the first screen. This is a busy site, with about 1 million hits per day. It is recommended to visit the site between 1 & 6 A.M. The next screen gives a place to register with the American Family Immigration History Center (AFIHC). It is also suggested that alternate spellings be searched if you are first unsuccessful, using the surname and the first letter of the first name.

The site was visited, but the first search was not successful immediately. Soon, Paul got to some sample ship passenger manifests and displayed how the documents can be enlarged for easier reading. Some other experiences with using the manifests for general searching were described. These records are of immigrations to New York City only.

2.) Dick Halsey, Editor of HearYe HearYe and Web Master for the Rochester Genealogical Society website, connected to the website and showed some of the recent changes. These include the Computer Interest Group meeting notes from December 2001 onward; a calendar of events for the local genealogical societies. Next, he briefly visited the Latter Day Saints website, FamilySearch.org to show its general content.

3.) Some other websites were suggested by members. These included some vital records from the Netherlands. Several other sites were contributed by others, including Ancestry.com, with varying costs per year. Ancestry.com will be soon presenting images of the 1930 Federal Census. Many census records are being indexed, but correct spelling is needed. Apparently, Ancestry has a good beginner course in genealogy for about $30, which includes a thick binder and a year of research on Ancestry.

Chuck Bliley presented a list of several useful sites, including the Library of Congress, while others contributed possible useful placed to visit. Ozzie Salyards prepared a long list of very useful sites, including Cyndi's List, which has about 100,000 entries at this time; Gen-Web, in each of the states, Dick Halsey being the web-master for the Rochester Genealogical Society site and also for Monroe County. Gen-Forum is a bulletin board style site, with popularity among the users. Another site described was Gen-link, where searches can be made on about 7 million names, and e-mail can be used to transfer data.

Roy Thurston guided a visit to the Latter Day Saints Family Search/Family History Library, and the catalog for a place search of Chatam, England. Others in the list included Family Tree Maker, Gen-dex, Social Security Death Index. NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) is a great source for census, military records and many other records generated by the Federal Government. NARA is providing the 1930 Federal Census on microfilm on April 2, 2002, firstly to companies ordering the complete set. Volunteers at Pittsfield, MA. regional office will do some look-up. and at the NARA, ship manifests can be copied. Other database providers have prepared ship passenger records (Filby/Germans to America, Italians to America).

Finally, after an unexplainable delay, the website for the Netherland records, proposed by Jan Daly, popped up. Several Dutch names were suggested and a brief search was made. An extensive list was presented, and the selection needed much prior research for place.

Paul Blake was given a well-deserved round of applause for a fine presentation, and the contributors can be pleased with their recommendations.

ACRONYM ANSWERS:

Jim The Writer, Jim Hall, wishes to thank Gloria Church for her continued keyboarding of these notes.

RECOMMENDED WEB SITES:

Jo Ann Snyder
http://database.zeeuwsarchief.nl
Zeeland Province Marriages and other select Zeeland records (includes records from towns such as Breskens, Groede, Sluis, Cadzand) Zeeuws Archief. Has an option for information to be shown in English.

Jo Ann Snyder
http://geneaknowhow.net/digi/resources.html
Another good link is Digital Archives in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Jo Ann Snyder
http://www.freedict.com/onldict/dut.html
For interpretation, this is a good Dutch to English on line dictionary. It also has links to many other languages.

Virginia Reulbach
www.ancestry.com
I am a member and use the census records frequently. If you are not a paid member of course you can't search the census, but they do have other 'free' things someone may find of use.

Chuck Bliley
Palmer List of Merchant Vessels
http://www.geocities.com/mppraetorius/
This site contains hundreds of profiles of ships that served in the merchant marine. Many of them also provided passenger services, such as the Charlemagne that my ancestor's traveled on in 1834. I never thought I would ever see an image of this ship, and to my surprise, I discovered three! The site presents a history and detailed specifications on most ships. An added bonus is an automated download system to receive larger copies of the images in JPEG format. It is not instantaneous and I got a total of three different messages relating each requested image, but it was worth the price.

Chuck Bliley
U.S. Library of Congress--American Memory Map Collection
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html
The American Memory site is a great site filled with valuable print and photographic resources. I recently discovered they had thousands of panoramic maps of the U.S.A. and a few overseas locations. I discovered two maps of Corry, PA, the home of my great grandparents. The scans are at a very high resolution and you can download all of the images in a proprietary format to view with a free viewer. The viewer provides saving the maps, in whole or the selection under view, in the TIFF format. Look at my site for samples of what can be done with these free and copyright free resources.

Chuck Bliley
Sample of maps and using them in your family history site or CD-ROM -- http://www.Bliley.net/family/Lula_Bliley/Dawson_Home/

Chuck Bliley
Publishing a Family Photo Album on CD-ROM
http://www.bliley.net/family/Lula_Bliley/Album_CD/Development.htm
Of course, I would be criticized by some if I did not mention my megalithic family album project for which I made a presentation to the RGS CIG last June. Here is a detailed description of the project and its resources.

Bob Barnes
http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Index.htm
A very useful site for those doing English research. Freeware available at this site for PARISH LOCATOR, where one can find the distance between any two parishes in England. Very useful when you are researching, for example, all parishes within 10 mi of a particular parish.

Bob Barnes
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg
another great site for those who haven't found it is the site with a fantastic view of earth at night.

Jim Shot
http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/jmtindex.htm
Tri-Counties Genealogy & History Site - Bradford & Tioga (PA): Chemung (NY)

L. E. Salyards, Works Teaching File, Useful Genealogical Websites, Jan 2002

CYNDI'S LIST: http://www.cyndislist.com
This website has over 100,000 links to genealogical info.

USGENWEB: http://www.usgenweb.com
This website gives you links to states/counties etc.

ROOTSWEB: http://rootsweb.com/
This website gives you connections to names etc. Look at "Search Engines and Data Bases" for various websites such as "World Connect."

GENFORUM: http://www.genforum.com
This gives queries by area, name and topic.

MORMON FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY: http://www.familysearch.org

GENDEX: http://www.gendex.com:8080/
Has numerous surnames submitted by various people.

ANCESTRY: http://www.ancestry.com A commercial firm.
Click on the "Ancestry World Tree"

FAMILY TREE MAKER: http://www.familytreemaker.com
A commercial firm. Has links to family names.

SOCIAL SECURITY DEATH INDEX:
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
Also found on Rootsweb home page listed above.

ROCHESTER GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyrgs/
This website has links to numerous other websites.

ROCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY: http://www.rochester.lib.ny.us/library.html
This site includes links to numerous other websites.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES, WASHINGTON: http://www.archives.gov/index.html

NATIONAL ARCHIVES PASSENGER FILMS: http://www.archives.gov/publications/microfilm/immigrant/immpass.html

MORTON ALLAN DIRECTORY OF PASSENGER STEAMSHIP ARRIVALS, 1890-1930
http://www.cimorelli.com/safe/shipmenu.htm
(Includes biographies of numerous ships.)

VOLUNTEERS WHO DO CD-LOOKUPS: http://loricase.com/CDs/cdlist.html

GEOGRAPHIC NAMES: http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnis/web_query.gnis_web_query_form

IMMIGRANTS SHIPS TRANSCRIBERStm GUILD (ISTG): http://istg.rootsweb.com/

GERMAN ROOTS (AND MANY OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS): http://www.germanroots.com
A very useful site dealing with ships, passenger lists etc. Many links to other useful websites.

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