Wednesday, August 19, 2009

19 August Computer Group Summary

We had 9 attendees at the CVGS Computer Group meeting on 19 August for hands-on computer genealogy work. When we arrived, we found that all but one of the library's lab computers had the Flash program installed - so now we can access more useful genealogy websites.

We demonstrated how to get to the FamilySearch Record Search site at http://pilot.familysearch.org - either through the home page of www.FamilySearch.org or by inputting it in the URL line. He recommended using the specific database menus rather than the main search menu to do searches, and noted that some databases have only indexes and some have only browsable images. The group reviewed the list of US databases available, and sampled the 1870 US census and the 1900 US census, plus the Texas death records and New Hampshire vital records.

We also went to the 1930 census on the www.Footnote.com site (which is free to access until the end of August) and we demonstrated the basic search sequences there, culminating in the record images and using the filmstrip to browse adjacent pages.

While others worked on their own problems, we tried to solve some research problems using these new tools. We found Rosa Darling in the 1920 census with her adoptive parents in Nebraska in the 1920 US Census on FamilySearch Record Search. We couldn't find her on Footnote in the 1930 census.

Gary found four Roff families in Tompkins County NY in the 1850 census on FamilySearch, which gives him more leads to connect to his Solomon Roff.

We found some 1860 and 1870 census records on ancestry.com for Clough and Sharp families in Ohio for Cynthia, and then found several newspaper articles and some book citations for her William Graves Sharp. Randy emailed these articles to himself and will email them to Cynthia.

It was a quick two hours.

The next CVGS Computer Group meeting will be Wednesday, September 16 at 12 noon in the Computer Lab at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library (365 F Street, Chula Vista).

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