The November 14th meeting of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society Research Group had 13 in attendance.
In the first hour, Randy reviewed Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter as a source for genealogy and technology news, talked about the Family Tree DNA sale (through December), and described the Probate Records on FamilySearch, including how to use the Russell Index.
Bobbie briefly described and handed out the two surveys and the volunteer form that will be available at the meetings in November and December.
In the second hour, the attendees described their research problems and successes:
* Jaye is organizing her research papers so that she can focus on specific research problems. She will attend John's Wednesday morning Table Talk sessions to try to advance her research. She had a question about scanning photographs; the group said to scan them as TIFF files at 600 dpi, then edit them (crop, rotate, sharpen, brighten, etc.) and save them as JPEG files at 300 dpi.
* Jeanne's California family lost contact with their Belgian Van Orshoven family decades ago, but because of a note on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog, she was contacted by a distant cousin in Belgium. They are sharing information - the cousin has records back to the 1400s, and Jeanne is updating him on the California family.
* Jeanne described her visit to the National City Public Library and the closure of the Kile Morgan Local History Room, which is shut to the public. There was discussion of the wealth of material in this room - the URL is http://www.nationalcityca.gov/index.aspx?page=211.
* Sam found old pictures from his parents collection and is scanning them. He has had contact with a cousin in Tennessee and hopes to gain family information. He is planning a trip to Germany in 2013 and wants to learn more about German research. The group noted that SDGS has a German group he should contact, and he should check CyndisList (www.CyndisList.com) and the FamilySearch Wiki.
* John is finding a lot of colonial family information in the 13 volumes of the Essex Antiquarian on the shelf at the Chula Vista library, including the will of John Cutting and the descendants of John Brown.
* Virginia has a contact on MyHeritage for her John Dunlop family and is pursuing that.
* Ralph is entering his family history information into RootsMagic, including information from emails and letters. Some of his families were in South Texas, and may not have been Roman Catholic.
* Diane's Italian grandfather was found only in the 1940 US Census with his family. She asked how she could find his parents names. The group suggested the Social Security application, a Massachusetts death certificate, and a World War II draft registration. Randy went online and found the draft registration card, which listed the grandfather's birth date, birth place and parents names, on Ancestry.com.
* Bobbie has been learning more about Haplogroup X, which is in her mitochondrial line. She bought four DNA books, and has done some research on ancestral migrations at www.RootsForReal.com. Her husband will order Y, mitochondrial and autosomal tests through the new National Geographical Society Geno 2.0 Project.
The next Research Group meeting will be on Wednesday, 12 December in the Conference Room of the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library (365 F Street).
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