May 2000 Meeting Report
by Howard L. Bonar
Secretary, Alaska Computer Society
The May 11, 2000 meeting of the Alaska Computer Society was held at the BP Exploration building at Benson Boulevard and New Seward Highway starting at 7:03 pm.
Questions & Answers
President Gene White started the evening off with the question and answer session.
During our March meeting, a member reported a problem downloading pictures from his digital camera to the computer. After trying all the suggestions made he discovered that the culprit causing the problem was the anti-virus software. Turning it off solved the problem. The advice is to proceed with caution and be sure and turn it back on when you are through downloading the pictures.
The question was asked if the Love Bug virus had hit anyone. So far everyone has been lucky but there have been some close calls reported in town. It is still out there and dangerous.
A lady reported being surprised when she turned on her computer and it began to rearrange her hard drive. The consensus was that she had scheduled the defragmentation utility and it began when she turned on the machine.
A member described problems with his two-year-old HP5100C scanner delivering odd colors and making grinding noises as it scanned. It appears he is about to buy a replacement scanner as cost of repairs may exceed the cost of a new one. The weird colors are probably from the vibrations being caused by the defective gears. Some scanners do require lubrication of the sliding surfaces. Check your equipment manual to see what maintenance is required.
A prospective new member and newcomer to the Internet wanted to know where she could find a list of good web sites to visit. An immediate deluge of suggestions were made including, www.DogPile.com, www.Yahoo.com, www.Ask.com, and, of course, www.ACS-PCUG.org, the Alaska Computer Society's web page. See the list at the end of the presentation for additional links to many interesting sites.
The question was asked if anyone having any success refilling ink toner cartridges. Several reported having good results but there is a potential for making a great mess if you are not careful.
A member reported on a program where cartridges are being collected for refilling and resale. The proceeds from the sales would go to the 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games. After checking we find that it is a TONER cartridge-recycling project being conducted by volunteers. Cartridges should be returned in the box they come in for positive identification of the make and part numbers. If you are interested in helping this very worthwhile effort contact Mr. Pat Wendt at 441-9006.
Main Meeting
The regular meeting started at 7:17 pm with a special thanks to BP Exploration for the use of the facility and an introduction of the board members present.
Howard Bonar reported on the AARP computer training class project in the Northway Mall which is still going on with great success. The all-volunteer instructors are conducting fifteen classes a week, each two hours long. The courses are presented in four two-hour sessions covering Beginning Computing, Microsoft Word, and Beginning Internet.
Howard also reported on the startup of a computer training program at the Anchorage Senior Center. They are asking for volunteers to teach the classes. The program is not well defined yet but if anyone is interested please contact Howard Bonar at 333-2493 or for more information.
Gene White reported we would be having a booth at the Information Technology and Business Expo this fall. We will be asking for volunteers and ideas for our booth.
The person with the door prize tickets was not able to make the meeting so we could not have a door prize drawing - it will be back next time.
The Presentation
Mr Rich Ender, retired University of Anchorage Professor, introduced us to the world of Genealogy. According to him it has become an addictive avocation, which has led him all over the world as he searched the Internet for information. His experience has prepared him well enough that he has taught some special classes on Genealogy research.
Living in Alaska makes it difficult to research original sources for genealogy information but there remains a wealth of data available to us here. The Internet has made it possible to travel the world following up clues. Partly because of the Internet, there are now millions of people doing genealogy research on the web.
FAMILY INFORMATION TYPES
In doing research it is important to know the differences in the types of information available. Original or Primary resources include photo albums, birth, marriage, and death documents. Cemetery, church, and census reports are very important sources. Also very valuable are first person accounts made shortly after the event.
Secondary resources are those where someone else did the research. These include books and CD-ROMS available in libraries or for purchase from vendors. The family bible usually contains information copied from some other source so is considered secondary.
Keep in mind that NONE of these sources are completely reliable. It is so easy for errors to creep into the records that one must look at all of it with some skepticism. It is always good if you can find corroboration of an item.
REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL GENEALOGY RESEARCH
First and foremost, a computer with a good Internet connection. Any good browser will do for most searches. A genealogy database program such as Family Tree Maker (reviewed in our April ACS newsletter) is a must if your database grows to be very large. A word processor will do to start with but it soon becomes very difficult to keep track of generations. If you become very active you will be writing many letters.
If you do buy a genealogy data base program, make sure it can import and export the GEDCOM and PAF file formats. These are used by the LDS (Mormon) Church and provide the common interface between almost all of the available programs. Using one of these formats, you can usually export a file from one program and import it into another.
You will want an e-mail service for sending and receiving files and for conversations with your correspondents. You must be able to handle attachments and some of them may be quite large if you are going to include pictures and graphics in your collection.
A scanner is useful for importing family photos into your database. To do it properly, you will need a photo-editing program to be able to crop photos to size, eliminate undesired elements, and to touch up any blemishes.
Compression programs such as PKZip or WinZip are very useful to help save storage space. It is amazing how fast these files grow when you start adding pictures, sound, and video clips. Disk space is an issue when you store this kind of information. A zip drive or a re-writeable CD ROM drive is also useful for archiving and transporting very large files.
THE DATA BASE PROGRAM
Family Tree Maker (FTM) by Broderbund is by far the most popular program available. It makes family pages with tabs for each member of the family. In addition to the basic name, date and place of birth and death, all kinds of information can be input about an individual or family. Its Scrapbook feature can hold pictures, video or audio clips, with snapshots of each item. (For a thorough review of this program see the April ACS newsletter.)
WHAT'S AVAILABLE ON THE NET?
So much that you can be overwhelmed if you are not careful. There are thousands of sites with genealogy information on them. There are two that are premier in the field. These two and their allied sites will keep you busy for days - weeks -months - whatever your stamina will bear.
ANCESTRY.COM
This one has 550 million names in 2000 database, dozens of sub-sites, both free and subscription sections at $59.95/year. Usually, the search of the indexes is free, the actual information must be paid for. Also available are a listing of state resources, the Ancestry World Tree, a research registry, the Social Security death Index, census records, military records, periodicals, newspapers, and a directory of U.S. and European telephone, addresses, and special directories. See the list of URLs at the end of this article for several more interesting sites.
FAMILY TREE MAKER (FTM)
The Family Tree Maker also has an extensive library of indexes and information. It has over 470 million names and 86,000 genealogy links, a tremendous amount of all kinds of information. It too offers free index searches. Some of the information referenced must be paid for through subscription at $ 79.99 for 12 months access. An ongoing project at FTM is the transcribing of old genealogy books and placing them on line. It has on-line genealogy lessons and the Genforum message board where you can post queries and get answers. Check out your own name to see what is available at www.FamilyTreeMaker.com.
FTM also sponsors a number of other sites including www.Genealogy.com. This is a subscription site with about 2298 databases. In addition to information, the Genealogy Home Page lists on-line guides and help instructions at www.GenHomePage.com/help.html.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A beginning search on the Ender family found 26 citations in the world tree database, 292 in the Social Security Death index, and 342 in the US Telephone list. Depending on how common your family name is, you can expect to find hundreds if not thousands of reference. The more information you can enter when you start your searches, the better refined the returns will be- just like in any other search.
When looking for information, keep in mind that people may have changed the spelling of their names. Cities may be renamed, and often, boundary lines have been moved. Census takers were not always accurate when they recorded information and sometimes penmanship left a bit to be desired. Until recent times in Scandinavian countries, and some others, there were no family names as such - people were identified as "Eric, son of Olav" etc. Others used their hometown as part of the name. And, of course, there are the Smiths.
ROOTSWEB.COM
This is an all-volunteer web site just over a year old. It is dedicated to genealogy projects and has several efforts going on concurrently. Among them is the transcription of the passenger lists from all the emigrant ships that came to the US. They are working on Tombstones, obituaries, and much more. They are providing space for each county in the country to have its own pages listing all of their information. www.RootsWeb.com
WHERE TO LEARN MORE AND WHAT ELSE
Check out the book "Genealogy on Line for Dummies" available at most bookstores. It can help you make a good start. The Anchorage LDS Church maintains a library of microfilmed church records. You can contact them at the Anchorage Family History Center at 277-8433 to find out how to gain access to the records.
There is the problem of the language barrier if you want to do research in Europe. Most foreign records are in the local language and would be difficult to interpret. There is some translation software that may be useful.
There are some Afro-American sites with slave ship records and other information useful for finding the African family.
Future databases and searches may include DNA sampling. This would probably be beyond the needs of most of us but it could be useful in confirming a blood relationship.
OTHER INTERESTING SITES
All of the sites mentioned have links to many other sites. Good hunting.
| End of May 2000 Meeting Report | Page last updated 2000-09-17 |