Tribute to Joan Lowrey

I feel compelled to say a few words about Joan Lowrey. This is not an obituary or a remembrance, for Joan Lowrey is very much alive and active as a genealogy researcher. However, with the dissolution of the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego and its absorption into the San Diego Genealogy Society, it seems appropriate to give Joan Neumann Lowrey due credit for the contribution she has made to genealogy in San Diego and the many people she has touched.

Joan has been involved with computers before there were computers as we know them now. With a BA in Mathematics, she programmed early analog military computers and was involved in several high tech companies in San Diego.

But it's as a researcher and teacher that we know her best.  She became interested in her family's heritage and used her computer skills to augment her research talents. She researched the genealogies for others, particularly those with German ancestry like hers.

Joan wrote a user's guide for several versions of the early genealogy program Personal Ancestral File in the early 1990s and, together with Donna Przecha, wrote "Guide to Genealogy Software" in 1993. She organized many students of her PAF classes into a PAF user group that grew into the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego, which she founded. She was a frequent speaker at national genealogy conferences in those days, promoting the use of computers for genealogy and reviewed utilities and other software useful for researchers.

Not only did Joan serve as President of CGSSD for many years, she edited the CompuGen newsletter, the forerunner of this blog. She wrote many important articles and reviews for the CompuGen and encouraged others to make contributions, often drawing them out of their comfort zone. She was also very involved with the Germany Research Association and served nationally on various boards and conferences.

One of her most enduring contributions to genealogy in San Diego was her monthly newsletter of genealogy happenings that included meeting notices of all the societies in the area. I helped her bring this newsletter to the Events section of the CGSSD website and this online presence continued until the San Diego Genealogical Council founded their Google calendar in 2013. Joan continues to promote cooperation among societies and family history centers and still speaks to various groups on German genealogy research, immigration, and genealogy programs.

I'm sure there's much more to say about Joan's genealogical contributions and you are welcome to add your comment here about your interaction with Joan. I have met many strong and smart women in my day, who like Joan, I consider a "force of nature." But Joan stands apart with her drive, her focussed vision and her commitment to excellence. Thanks, Joan, for enriching our genealogy experience.

CGSSD Meeting Notice

MEETING NOTICE

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month  (except December) from 9:00 am to noon on the campus of UCSD, University of California, San Diego.  See our web page www.cgssd.org  for directions.  The next meeting will be held on 15 August 2015.  Here are the details:

 9:00:  SIG groups - None are scheduled.  If this changes, an update to this notice will be sent.

10:00: Voting on dissolution of CGSSD  

NOTE: Any existing member who wishes to pay their dues to be able to vote, will be able to do so.  CGSSD will accept the payment.  The paid dues will not be refunded.  

10:00: Break, refreshments

10:20: Announcements followed by program:

"Using FamilySearch Digital Microfilm to Find Genealogical Records"

Randy Seaver

FamilySearch has over 2,000 record collections, and many of them are not indexed and cannot be searched using search engines.  They are digitized from FHL microfilms.  Think of them as "digital microfilm" - you have to browse these records.  There are finding aids to help the researcher find records for their ancestors - waypoints, volumes, volume indexes, etc.  This presentation will demonstrate how to find records for your ancestors in probate, land, town, tax and other unindexed records. 

Randy Seaver is a native San Diegan. His ancestry is mainly colonial New England and Upper Atlantic, with some colonial German, French and Dutch forebears, and several 19th-century English immigrants. He has been pursuing his elusive ancestors since 1988, and has been online since 1992.

Randy is a former President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society, and is currently the Newsletter Editor and Research Chair. He speaks to Southern California societies, libraries and groups, and teaches "Beginning Computer Genealogy" adult classes at OASIS.  He is a member of NGS, NEHGS, SCGS, SDGS, CGSSD and CVGS. Randy blogs daily about genealogy subjects at Genea-Musings (www.geneamusings.com) and the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe (http://CVGenCafe.blogspot.com). 

We meet at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pines Road, turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any space other than those specifically reserved for UCSD vehicles. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to our website www.cgssd.org; or the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website for directions.

Linda Brady

CGSSD VP-Admin

cgssdemail@gmail.com

CGSSD Votes "Yes" to Merge with SDGS

 At last Saturday's meeting at UCSD the membership voted to merge with the San Diego Genealogical Society.

Message from our President:

Good Day,   

April 18th 2015 marked a major change to the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego.  

Numerous factors were considered by the elected Officers and appointed chairpersons and directors both singularly and in conjunction with the Officers and directors of the San Diego Genealogical Society.  Following these discussions it was deemed appropriate to MERGE the two groups into a more wide ranging and beneficial Society.  

All the members of CGSSD were advised in February 2015 with a follow up in March 2015  that this MERGER would be voted on at the regular monthly meeting on April 18th 2015.  The motion was read: Should the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego MERGE with the San Diego Genealogical Society?, seconded, discussion was allowed for 45 minutes. Hearing no more requests for time to discuss, the Members in good standing voted by written ballot.  

The votes were counted in front of the Members.   The outcome: 34 YEA, 9 NAY, 2 ABSTENSIONS.  By simple majority, the MERGER recommendation passed.

The Board members of both organizations will now meet to complete the details of the MERGER process.

Please continue to associate yourself with the one entity, SDGS aka San Diego Genealogical Society in the future.

Thank you for your association with the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego.

 

Respectfully,

David Tooley

President, CGSSD

CGSSD Meeting Notice: Francie Kennedy

The next meeting will be held on 21 Mar 2015 from 9:00 am to noon. Here are the details:

9:00: SIGs: Ancestry, DNA

10:00: Break, refreshments

10:20: Announcements followed by program:

Advanced Google Tools for Genealogists
presented by
Francie Kennedy

    Most of us barely scratch the surface of what Google can do. Looking things up with Google is only one of the many useful tools available to us! Have you made a family map showing migration routes and everywhere your families have lived, over time? Catalogued all of your books in a format you can access remotely from a book sale (so you don’t wind up with three copies at home)? How often have you read a rare book about your ancestor’s home town – that is every-word searchable? Have you found an image of a historic postcard of Main Street in that town to use as an illustration in your family history? This session will guide you toward finding many things Google can do beyond the basic search function we all use. There is a lot more within this site, beyond the simple home page!

    Francie is a 4th generation Californian, and studied English and biology at Pomona College in Claremont. She managed a business in landscape design and consulting for years before joining the local water district to help with drought response and customer questions in the early 1990s. Francie has been helping city residents and businesses manage their water use for over 22 years. For seven years she taught water conservation to professionals at Santiago Canyon College and continues to teach landscape classes to residents.

    In her free time, she is an award-winning watercolor painter, and recently started quilting. Francie has been involved with community groups for over 30 years, serving as president of the Friends of the Library, chair of the Los Rios Historic District Review Committee, and she is the immediate past president of the South Orange County California Genealogical Society. Historical research is her passion.

CGSSD Meeting Notice: Hal Horrocks

MEETING NOTICE

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month  (except December) from 9:00 am to noon on the campus of UCSD, University of California, San Diego.  See our web page www.cgssd.org  for directions.  The next meeting will be held on 21 February 2015.  Here are the details:

9:00: User groups:  RootsMagic and Mac
10:00: Break, refreshments
10:20: Announcements followed by program:

Colonial Genealogical Records - And How to Find Them

presented by
Hal Horrocks  

As family historians, as we get further back into our ancestor’s lives, it becomes more difficult for us to find the records we need to fill out our family trees. The records for the Colonial period of our history are there, we just have to figure out how to find them. This presentation will explore ways to find the records from 1610 to 1776 that will help us in our search.
   

Hal Horrocks

 A  native Californian and longtime Orange County California resident, Hal Horrocks is a professional genealogist, teacher and lecturer. He has been doing family research for 15 years and is a member of Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), Genealogical Speakers Guild (GSG), Orange County California Genealogical Society (OCCGS), Guild for One-Name Studies, Manchester & Lancashire Family History Society (UK), and Cheshire Family History Society (UK). He has written several articles for publication in the UK. He is also the current President of OCCGS. 

In addition, he has developed a web site for the Horrocks surname that includes a one-name study, a DNA study, and family trees for Horrocks researchers. Hal has been giving lectures to genealogy societies throughout Southern California for the last 5 years.

We meet at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pines Road, turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any space other than those specifically reserved for UCSD vehicles. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to our website www.cgssd.org; or the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website for directions.

Linda Brady

CGSSD VP-Admin

cgssdemail@gmail.com

DearMYRTLE Visits CGSSD Virtually!

 Yesterday, DearMYRTLE visited CGSSD virtually via Google Hangouts On Air. Her presentation, "Google Hangouts: Enhancing Family Gatherings & Interviews", was enthusiastically received by our members present. This was our third "live" virtual presentation over the past few years. One of the nice features of Google Hangouts On Air is that it was recorded for future viewing.

DearMYRTLE

  While DearMYRTLE was broadcasting from Utah, Cousin Russ (Russ Worthington) was on hand to support and add additional information from his home in New Jersey. I might add that Cousin Russ gave me personal instruction about a week before the presentation and helped tremendously just before the meeting. Gary Hoffman, CGSSD's webmaster & Tech Guru was also very helpful, even having the right adapter to go from HDMI to the analog sound and projection system of our facilities.

Randy Seaver asking a question to DearMYRTLE

 I am definitely sold on using Google Hangouts. It's free and easy to use. I can think of a lot of uses this would be good for. I hope to find other speakers in the genealogical community that use this medium and have them present to us. 

 Resources from DearMYRTLE:

• How to Hangout and Use Google+ http://bit.ly/MyrtsHowHangoutOnGoogle
• Why Host Virtual Meetings http://bit.ly/MyrtsWhyHostVirtual

 Link to the recorded presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRFGQMEIbtE

Link to Randy Seaver's blog post: http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/cgssd-meeting-today-featured-dearmyrtle.html

CGSSD Meeting Notice

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month (except December) from 9:00 a.m. to noon on the campus of UCSD, University of California, San Diego. See our web page www.cgssd.org  for directions.

The next meeting will be held on 20 September 2014 from 9:00 am to noon. Here are the details:

 9:00 AM  User groups: Ancestry.com with Del Ritchhart and DNA with Corlee Morris

10:00 AM Break, refreshments
10:20 AM Announcements followed up program: 

Dr. Joel Weintraub

"Crowdsourcing The Path To The 1950 U.S. Census"

The 1940 U.S. Census opened in 2012 without a name index.  A FamilySearch led consortium used 160,000 volunteers to name index that census in 4 months.  In addition, Joel and Steve Morse, over seven years with about 125 volunteers, developed free utilities to find which of 150,000 census districts someone was in, when a location or address is known.  These projects are examples of crowdsourcing.  Steve and Joel are now doing a similar project for the 1950 Census.  Joel will discuss differences between the 1940 and 1950 censuses that impacted their planning and project design.  The film scanning, publicity, volunteer response, Yahoo Group site, cloud storage, software, One-Step utilities, and project phases will be discussed.  All 233,800 1950 enumeration district definitions have now been transcribed.  Street indexes will also be completed for over 2,000 communities to help find 1950 census district numbers.

Joel Weintraub was born and raised in Manhattan. He is an emeritus Biology Professor at California State University, Fullerton and has won awards for his science teaching. He became interested in genealogy about 15 years ago, and volunteered for 9 years at the National Archives and Records Administration in southern California. Joel started transcribing streets within census districts in 2001 to help researchers search the 1930 U.S. Census (released in 2002). He was joined in the venture by David Kehs and Stephen Morse in 2002, and together, they have produced a number of online census searching utilities for both the federal and the New York State censuses on the Morse One Step Website. Joel produced locational finder aids for the 1940 census, and has given many talks on that census since 2006.  He now has the 1950 Census in his sights, scheduled to be released in 2022!  If you want to help with the 1950 project, email Joel at censusfiles@cox.net.

We meet at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pines Road, turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any space other than those specifically reserved for UCSD vehicles. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to our website www.cgssd.org; or the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website (click here) for driving directions and a map.

Linda Brady

CGSSD VP-Admin

cgssdemail@gmail.com

CGSSD Meeting Notice

The next meeting will be held on 16 Aug 2014 from 9:00 am to noon. Here are the details:

9:00: User groups: Roots Magic, with Chris Christensen; Macintosh, with Dona Ritchie.

10:00: Break, refreshments.

10:20: Announcements followed by program:

"Crafting Great Source Citations"
by Randy Seaver
    We all know that we should cite our sources, but it's hard to remember what goes first, what to include, punctuation, and more. Then the Internet came along and it's really complicated now. This presentation will cover source citation guides for genealogy, using content provider source citations, and using source citation templates in genealogy software programs to cite our sources.

    Randy Seaver is a native San Diegan. His ancestry is mainly colonial New England and Upper Atlantic, with some colonial German, French and Dutch forebears, and several 19th-century English immigrants. He has been pursuing his elusive ancestors since 1988, and has been online since 1992.
    Randy is a former President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society and is currently the newsletter editor and research chair. He speaks to southern California societies, libraries and groups, and teaches "Beginning Computer Genealogy" adult classes at OASIS. He is a member of NGS, NEHGS, SCGS, SDGS, CGSSD and CVGS. Randy blogs daily about genealogy subjects at Genea-Musings (www.geneamusings.com) and the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe (http://CVGenCafe.blogspot.com).

Scottish Research Comes To CGSSD in April

Professional Genealogist Judy Brooks will be presenting a one hour session on Researching Your Scottish Ancestors at the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego on April 19th, 2014. Ms. Brooks will be discussing some lesser known internet websites for use in your Scottish and Scots-Irish research.

Bio for Judith Brooks
Find Dem Bones  
finddembones@aol.com

 Judy is the wife of North County Scots Chaplain Bill Brooks and has been researching both her own and her husband's ancestry since 1995 when he began looking for his tartan and proof of his Scottish heritage.
As both families were in the United States in Colonial times, she has done extensive research in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, and Nebraska which has led her to additional research in Ireland and Scotland.

 She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, National Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, Nebraska Genealogical Society and an active member of the Carlsbad San Diego North County Genealogical Society.

 Judy has experience researching various libraries, county court houses, cemeteries, historical societies, the National Archives, DAR, and the Library of Congress for her own family research as well as for clients.
Her philosophy is that there is so much more to our ancestry than just the historical dates and places.

 Finding the history of the time and place and information about the life and times of our ancestors brings full meaning to our heritage.

2013 Speaker Recap

This past year we had many of the top genealogists in the world speak at our meetings. Our list included Certified Genealogists, researchers from the PBS show "Genealogy Roadshow", world renowned genealogy bloggers, and technologists. We even had a "live" webinar by GeneaBloggers.com founder, Thomas MacEntee, all the way from Chicago. I am so excited about 2014 that I can't wait!

Meetings are our bread and butter, this is where we shine. We are so fortunate to have our meetings in the best genealogical meeting space in all of San Diego. We meet at the beautiful campus of UCSD, where our webmaster and past president Gary Hoffman is Chief Technology Officer at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

Tour of the Geisel Library, within walking distance of our building on the campus of UCSD.









 I hope you'll join us this year as we bring you another spectacular lineup of some of the worlds best and brightest genealogists and technologists. Just think, for your $20 renewal membership, it only costs you $1.81 for a presentation. I think that's worth the money to hear the best.