Saturday, July 21, 2007

1930 Census Occupation Codes

Have you noticed the code numbers next to the occupation listings on the census records? Have you been unable to read what the enumerator wrote down? Luckily, there is a way to figure out what you can't read for the 1930 census.

On the APG mailing list, Richard Pence wondered what the codes meant, and Drew Smith provided a link to Steven Morse's One-Step 1930 Occupation Codes page at http://stevemorse.org:80/census/ocodes.htm.

Richard was asking about occupation code 8885 - which is "insurance agent."

There are two sets of numbers - one with two inputs of two numbers each (number beings with 0 to 7, or V), and the second with one input of four numbers (number begins with 8 or 9). The first group seems to be people who work in an industry, and the second group are people who are self-employed.

OK, here's a test. What are:

1) 63 X2

2) 6V 0V

3) 927V

While looking through these occupations, it struck me just how few of them are still in existence today in this country. A 2007 list of occupations would be nearly completely different (would a pornographer be XX XX?).

I'm glad that Richard asked the question, Drew was able to answer it, and Steve has a web page for it. Steve's page points out that the really hard work of listing these occupations was done by C. Marie Taylor of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Posting Photos

There have been several excellent essays about Copyrights and posting family photographs in recent days.

First, Steve Danko wrote "Who Owns the Copyrights to Your Photographs"

Next, footnoteMaven wrote "To Post or Not to Post: That is the Question"

Steve wrote about the Copyright laws in the USA, and who owns the copyright to photographs. footnoteMaven wrote about her own dilemma about posting a fmaily photograph dated around 1926. Based on her analysis of the photograph's origins, she has decided to post the photo on her blog based on "common sense." I think she made the right decision.

I thank Steve and footnoteMaven for these posts, which are very well thought out and reasoned. Based on these posts, the topic for the next Carnival of Genealogy has been changed to:

"Moral or legal dilemmas in genealogy and genea-blogging, which ones have you had to deal with and how did you resolve them, if you did?"

Obviously, posting photographs that might have copyright protection would qualify as one of those moral dilemmas, especially if the picture was not obtained from a family member (I'm thinking about studio pictures, wedding pictures made by a professional photographer, etc.). I have posted some of these types of photos before, and I need to go back over my posts and see if I have a problem. I encourage other genea-bloggers to do the same, and go through the thought process that footnoteMaven did in her post.

UPDATE 7/21: Steve Danko has a followup post on this subject at http://stephendanko.com/blog/2007/07/21/consequences-of-publishing-photographs/ that addresses some of these issues, with a link to an interesting and troubling article. Read Steve's posts.

Family History Live Online - on Saturday 7/28

Family History Live Online, www.familyhistoryliveonline, will present an online family history fair on Saturday, July 28th from 8:00am to 2:00pm (Mountain Daylight Time, 10 am to 4 pm Eastern time, 9 am to 3 pm Central time, and 7 am to 1 pm Pacific time). This free event will include 6 presentations by genealogists.

Scheduled to present are:
8:00 AM: Welcome by moderator Gena Philibert Ortega
8:10 AM: Jonathan Walker presentation on “Using Catholic Records”
8:45 AM Presentation on "Generation Maps" by the Vendor
9:00 AM: Gena Philibert Ortega presentation on “Needle in the Haystack: Finding Female Ancestors”
10:00 AM Peter Barrie presentation on “A Transatlantic Case Study”
11:00 AM: Barry Ewell presentation on “Effectively Tapping into Local, County, and Historical Societies.”
12 noon: Break for lunch
1:00 PM: Welcome by moderator Gena Philibert Ortega
1:05 PM: Barry Ewell presentation on “Effective Strategies for Researching Newspapers”.
2:00 PM: Closing by moderator Gena-Philibert Ortega

This online fair is free. To participate you will need a computer with an internet connection and a free membership to Family History Live Online. Once you have signed up for a free membership you will be able to download our free software viewer that will allow you to hear and see the presentation.

For more information, please see Family History Live Online’s website at www.familyhistoryliveonline.com or email the Fair Director, Gena Philibert Ortega at gena@fhsupport.com.

NYG&BS has a problem

I've not posted about the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society vote to abolish the voting rights of 5,000 members who have been able to vote on society business and officers, in favor of a 15 member Board that will decide all society issues. Dick Eastman, Dick Hillenbrand and others have discussed the issues involved over the past few weeks.

The meeting of the NYGBS was yesterday, July 19th, in New York City. Dick Hillenbrand provides his summary of the meeting in a blog post here. The Society approved the measure to eliminate voting rights of its "members" and vest all responsibilities in a 15 member Board of Directors. What bothers me the most about the meeting described by Hillenbrand is the utter lack of information provided by the Society leaders, who managed to smile throughout the proceedings but managed to drive the railroad train to their destination.

Needless to say, there was an outcry by some of the current members over the loss of voting privileges - which essentially turns "members" into "subscribers." Time will tell if this move will result in a loss of subscribers or, in the worst case, the loss of the society itself. Has NYGBS burned their bridges with many of their members, er, subscribers? It's too early to tell.

In reading the reports by Eastman and Hillenbrand, it seems to me that the leadership of the NYGBS has not been very forthcoming about the plans for the society itself. They have sold their building in New York City, and have two years to find a "home" for the Society library, publications and other holdings. NYGBS made a "windfall" profit from the sale. If NYGBS is going to be a long-term continuing and useful society, it needs to invest that money wisely for the perpetuation and improvement of the Society itself.

With my small voice, I suggest that the "subscribers" of the Society urge the Society leadership to identify goals and objectives for the near future - the next two years and then the longer-term. The leadership would likely be able to improve their customer relations if they created advisory board(s) to do this, composed of current subscribers and especially professional genealogists and librarians with a stake in the outcome.

NYGBS has a long storied history, and has been a force for genealogy goodness. The publications and library have been first-rate, according to what I've read. My hope is that they will re-invent the Society to continue to be a useful presence in the ever-changing genealogy world of the 21st century.

FWIW, I am not a member of NYGBS, and have not been to their library. Therefore, I have not had the emotional, even visceral, reaction to the events of the last month or so, but I understand where the Society members with those reactions are coming from.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Manuscript Collections

One of the reasons that I tell people that "it's not ALL on the Internet, and probably never will be, and therefore you have to search every possible paper repository" is demonstrated nicely at the Concord (MA) Free Public Library web site of their manuscript collection - here.

A Seaver cousin wrote me and told me that the collected papers of Nathan Hobbs Seaver, a Civil War soldier on both the Union and Confederate Armies, are deposited in the Concord Free Public Library. The Nathan Hobbs Seaver collection is here. There are two boxes, including 47 Civil War letters to his family, a notebook, some ephemera, his estate papers, and much more. In this box are papers about Joshua Pettigone, father of Nathan's wife, Alice, who commanded the ship Shooting Star.

The Concord Free Public Library has 130 collections like this listed on their Finding Aids page. I checked to see if Google would find "Nathan Hobbs Seaver" in the library collection, and it did not. I checked five other collections at random, and Google found two of them, but not the other three. The lesson there is that you cannot trust a search engine to find things like this.

They do not have images of each page of the collections online. For Nathan Hobbs Seaver, they have just an image of the first page of the first letter from him to his sister.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of manuscript collections in libraries, museums, historical societies, etc. all over the nation. Very few, if any, of them have been digitized and posted on the Internet.

The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) at the Library of Congress has a search engine at http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/rlinsearch.html to search manuscript collections. When I input "nathan hobbs seaver" into this search field, it did not find the Concord collection.

Now can you understand why I advise searching every paper repository? When you're up against that brick research wall, sometimes the only records you will find are a treasure trove like the priceless collection Nathan Hobbs Seaver papers.

The challenge, of course, is to find the collections. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of digging through web sites or visits to repositories - and not always where your ancestral family lived. In this case, the donor lived in Concord and the family had lived in Roxbury MA, not too far away.

Nathan Hobbs Seaver was not my ancestor. However, because I posted my Seaver surname data at www.genealogy.com/users/s/e/a/Randy-Seaver/ a distant cousin was able to find me and provide me with this information on Nathan Seaver. And I was able to share it with you. And with others who might be searching for him, since this site is searched by Google.

How about you? Any success stories from your own research of finding ancestral family data in manuscript collections? Have you checked NUCMC? Have you written to, or visited, the historical society or library in the area where your ancestors lived?

CGSSD Meeting on Saturday in San Diego

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD) meets on Saturday, July 21, 2007 from 9:00 am to noon.

9:00 - User groups for Legacy, Macintosh and RootsMagic.
10:15 - A break and refreshments
10:30 - Announcements followed by Program: "Digging Up the UnDead" by Joan Lowrey

Learn the best websites and techniques for finding living people. Most people can be found, even those with unlisted phone numbers, using the tools that will be demonstrated in this presentation.

Joan is a professional genealogist, specializing in Germany, San Diego County, and missing heirs. She is the founder and a past president of CGSSD, and currently is the editor of Compu.Gen (the award-winning quarterly CGSSD newsletter).

CGSSD meetings are held at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pine Road turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any A, B, or S space. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to our website www.cgssd.org; or the UCSD Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website http://irps.ucsd.edu/about/how-to-find-us.htm for driving directions and a map.

Unfortunately, due to Lolo commitments I will be unable to attend the talk. I really want to hear Joan's talk, so hopefully we can have her come speak at CVGS sometime soon.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

A genealogist dies ...

There is a great family history joke printed in Allison Stacy's article "Tools of the Trade" in the September 2007 edition of Family Tree Magazine. I tried to find it on the Internet but failed.

"A genealogist dies. Much to her chagrin, she learns she's not going to heaven. But her spirits improve after the devil gives her the Grand Tour of Hell - which, as it turns out, contains the biggest family history library anyone could imagine.

"What's more, the genealogist gets her own desk, pedigree charts, and countless records at her disposal. So she begins working in the library.

"A week later, the devil returns to ask how she's doing. 'It's great,' she says, 'except I can't find a pencil or anything else to write with.'

"The devil replies with a chuckle, 'Yes, that's right. Hell, isn't it?'"

Obviously that is a takeoff on lawyer, Clinton and other Grand Tour of Hell jokes, but it is funny!

I'm not sure who wrote this originally - Allison's article says that James M. Beidler quoted it in his syndicated column "Roots and Branches" for Pennsylvania newspapers. If someone knows the correct attribution, I would appreciate knowing it.

What other genealogy jokes might be out there that start with "A genealogist dies..."? Can you make one up and share it with us, either in comments or on your own blog? I will promote them out of comments into this post, or post a link to your blog, if you contribute one.

List of Lancaster PA Area Books

While browsing and Googling today, I ran across the Masthof Annual Catalog of genealogy books. There are many titles here from large, small and personal publishers, and many are specific to the Lancaster PA area, the Amish and Mennonite settlements. It is in a PDF file format. The Table of Contents is:

Amish........................................................... 2
Anabaptism ................................................ 5
Biographies and Novels ............................. 6
Brethren .................................................... 15
Children’s Books ....................................... 16
Computers and Genealogy ...................... 20
Cookbooks ................................................ 21
Europe ...................................................... 22
Genealogy ................................................. 28
Genealogy Reference ............................... 43
Genealogy Supplies ................................. 49
Local History ........................................... 50
Maps and Atlases .................................... 67
Mennonite Culture and History ............. 69
Mennonites, Russian .............................. 74
Miscellaneous ......................................... 74
Miscellaneous Family ............................ 83
Quilts and Quilting ................................ 86
Toys ......................................................... 86
Videos ..................................................... 88
Surname Index........................................88
Author Index............................................93
Title Index................................................96

These are mainly books, each title has a complete citation with price, and a short summary of the contents. You can order them from Masthof at 219 Mill Road, Morgantown, PA 19543-9516. The telephone number is (610) 286-0258. Orders can also be sent via fax: (610) 286-6860. Consult their web page for more ordering information.

I thought that this was a wonderful resource to have available online. It is a great example of how a business - or a genealogy society - can market their paper products online.

Computer Group at CVGS Today

We had our monthly CVGS Computer Group meeting today at the Library. We use the Library Computer Lab with 15 computer terminals. We filled every seat! Gary hooked the projector up to one of the computers so we are able to show the screen on the wall. Shirley was unable to attend, so I drove the screen on the wall to demonstrate sites and techniques.

Almost everybody works in Ancestry Library Edition at these meetings, since most attendees do not have an Ancestry home subscription. Many of the members are still learning about the myriad databases on Ancestry. Today, I showed them how to find recently added or updated databases and away we went on some of them. I also showed them how to get to the search box to input keywords to find location-specific databases. That worked well for many attendees - they searched on a state or county and found resources.

Several attendees wanted to be able to "Share" the images by sending a link to themselves at their home email address. That works pretty well - you can open the email at home, click on the link to the image, view the image on screen, save it to your hard drive (right click on Windows, select "Save Picture As"), print it out, include it in your software database, etc. But what about the screens that are not images - but a summary from a database? These often have useful information. You can go to the File menu and select Send and send the page or ta link to the page to your home email.

One member found a listing of an ancestor in the War of 1812 pension application index and wanted to know how to find the actual record. We went to the LDS www.familysearch.org site and into the Family History Library Catalog - the actual pension files and bounty land warrants were listed. She would have to go order the film at the FHC (or go to a National Archives branch). We also visited the www.militaryindexes.com site and checked the War of 1812 listing, which includes all of the available Ancestry databases and the state-specific databases that are online. Finally, I recommended that she check the Virgil D. White book on War of 1812 Pension File Abstracts - it is on the shelf at the Chula Vista library. If her ancestor received a pension, then the abstract would provide more information about the soldier and a pension file number. This episode was instructive to everyone - it pointed out (again!) that not everything is on the Internet -not by a longshot - and won't be ever! I did point out that many of the LDS films will be imaged and indexed in the next 10 years or so.

I was able to do some work of my own - I found Angus MacDonald of Spokane WA in the World War I Draft Registration Cards. Unfortunately, it didn't list his birthplace. I was hoping it would so I could narrow the search in the 1881 Canadian census to a set of parents. I also checked the Immigration records for his father, Alec MacDonald, but found nothing definitive. Now that I think about it, Alec immigrated into Canada not the US before 1880, and ALE doesn't have Canadian immigration data. Oh well.

The 90 minutes go by real fast at this meeting - we've had Ancestry Library Edition available for about 9 months now, so the regular attendees are doing their own searches and having success without much help.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Carnival of Genealogy on Surnames is posted

Jasia at the Creative Gene blog has posted the 28th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy at http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2007/07/carnival-of-genealogy-28th-edition.html.

There are 20 contributors this time, with a varied blend of single surnames, many surnames, some unique musings about surnames, plus some humor.

footnoteMaven posted a wonderful blog about the different types of surnames with a list of references and a bibliography - worthy of publication in a book or magazine, at http://footnotemaven.blogspot.com/2007/07/whats-in-name.html.

A funny post by Janice at the Cow Hampshire blog shares her search for the LNU and UNK family names - at http://cowhampshire.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/5/3072797.html.
There are lots more - go read them all!

The next Carnival of Genealogy will be about Smile For The Camera! "We all have them, boxes of family photographs. So, show us your favorite photo(s)! Tell us everything about them. Who or what is the photo of, when was it taken, where was it taken, where did you get it, who was the photographer, why is it one of your favorites? Does it commemorate a special occasion, is it a treasure, a mystery, or is it just plain weird, strange or unusual? Share with us the stories of your favorite pics from your family photo albums.The next edition of the COG will be hosted by footnoteMaven on the footnoteMaven blog. The deadline for submissions will be August 1st, so crack open those photo albums and start blogging!"

Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

2nd FTM Class at CVGS

We had our second FamilyTreeMaker class for our Chula Vista Genealogical Society on Monday - with 22 in attendance. The first meeting was summarized here. Our youngest prospective member, Lolo, came for the first part and had a great time entertaining the members until Gary got the projector and laptop up and working. Gary made balloon hats for Lolo until her grandma rescued her from all of the moms and grandmothers in the meeting.

Today we tried to cover all of the inputting, editing, and moving between generations in the Family View and the Pedigree View. We opened a new file, put several families in with children, added and edited facts, sources and notes, and then got into making genealogy ahnentafel and descendant reports. The basic teaching method we're using is to show the FTM screens on the wall using the projector and demonstrating techniques by adding data, clicking buttons, etc, while trying to make suitable witty comments. It seems to work for us.

Most of the attendees with FTM know how to add people to the database - children, parents, spouses, etc. We showed how to add a spouse and how the reports reflect those spouses and their children. There was a spirited discussion and demonstration about AKA names, nicknames, titles and post-nomials. We ended up with one fellow named Elder John Sweet the Younger, MD. There was also a question about how to treat a "one night stand" relationship that results in a child - in the Marriage Facts you can choose the type of relationship and the present status of it.

Most of the attendees with FTM did not know how to create facts and sources, and how to make them show up in genealogy reports. We demonstrated adding facts, adding a fact category, creating a source for the facts, marking a fact as Preferred. We noticed that the source function for FTM 2006 is different from earlier versions, with a "fill-in" box for the different source elements. We showed how to make the Facts and Sources show up in the genealogy reports by using the Contents menu item. We also discussed the different types of reports and how to use the right-side buttons or Contents and Format menu items to improve the look, feel and content of the reports.

Only a few of the attendees had seen the Pedigree View, and so they learned about the way to move forward or back on the pedigree chart, clicking on a person to open their Edit section, using the Alphabetical list to find a person and see their pedigree, clicking the buttons to see children and spouses of a person, and using a Filter to limit the alphabetical list as desired.

Even though we worked for about 90 minutes, we did not cover importing and exporting a GEDCOM, although we talked about it a bit. We also didn't deal with merging data, fixing relationships, or correcting errors. Those topics, plus adding scrapbook items, doing a Web Search, and creating books will be covered next week.

Our attendees are coming to class prepared - most of them read the FTM Tutorial handout that I sent them last week in email, some of them visited the FTM Help menu and the online FAQ pages and message board, and many explored their version of FTM more fully during the week. Hopefully, this second class has improved their knowledge and will help them make full use of the software.

FamilyTreeMaker 2008 Tested

Kathi at the Ancestor Search blog has done more extensive testing of the FamilyTreeMaker 2008 Beta release. Earlier, she had posted her first thoughts here. Her most recent comments are posted at http://ancestorsearch.blogspot.com/2007/07/family-tree-maker-2008-beta-additional.html.

Kathi's initial comment is that:

"The screens make it easier to see everything in one glance. The family view now combines the family tree and family group. The person view displays facts, sources, notes, and tasks in one view. I don't have to click on facts, then return to person, then click on notes, then come back to person. I can see it all on one screen. I really like this combined view because not only is it a time saver but it makes it much easier to see what I have and to spot what is missing or incorrect."

Read both of Kathi's posts to get the full benefit of her testing and experience.

Hopefully, other genealogy bloggers will also provide their Beta test experience with FTM 2008. This type of activity is one of the very best things about genealogy blogging - knowledgeable researchers taking the time to evaluate a product and telling everybody about it.

Thank you to Kathi for taking the time to do the testing and writing about it.

UPDATE: 7/16, 6:30 PM

The Ancestry Insider blog finally has a post about FamilyTreeMaker 2008 with some screen shots. If they are such an Insider, why didn't they have this last week?

Kimberly Powell has also been testing it - see her article at http://genealogy.about.com/b/a/255981.htm.

Monday, July 16, 2007

San Diego's 238th Birthday today

Della's comment on July 16th, 1929 refreshed my memory that it is San Diego's (and California's) "birthday" today - the first European settlers sailed into the harbor and marched up the coast, led by the Spaniard Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero Serra (now a Catholic saint). They planted a small village on and below what is now Presidio Hill in Old Town. The hill provided a view of San Diego Bay to the south and west, Mission Valley and the San Diego River to the North and East. The first Alta California Mission - called San Diego de Alcala - was built on the Presidio, and another was built 6 miles up the river several years later. From San Diego, the Spanish founded 21 missions along the coast up to San Francisco over the next 35 years - they were way stations every 30 to 40 miles.

Over the next 80 years, the Spanish soldiers and Mexican laborers displaced the natives from the area. In 1821, the Mexicans overthrew the Spanish government of Mexico, and Mexico became an independent country. Large ranchos were set up throughout coastal California - there were 33 by the time of the Spanish-American War.

The city of San Diego was incorporated in 1850, so it is fairly young as cities go. The population of the "city" is 650, and that of the county (which stretches up to San Bernardino county and beyond) is 798 more. California was admitted to the United States as the 31st state on September 9, 1850.

The San Diego Historical Society has a web site at http://www.sandiegohistory.org/ with links to a timeline, photos, famous people, publications, etc. The timeline of San Diego history is at http://www.sandiegohistory.org/timeline/timeline.htm. A photo gallery is at http://www.sandiegohistory.org/slideshow/mainphoto.htm.

I am only a 5th generation San Diegan - but I consider myself a native son of San Diego. I love the geography, the weather, the culture, the institutions and the people who live here. I doubt if I will ever leave San Diego.

We have a young lady in our genealogy society whose son has Mexican ancestry from the 1820 to 1850 time period. It's been interesting trying to help her find records.

So I offer a shout out to my precious San Diego - Happy Birthday, and many more!

Della's Journal - Week 29 (July 16-22,1929)

This is Installment 29 of the Journal of Della (Smith) Carringer, my great-grandmother, who resided at 2115 30th Street in San Diego in 1929.

The "players" and "setting" are described here. Pictures of some of the players are here. Last week's Journal entry is here.

Here is Week 29:

-------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, July 16 (hot): Letter from Ed, is sick. Hot weather. We all voted for the water bonds. Lyle's & company went to the deliberation of the museum presented to the city by Mr. Marston, City 160 years old today. Governor Young here & some Spanish people. I went downtown, put $100.-- in Bank of Italy, $90 in SD Savings Bank, $10 in Bay City Bldg & $5 in Bay City Bldg. Drew out Bal[ance] in bank atE & 5[th], savings closed account, $4.96.

Wednesday, July 17 (warm): I scrubbed carpet on floor of bedroom 2116 Fern, A[ustin] took off knobs & got ready for the painter. Lyle's getting ready to go to L.A. tomorrow.

Thursday, July 18 (warm): Lyle's started a little after six. Vernon went on the boat at nine. Mr. McClure painted kitchen & bathroom one coat.

Friday, July 19 (warm): Ma worked outside. I wrote letter to West Shore Investment Co at Venice to see why they do not answer my letter, & if they sent tax money.

Saturday, July 20 (warm): Ed came over, water Lyle's things & cut our west side, watered tree at North corner. A[ustin] got toilet seat ready to varnish. Ed sandpapered chair.

Sunday, July 21: Cut A[ustin]'s hair. He varnished toilet top & Ice chest. Ma washed it & polished on furniture. I vacuumed carpets here. Angie called up, said Roland & family had been here a week from Florida.

Monday, July 22 (warm): Got cards from Lyle & Betty. They got up there all right, stopped several times on the way to see things & Myrtle Farley then to Uncle Jim's. Fri. they went to the Lion farm & sight seeing Sat. to Mt. Low. Sun. to Uncle Frank's then Mon. to Long Beach & home between 2 & 3 PM. Mrs. Jones called to bid my good Bye, is going up to two sons for two months in Portland. We washed. I painted rocking chair green.

-----------------------------------------

This was not a very exciting week for Della - mostly work on the house, yard and rental apartments. Lyle, Emily, and Betty Carringer, and Emily's mother, Georgia (Kemp) Auble, drove up to the Los Angeles area and visited Aunt Libbie Crouch (Abby "Ma" Smith's sister) in Long Beach, Uncle Jim (Kemp, a brother of Georgia (Kemp) Auble), Myrtle Marley (Jim's daughter) and Uncle Frank (Kemp, a brother of Georgia) in Los Angeles.

A word to the wise on the weather reports here. In July, the sun burns off the low clouds in the morning, and it is warm in the afternoon. I think that "warm" in Della's Journal means 75 to 80 F, and "hot" means 80 to 85 F. The temperature in that part of the city is like it is where I live (funny how I picked the same climate belt!) - not as cool as the coast, but 10 degrees cooler than the inland valleys, and 30 degrees cooler than the desert. Today it has been up to 75 F here with some clouds from the east, and is down to 71 F at 3 PM. In late July, we get thunderheads over the mountains to the east (fantastic pictures sometimes, from the monsoons that come up the Gulf of California) and we get occasional thunder and lightning - mostly in the mountains, but occasionally in the city. It will be interesting to see how she describes the Santa Ana winds and high temps in the fall.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Lolo's Here - blogging may be light

It's not often that 2-year-olds come to stay with grandma and grandpa for a week, but we have Lolo until next Sunday. She got dropped off by her dad today - he has to work this next week, and her mom is away at the university working on her PhD.


We have lots of things planned - on Monday it is a trip to the library (grandma reads to toddlers there, grandpa gets to teach FTM to adults) and the Padres game (she is learning "Go Padres"). On Tuesday, it's a visit to the park. On Wednesday, it's back to the library (grandpa has the computer group to attend). On Thursday, it's another Padres game. Her mom and dad come on Saturday and will go to the Padres game with us.
...
So - there's not much time to do any genealogy research, I fear. I will try to squeeze in a blog post or two each day, but blogging may be light this next week.
...
I look at it this way - Grandpa's sweetheart is 2 for 6 more months, and she is just about the cutest little girl in the world. I'm not going to miss any of her escapades finding bugs, watching birds, chasing balls, running into my arms, building blocks, watching Little Einsteins, eating waffles and strawberries, sharing ice cream, riding horsey, turning somersaults, reading books, tickling, hugging and kissing, singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in her bath, and going to bed quietly at 8 PM. We're talking memories, here. Mine. Hers. Am I lucky, or what?
...
So if I don't blog much this next week, I hope you all will understand!

No PDs at the SD FHC Yet

I can hear you asking - "what's a PD?" Well - it's a "Premium Database."

What's a "Premium Database" you ask? It is what the LDS is calling a database that the LDS has partnered with - like http://www.footnote.com/, http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/, http://www.kindredkonnections.com/, and http://www.godfrey.org/.

These four sites, plus the National Archives and HeritageQuestOnline are in the Favorites menu at the San Diego FHC in a category called "Premium Online Databases" or something similar. I try to check these things out every time I go down there, for the obvious reason.

I asked the folks who run the FHC, and they say they don't know when the Premium Databases will be available. So I'll keep checking!

I did notice that on HeritageQuestOnline (which comes up without any sign on screen) that the 1880 Census now has an every-name index (probably taken from the http://www.familysearch.org/ site) and linked to the images. However, the Search capability still does not permit wild cards or Soundex-type searches - you have to spell out the name(s) and if the index doesn't match, you don't get the hit.

I watched some of the volunteers inputting 1900 census records into the FamilySearch Indexing project and really like the program they use - it sure makes things easy to input in the right column - the data is highlighted and you just type it in then move on to the next column and the highlighter moves. About 5 of us had a good discussion about the spelling variations seen on the census, and how the indexing needs to be done according to what it looks like, not what you think it should be. There was a surname on one page that was Callins, Cullins and Collins all next to each other ... the handwriting was not wonderful, to say the least!

The only useful thing I accomplished at the FHC was to order a microfilm of Jamestown RI probate records, and to place the July flyers for CVGS on the counter. Then I took off to the SDGS meeting.

SDGS Meeting Review

The San Diego Genealogical Society meeting on Saturday was a triple-header.

First, Carl Dustin of La Jolla, whose wife June is an SDGS member, gave a patriotic and funny talk about "The Flags of our Forefathers." He displayed and talked about nine of the early American flags. He made it a quiz and whenever someone gave the right answer, he gave them a flag lapel pin. At the end,m we all rose and said the Pledge of allegiance, making sure not to put the comma in "One Nation Under God." The talk was only 20 minutes or so, and Carl did a nice job of it - making folks laugh at him and with him.

Second was the Ice Cream Social. I skipped lunch just so I could have two scoops - one vanilla and one chocolate - with chocolate sauce topping, for only $2.25. A pretty good deal. It was great! Yummy! I love ice cream.

Third was Mary Card and a talk on "Timber-r-r-r - The Midwest Gold Rush," which was about the lumber industry up in Michigan and states further west. She talked a bit about the history of the timber industry, life in a lumber camp, lumber jargon, and also about her Michigan family experiences in the timber industry. It was an interesting talk on a subject I haven't really thought about before.

I'm going to miss the August 11th SDGS meeting - it is the annual Potluck Lunch and Book Auction (with Anita Cheek Milner - she's a riot!). I have used the book auction to collect genealogy journals and periodicals in an effort to obtain a complete collection. I take my updated list of "Books I Have" and "Periodicals I Have" with me to make the selections. Periodicals are usually $1 per year, so it's a good deal. But I'm going to be on vacation that weekend. Oh well -next year!