Rockdale County GaArchives History .....Rockdale County Genealogical Society-Newsletter November 2004 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Larry C. Knowles http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00012.html#0002854 March 20, 2009, 5:13 pm JEANS & GENES Rockdale County Genealogical Society Publication-November 2004 __________________________________________________________ November Meeting The November meeting will be the annual anniversary celebration with refreshments. We are also scheduled to elect new officers. If anyone would like to serve as an officer or committee chairman, please advise Bill Freese. ___________________________________________________________ Genealogy Programs in 2004 Gerre Byrd and Norma Owens, our program committee, arranged a variety of interesting programs for our enjoyment this year. Three of our speakers focused on the methods and materials of genealogical research. Walter Freeman of the East Georgia Genealogical Society in a lecture entitled “Kith and Kin” explained the definitions of kinship. For example, what is the difference in your second cousin and your first cousin once removed? Robert Davis, prolific author and professor of genealogy at Wallace State College, Hanceville, Alabama, talked to us about how to find records of our Confederate ancestors. John Vogt, expert on Colonial Virginia and publisher of genealogical materials, enlightened us about early Virginia records. Three speakers helped us understand more about our southern heritage. Peter Bonner, expert on Gone With the Wind, entertained us with true stories about Margaret Mitchell and the writing of Gone With the Wind. Cindy Smith Brown, author of Sweet Dirt and Southern Bones, read passages from her book. David Leinweber, professor at Oxford College, and his wife Mary entertained us with music from the Civil War period. Two of our own members presented informative programs. Martha Brown presented a program on “Sailing Ships” and gave us information on how to search ship records for our ancestors. Bertha Little presented a program on “The First Ten Year of the Georgia Colony.” Finally, one of the most enjoyable programs was a ”share day” when members brought maps, notebooks, family trees, and family photographs. We learned from each other as we shared experiences, methods, and materials. In our final meeting of the year we enjoy the foods of our ancestors and reflect on the accomplishments of the society since it’s founding. The genealogical society looks forward to additional interesting programs in 2005. ___________________________________________________________________ Library Visitors Share Research Gary N. & Joshua Saxton, 2261 Briarwood Cir., Conyers, GA. Researching John Saxton of Pensylvania. Rebecca Roseberry, Porterdale, Ga. Researching Prather? family. Gene Bivings, Snellville, Ga. No names given. Mervis Nash Worthy, Lilburn, Ga. Comment: Great collection. Mary T. Hazel, Conyers, Ga. Researching Stowers family. Phillis Thompson, Covington, Ga. Researching Marshall P. Bradford. R. G. Mitchell, Conyers, Ga. Researching Mitchell family. Louisa Hays Johnston, 533 1st Ave. NW, Arab, Al. 35016. Researching Parker and Taylor. Karen Parker, Conyers, Ga. Researching Carpenter family. Roy C. Peek, Jr., 4421 Hwy 20 NE, Conyers, Ga. 30012. Researching Peek, Trimble and Rice. If you are researching the same names, you may want to contact one or more of the individuals shown here and ask to share your information. You never know; one of these people may have the information that has been eluding you for years. _______________________________________________________________ New Books Added to the Nancy Guinn Shelves Douglas County, Heritage of GA R 975.8243 Greene County, Cemeteries of GA R 929.5 Jackson County Marriage Records GA R 929.3785 Miller County, Heritage of GA R 975.8964 Milton County Ga. Cemeteries GA R 975.823 ANG Tift County, Heritage of GA R 975.8882] Walker County GA. Heritage GA R 975.833 _____________________________________________________________ Legacy, The Genealogy Program of Choice for Some Genealogists You may want to consider Legacy www.legacyfamilytree.com. The basic program is free and unlimited (some features are only in the deluxe version, $19.95 by download without CD or printed manual -various combinations of extras available - see website). Problems can be excluded individually from the list . You can search all records, new records and those with previous problems or just records with excluded problems. Web site creation is built in. along with a number of other features PAF 2 didn’t have, including an extensive report menu and excellent source citation. Frequent free updates are available and the upgrade to a new version is inexpensive. I teach computer use for genealogists with my local society and a number of our users have gone to Legacy after trying more widely advertised programs that don’t offer the same features or cost a great deal more for them. No connection, just a satisfied customer. Victoria Sullivan vlsulliv@newsguy.com ____________________________________________________________________ Digital Camera Use In Genealogy I have a 4 megapixel Canon G3 that I bought about a year ago. I have taken over 3,000 shots with it; about half are photographs, but the other half are various documents like deeds, diaries, newspapers, etc. I have taken pictures of images on microfilm readers - both backlit and projectable image type. I have taken pictures of full size newspapers, pages out of books, diaries, etc. I have never used a tripod, though I’m sure the pictures in some low-light conditions would probably have come out better. The bottom line though, is that I am extremely pleased with the results. Here are a few general comments about features and other relevant issues: * The most important feature to get from my perspective is a flip/ rotating LCD screen. This will allow you to frame the image correctly whether you are taking a picture of a deed in a microfilm reader or a huge deedbook opened on a table. * I like the compact flash cards for memory storage. I have 2 256MB cards and the 32 MB card that came with the camera. If I fill everything (I never have) I can quickly walk out to my car and download the images onto my laptop. * My 4 megapixel camera works fine. I think a 3 megapixel camera would be adequate for almost everything as well. The only photos I have taken that are a bit hard to read are when I try to capture a fullsize newspaper page. The text is legible, but just barely. Usually I will take a picture of the whole page, then take a closer picture of the article I am interested in. * Some facilities won’t allow you to use the camera. I have experienced that in some county records offices in New York state. I think in some cases they are afraid they are going to lose revenue. In one instance I agreed to pay the going copy rate for each picture I took. It is a much better approach than having their personnel make copies. I can take images of 10 deeds in the time it takes them to copy one. They get 10 times as much money, I get 10 times as much research done, there is less wear and tear on the deedbooks and the employees (where they are required to do the copying) can continue doing other work without interruption. * I have taken lots of pictures of bound books - deeds, county history books, diaries, etc. Someone mentioned earlier the problem with the curvature of the pages. It doesn’t look perfect; you can definitely tell that the pages are curved, but the most important point is that they are still legible. Even curved handwritten pages tend to stay pretty focused. * I have even had good success taking pictures of slides. I bought a cheap plastic backlit slide viewer that allows you to insert one slide at a time and view it through a 3 inch x 2 inch screen. I use the macro setting on the camera (another useful feature), photograph the slide, then put the image into Adobe Photoshop and crop off the black space. I shot over 100 slides like this and the quality ranges from good to excellent. * The other main feature to have is the ability to manually turn off the flash, even in low light situations. I think this feature is fairly standard on all but the cheapest cameras, but I’m not positive. The bottom line is, I had an idea of what I hoped a digital camera could do for my genealogy research, and this has exceeded my expectations. Best regards, Mike Curtis mecurtis@citcom.net ___________________________________________________________________ Pines Network Will Make Your Research Easier The Georgia Pines library network can enable you to go on-line and search for books which may contain information regarding the surnames that you may be researching. You can do this from the comfort of your home; or, you can do it on the computers at the Nancy Guinn Library which are permanently connected to the system. Doing it at home offers you the added option of making a copy of the search results on your computer hard drive and even making a printed copy which can serve several functions. Rather than going to various libraries around the state at random with no idea of what these libraries may have on their shelves regarding the surnames you are researching, you can go with full knowledge of where the books are that contain the information you need. You can walk into a particular library with your printout with the call numbers etc. and begin using the specific books without any delay. This presents a startling improvement in efficiency and effective use of time for research. Most of the libraries do not allow the circulation or checking-out of special collections books. While distribution of the books using the inter-library loan system was the main purpose of the implementation of the Pines Network, the special collections rooms remain off-limits to such use. You have to go to the libraries to gain access to the books. However, using the Pines Network, you can now have the advantage of knowing which libraries you want to visit to find the books which contain the information you need. Point your browser at: http://www.pines.lib.ga.us You can sign on as “Guest” and use the password 1337. There are two fields which you use to search the system. The field on the left will have a blank where you type in the surname to search. It works to use the surname and the word family as in “Camp family” in the blank field. The field on the right contains the name of the library. It indicates “Library:”. The word “All” comes up automatically in this field. If you click on the button on the right side of this field, you can scroll down all the names of the libraries in the system. You have the option of searching all of the libraries in the system or a specific library. If you use the “All” option, the system will return a list of all the instances of books anywhere in Georgia containing information on the name you requested. If you use the name of a particular library, you will get a list of the books which are located in that particular library having the surname in their search parameters. The “All” option presents a list which shows the name of the library on the right side. Rather than the actual name, it will provide an abbreviation. In order to determine which library name is indicated by the abbreviation, you need to scroll the library name field down to the abbreviations which are located at the very bottom of the library name listing. You will find that you can’t do this while reading the listing of books. One solution is to open a separate browser window and sign on in that window and minimize it so that you can bring it up when needed to view the library abbreviation listing. There is a printed listing of the library names floating around. You may find a copy of it, if you are lucky. Once you make a hard copy of the statewide listing, you can use it as a master copy of all the available locations of relevant information. You can check off each book as it is used and save yourself from backtracking. ____________________________________________________________________ East Georgia Meeting Invitation The officers of the Rockdale County Genealogical Society have been invited to attend a meeting sponsored by The East Georgia Genealogical Society to be held on Saturday, November 13, 2004, at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville, Ga. from 11 AM to 4 PM. (A light lunch will be served.) The purpose of this meeting is “Board of Liaison of Genealogy and Historical Societies Formation and Initial Meeting.” There are a number of issues that may be discussed. I plan on attending, Lord willing and the Creek don’t rise. If any of you are interested in attending this meeting please let me know through e-mail or phone by November 6, 2004. If you have questions about this meeting give me a call at 770-760-1679. My e-mail address is billyfreese@cs.com. Bill Freese Conyers, GA __________________________________________________________________ Cemetery Book Planned For Rockdale Hello to Everyone, I have missed seeing most of you over the past year. Although I have not been there to hear the Wonderful programs which have planned for you I have been in touch. Monday night, Nov. 1, I met with the East Georgia Genealogical Society Officers. As many of you may know, I have been in the process of working on Rockdale County Cemeteries to get a “Cemetery Book” for our county in progress. The time has come, East Georgia will be working on this project with me. I would like for you to give it some thought of volunteering on this project. The more working, the faster we can add it to our shelves in our Special Collections Room. The County cemeteries will have to all be visited, each grave has to be recorded, we need typists to format it and proofread the information. The Walton County Books came out this year, they are wonderful. Please contact me if you are willing to give a little time to this project. I hope to see you at the next meeting. Judy Bond _________________________________________________________________ JEANS & GENES is a publication of the Rockdale County Genealogical Society % Nancy Guinn Library, 864 Green St. SW, Conyers, Ga. 30012 President: Bill Freese V. President: Judy Bond Treasurer: Jackie Smith Secretary: Bertha Little Program Cochairman: Gerre Byrd Norma Owens Newsletter Editor: Marion T. Farmer 1500 A. Pine Log Rd NE Conyers, GA. 30012 mtf@mindspring.com http://mtf.home.mindspring.com _______________________________________________ Additional comments: This back issue of the Rockdale County Genealogical Society newsletter has been copied with permission from the personal website of editor, Marion Farmer, as his website is nearing capacity. For simplicity the few photos or graphics have not been included here. Websites previously linked from Marion’s site will not be operative here. Sites that are still active may be found by entering their listed URLs. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/rockdale/history/other/rockdale106nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/gafiles/ File size: 15.4 Kb