Rockdale County GaArchives History .....Rockdale County Genealogical Society-Newsletter February 2006 ************************************************ 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 16, 2009, 6:56 pm JEANS & GENES Rockdale County Genealogical Society Publication-February 2006 ____________________________________________________________ February 12, 2006, Meeting The Rockdale County Genealogical Society will meet on Sunday, February 12, 2006 at 3:00 P.M. at the Nancy Guinn Memorial Library, 864 Green Street, Conyers, Georgia. The topic of this meeting is “The Origin of Surnames” presented by Bertha Little. Mrs. Little is retired from DeKalb County Schools, and spent much of her career teaching Georgia history. She has a Master of Education degree from Mercer University and is a member of several genealogical societies including Rockdale Genealogical Society and East Georgia Genealogical Society. The public is encouraged to attend. There is no attendance fee, however, donations are appreciated. ____________________________________________________________ Swann Assumes Presidency Norman Swann has assumed the office of president for 1906. Mr. Swann brings a history of genealogical experience to the office. He and his cousin, Billy Baker, now deceased, worked hard to compile the most complete work of genealogy for the Sheffield District of Rockdale County. Mr. Swann is a descendant of one of the oldest pioneer families of Rockdale County. They were original land owners; and, some of the family still reside on the original land lot which was awarded in the 1821 Georgia Land Lottery. Mr. Swann is a retiree of the Dekalb County Tax Commissioners Office after twenty-five years of service where he was a manager of the back-tax and Auto Tag offices. We are fortunate to have a man of his experience to lead the Genealogical Society in 2006. _____________________________________________________________ Rockdale Genealogical Society Has New Board Norman Swann - President 770-483-4820 Bill Freese - V. President billyfreese@cs.com Jane Conn - Secretary Janeconn275@aol.com Jackie Smith - Treasurer heloisesmith@comcst.net Sherry Pierce - Program Chair spierce@juno.com Gerre Byrd - Membership Chair ggengard@comcast.net Norma Owens - Membership Comm. nonieowens@aol.com Jenel Ship - Membership Comm. the7shipps@aol.com Martha Brown - Trip Coordinator mbrown2205@aol.com Marion Farmer - Newsletter mtf@mindspring.com Bertha Little - Board Member 3rmarm@aol.com ___________________________________________________________ 2006 Scheduled Speakers March 12 - Larry Guzy “Spies in the Revolutionary War”. April 9 - Chris Zawadzki Latter Day Saints “Letter Writing Guides in Different Languages”. zawadzki@bellsouth.net May 21 (3rd Sunday) - Susan Sloan “The Census Takers Tracks” jandssloan@mindspring.com June 11 - “Show off and Share Day” Society members share research and tips. July 9 - Dale Couch “Georgia State Archives” dcouch@sos.state.ga.us August 13 - Walter J. Freeman, Ph.d. “Using Your Genealgoy Software to prepapre a Manuscript for Publishing” sswjf@gmail.com September 10 - Ken Thomas, AJC Genealogy Columnist (topic to be determined) ktomjr@aol.com October 8 - Bill Freese “Using the Federal Census” billyfreese@cs.com _______________________________________________________________________ Library Visitors Share Surnames Researched Marvin Nash Worthy, Lilburn, Ga. Researching Worthy, Brooks, Nash, Bennett of Gwinnett County. Jeanna Williamson, Conyers, Ga. Researching William R. Schaife in the Campaign for Atlanta. Toney W. Poole, Covington, Ga. Researching Poole, Pool, Phillips, Garner, Kilgo, Kilgore, A. B. Fulbright, Lilburn, Ga. No names given _____________________________________________________________ An Inquiry From Mr. Moore of Idaho Mr. John S. Moore of North Fork, Idaho is looking to contact anyone who has information concerning his great grandparents who resided in Conyers from 1850 to 1880. The names he is looking for are: Sarah Ann Mann, Sarah Jane Mann (Richardson), George Smith, Thomas L. Richardson, Samuel and Elizabeth Richardson, Willie G. Smith (Bostwick). Sarah Jane Mann and George Smith were married in Conyers on February 11, 1864 by J. L. Stewart, Methodist Minister. Willie G. Smith (daughter) was born to them in December, 1865. George Smith disappeared from the record and Sarah Jane remarried to Thomas L. Richardson on April 16, 1867. Mr. Moore seeks any information available on George Smith or any of the names mentioned above. Mr. Moore can be contacted at: john077@centurytel.net ____________________________________________________________________ Census Information Definition: A primary source is a record of an event written, spoken, or photographed by an eyewitness to that event at or near the time the event occurred. This would seem to include census as a primary source. Some authorities call it that -others do not, mostly because we cannot be sure who gave the information to the census worker. However, another wrinkle: it’s not widely known that the census images you see on your screen (or on microfilm) are not the originals. The original census forms were kept at the state level (and just try to find any of them now): copies were made and sent to Washington. Some states kept the copies and sent on the originals. There are ways to tell if you are looking at one of the rare original census pages from the markings on the page; a good resource for information is Wm Dollarhide’s excellent book on The Census. So, mostly what we see and use are second or even third generation transcriptions. The mind boggles at the possibilities for errors, omissions and just plain laziness (one census I saw had an enumerator, or probably, a copier, who abbreviated all the surnames if they were more than two syllables!). Not only are the original pages as written by the census enumerator mostly gone, but the Washington copies were destroyed after microfilming (years since 1900). Census isn’t worthless, of course, but it has to be taken into the mix with many other sources we have available. I am frequently astounded at the people attempting to work on their family history who have never looked at a census page. JHall Halltall@aol.com _________________________________________________________________ 1880 Census Enumerator Visited Rockdale It is reported that the Devil was seen in the Alsace District in this county one day last week. A little boy was plowing and in approaching the end of his row, he saw something at the fence which he thus describes: It had the body and legs of a man. Its hands were long claws; on the top of its head were two large red eyes. He says the demon spoke to him and told him he was the Devil and had come for him. This frightened the lad. When he unhitched the mule from the plow, he flew to the house and told his father what he had seen. The old man seized his gun and hastened to the spot; but, his Satanic Majesty had disappeared. The phenomena can only be accounted for by the fact that the census enumerator is abroad stirring up the people in that section; and, the supposition is that the boy got a glimpse of him in passing a by-path near the field and mistook him for the Devil! (Taken from the Rockdale Register of June 11, 1880) _____________________________________________________ Federal Land Patent Site On-Line My name is Todd Bocik. I am the SAIC Project Manager for the development of the scanning and indexing applications as well as the development of the Official Federal Land Patent Records web site. The Bureau of Land Management has maintained the Official Federal Land Patent Records site (www.glorecords.blm.gov) since 1998. The website was down for months, but was made publicly accessible on December 23. Since then, thousands of people have visited the site. With the renewed interest in the website, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have used this website and ask a favor. During the websites history, we have modified the look and feel twice. The first version had very little searching capabilities and few options for you to get the images of the patents. The second version (the one you currently see) has many more searching capabilities geared towards genealogists and those searching for title information. Plus, more image viewing capabilities. The current version has been in place for about 4 years now and we want to make sure that we are not missing any capabilities that you would like to see. We would like you to provide us with features, enhancements or aesthetic changes that would make this site better. There are a few things that we can not change: 1. We can not get data on the site any faster. 2. We can not do different types of documents at this time. The BLM staff are diligently trying to get all the serial records on the website. 3. We can not do additional states. http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/Visitors/StateTime.asp shows the 5 million state patents and land patents that are, or will be, on the website. The General Land Office has very few patents from Texas and the original 13 colonies. 4. We can not do Full Text searches of these documents. The BLM staff are not transcribing the entire documents, but indexing key fields. If you feel uncomfortable posting in this news group and would like to send me an email, please send it to bocikt@saic.com. Also, if there are any other newsgroups or websites I should post this message on, please let me know. Thanks again for your support of the website. I will review the postings with the BLM Project Manager. Based on the budget and current technology, we will get as many new features into the next version as possible. Todd Bocik “Todd Bocik” [Ed: Georgia is one of the original colonies. Its records are not on this site] ___________________________________________________________________ Biographical Sketches On-Line Genealogy Today announced the availability of Biographical Sketches Online, a free service offering researchers access to images of short biographies published in various books by different groups and organizations. Biographical Sketches Online, accessible from the Genealogy Today home page, is a collection of images scanned from original materials owned by Genealogy Today. The index is fully searchable and integrated into the main site search. Instead of having to browse through pages of images, you can find out in seconds if any possible ancestors are in the collection. The database launched today with several hundred sketches from three different books: History of Southwest Virginia and Washington County [VA]; 150 Years of Lodge No. 43 Lancaster [PA] (1785-1935); and Fitchburg [MA] Past and Present. Additional sources will be uploaded on a regular basis. To access the Biographical Sketches Online database, visit the Genealogy Today home page at http://www.genealogytoday.com/ or go directly to the search page at http://genealogytoday.com/names/sketches/ “illyad” illya@daddezio.com _________________________________________________________________ Digitized Books Available On-Line LDS Digitizing Books, on-line NOW at BYU !!!! A dream coming true. The Family History Library is starting to digitize their book holdings, mostly family histories to date, and they are putting them on-line, fully searchable by any word or advanced search combinations. Five thousand plus of these books are on the Brigham Young University Library servers and readily accessible, NOW! Here is a partial clip of an announcement I just received and I have only made a quick check of how to find them and how to search, but it is very exciting “the LDS Family History Library has announced that it has begun the process of digitizing and making available on the Internet all of the Family History books in their collection. These are primarily books in the “929.273 Series” that are currently housed on the first floor of the Family History Library (previously housed on the fourth floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building). At the present time (September 2005), about 5000 books have been digitized and are available, and they have announced that they are adding about 100 titles a week to the on-line collection. Copyright issues are playing a role in determining the order in which they progress through this task; books out of copyright are being done first.” Go to the web site of the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU at http://www.lib.byu.edu/ , then on the home page, follow the links: Find Other Materials; Electronic; On Line Collections at BYU; Text Collections tab; Family History Archive from the list of collections that are displayed. The search box on the left seems to be the one to find your books at and the search box on the right is for searching within the pages on screen. I have not used it enough yet to be proficient, but you bet I’ll be checking this little treasure out, a lot!--Dick Hillenbrand Dick Hillenbrand nygenes@gmail.com ___________________________________________________________ JEANS & GENES is a publication of the Rockdale County Genealogical Society. % Nancy Guinn Library, 864 Green St. SW, Conyers, Ga. 30012 President: Norman Swann V. President: Bill Freese Treasurer: Jackie Smith Secretary: Jane Conn Program Chairman: Sherry Pierce Membership Chairman: Gerre Byrd Membership Committee: Norma Owens Membership Committee: Jenel Ship Trip Coordinator: Martha Brown Board Member: Bertha Little Newsletter: 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/rockdale90nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/gafiles/ File size: 14.6 Kb