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Mt. Diablo Genealog ical Soc iety
2016
2016/2017 MDGS Board Members President: Diane de Golia Vice President: Gretchen Hansen Rec. Secretary: Linda Arden Treasurer: John Gilbert Directors: Laura Sanchez & Margaret Ready Past President: Stan Wells Program Chair: Mary Ellis Publicity Chair & Newsletter: Susan Rush Membership Chair: Gayle Schiller Hospitality Co-Chairs: Cheryl Sibthorp & Diane Smith
THE D IGGER
Fall has arrived and the holidays will soon be upon us. There’s no better time to remind ourselves that family gatherings provide perfect opportunities for gleaning more information about past generations or, in some cases, sharing what we’ve discovered. It’s logical to approach those who are direct antecedents: mothers, fathers and grandparents. But it’s also important to talk to brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins. It has always amazed me to hear my brothers’ versions of past events and compare them to what I remember. In the pursuit of family history, it helps to gather as much in the way of facts and stories as is possible. Sifting through all that is collected can be very enlightening.
What I’ve encountered when attempting to share some of my latest finds during these get-togethers is less enthusiasm that one might imagine. Not everyone cares about his or her ancestry or as one sibling put it to me, he was only interested if I discovered that we were descended from royalty. Glassy-eyed responses are something that I’m fairly certain most of us have encountered. So it was with great delight that I found the following many months ago with no credit given to an author:
We are the chosen in each family There is one who seems called to find the ancestors To put flesh on their bones and make them seem alive again To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but instead breathing life into all who have gone before We are the storytellers of the tribe
Wishing all of you storytellers and your tribes a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Diane
P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S A G E – D I A N E D E G O L I A
I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :
President’s Message 1
Speakers & Programs 2
Votes Are In & Events 3
National Archive Research Source 4
A Few New Search Engines 5
Special Interest Groups 6
Membership Application 7
Holiday Traditions—Holiday Dessert & Coffee Social
8
5 Genealogy Do’s and One Don’t at Ancestry
9
Help Wanted, & Publicity 10
Volunteer Form & Membership Dues Renewal
11
Calendar of Events & Dues Reminder
12
New members: Sandra Jensen Marcia Peterson
Page 2
T H A N K Y O U T O O U R O C T O B E R S E A K E R S
N O V E M B E R S P E A K E R S - C O N T R A C O S T A C O U N T Y G E N E A L O G I C A L S O C I E T Y
A N D S A N R A M O N V A L L E Y G E N E A L O G I C A L S O C I E T Y
CCCGS—November 10th 7:00 p.m. at Concord Family History Center, 1360 Alberta Way, Concord Lisa Gorrell, will do a Teaching Moment “Census Columns you might have overlooked” Malinda Kashuba will speak on “Finding Railroad Records” No meeting in December More info at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cacccgs/
SRVGS– November 15th 10am at Danville Family History Center (2949 Stone Valley Road at Smith Road in Alamo.) Jeffrey Vaillent will speak on “Lies, Lies and Damn Lies” More info at http://srvgensoc.org
Our mini-presentation will be by Mt. Diablo Genealogical Society member, Bill Steinmetz. His talk, “Adding Photos and Videos to Websites”, will demonstrate how a family tree can be enhanced with photos, documents, audio and video. He will show how faded and damaged photos can be re-stored, how to add reference data to media and how to produce illustrated family history books.
Our main speaker is Katherine Borges, “DNA Results”. Katherine is Co-founder and Director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG). She is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Colonial Dames of the XVII Century. Katherine is also the President of the Salida Chamber of Commerce. Katherine will explain the different types of commercial DNA tests that exist and to what extent they can be useful in your genealogical research
N O V E M B E R S P E A K E R S
P R O G R A M S - M A R Y E L L I S
Date Mini Speaker Main Speaker & Topic
16 Dec 2016 *1:00—3:00 pm Fairway Room Holiday Traditions Dessert Social
20 Jan 2017 Phyllis O’Shea Kim von Aspern-Parker– Finding Women
17 Feb 2017 Christine Bell Green—English Genealogy on the Internet
* NOTE THE TIME AND PLACE CHANGE
T H A N K Y O U T O O U R O C T O B E R S P E A K E R
Dr. Sheila Wells, Managing Family Member & President, of Harris Funeral Home Legacy Center in Berkeley. Dr. Wells told us how they help families manage & maintain family histories with loving memorials. She also explained their recordkeeping process, digitizing pictures and records (a free service) and then maintaining & storing of records in a digital cloud storage. Dr. Wells also took many questions about death certificates and where to locate records. Thank you for your very insightful message.
The Digger Page 3
U P C O M I N G L O C A L E V E N T S
Experience
More information, https://www.rootstech.org/
Save the date: Saturday, April 22, 2017 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sonoma County Genealogical Society 2017 Spring Seminar presents: Thomas W Jones, PhD, CG, FASG, FUGA Person Auditorium at the Finley Center 2060 West College Ave. at Stoney Point Rd., Santa Rosa, CA Scheduled Lectures: *Five Ways to Prove Who Your Ancestor Was (Some Reliable & Others Not Reliable) * Inferential Genealogy: Deducing Ancestor’s Identities Indirectly * Using Autosomal DNA to Solve a Family Mystery * Going Beyond the Bare Bones: Recon structing Your Ancestors’ Lives Audrey Herman, [email protected]
FREE CLASSES offered at Oakland California Family Search Library, 4766 Lincoln Avenue Oakland, California Starting at the Beginning,
How to use Rootsmagic,
Swedish research,
and Mac User Workshop, just to name a few.
Click on the link to see the complete list of free
classes offered.
https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Oakland_Cali
fornia_FamilySearch_Library/Class_Schedule
T H E V O T E S A R E I N
Last month we asked your opinion about changing to a different day & place for our 2017 meetings.
After reviewing the responses and great discussion at our Board Meeting, we have decided to leave our meetings as stands. With our change to the morning time at the beginning of the year, it was decided that we will review our numbers and options again next October.
Thank you for your responses and we hope that next year we will definitely need a bigger space.
We will continue to meet on the 3rd Friday of the month, 10:00 a.m. in the Club Room at Creekside.
Page 4
R E S E A R C H S O U R C E
https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy
Click on the button to go to a list of
researchable topics in Prologue magazine
The Digger Page 5
A F E W N E W S E A R C H E N G I N E S
From the website: GenealogyInTime.com
http://www.genealogyintime.com/tools/genealogy-search-engine.html
http://www.genealogyintime.com/tools/family-tree-search-engine.html
Newspapers Search: Elephind - over 149 million items (newspaper pages/articles) from several countries
http://www.elephind.com/
Library of Congress - Chronicling America - over 10.5 million pages from 43 states
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
Google News Archive - over 2,500 newspapers
https://news.google.com/news/advanced_news_search?as_drrb=a
Old Fulton NY Post Cards - over 34 million pages of New York State (and many other
states) historical newspapers
http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
Trove - over 195 million articles from Australia
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?q=
Wikipedia:List of online newspaper archives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_online_newspaper_archives
Page 6
S P E C I A L I N T E R E S T G R O U P S
Many of our neighboring genealogical societies offer Special Interest Groups (SIGs). Here are a list of some of the topics covered. If you are interested in one of the topics, you are welcome to visit and check them out.
If you have a topic of interest that you don’t see and would like to form a SIG, please let one of the board members know and we will help you get a SIG set up.
San Ramon Valley Genealogical Society offers the following SIGs:
Azores Research 3rd Wednesday from 1:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Danville Family History Center, 2949 Stone Valley Road, Alamo, California
Family Search 2nd Monday from 1:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Danville Family History Center, 2949 Stone Valley Road, Alamo, California.
FTM Group/Ancestry 1st Monday of each month at 1:15pm. at the Danville Family History Center, 2949 Stone Valley Road, Alamo, California.
German Research 4th Wednesday of the month from 10 a.m. to12 p.m.
Irish Research 2nd Wednesday of the month at 10am at the home of Russ and Patty Erickson.
Legacy Software 4th Monday of each month at the Danville Family History Center, 2949 Stone Valley Road, in Alamo, California at 1:15 p.m.
Publishing 3rd Thursday at the home of Francis Lloyd in Danville at 10 a.m.
For more information: http://srvgensoc.org/sig.html
Contra Costa County Genealogical Society offers:
Computer Interest Group 4th Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the home of Susan Swindell
Monday Morning: 2nd Monday of each month at 9:30 am Genealogy Roundtable group Contact Susan at [email protected]
For more information: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cacccgs/cccgs/events.htm
Every family tree produces
some lemons,
some nuts and
a few bad apples
The Digger Page 7
Page 8
MT. DIABLO GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY Holiday Dessert & Coffee Social
December 16, 2016 1:00— 3:00
Fairway Room Bring your favorite family dessert to
share (to serve 6-8). Tell about a special holiday memory. Bring a special
holiday item to show at your table.
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Page 10
The Program committee is looking for a few members to share an experience, a discovery, a topic or a story at an upcoming
meeting in 2017 during our mini-session.
No need for fancy presentations or handouts, just a short discussion about something you found interesting and would like to share with the group.
Contact Mary Ellis [email protected]
Linda Arden for accepting the position of Recording Secretary!
.
P U B L I C I T Y— S U S A N R U S H
Check out Mt. Diablo Genealogical Society’s mdgs.webs.com
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mdgensoc/
If you would like to submit something for the Digger, it must be submitted to [email protected] by the last Monday of the month.
CAN YOU HELP WITH REFRESHMENTS?
Do you bake?
Could you bring store bought?
Contact our Hospitality Committee, to sign up
for providing goodies for our monthly meeting
or watch for the sign-up sheet.
Diane Smith - [email protected]
The Digger Page 11
It’s time to renew your membership! Fill out the enclosed application and mail it with your renewal fee to Mt. Diablo Genealogical Society, 1001 Golden Rain Rd., Walnut Creek, CA 94595.
All memberships expire December 31st. Please submit your renewal by February 1st, in order to continue receiving the Digger newsletter.
1001 Golden Rain Road
Walnut Creek, CA 94595
November, 2016 Edition
MDGS DIGGER
We’re On The Web:
mdgs.webs.com
MT. DIABLO GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY Holiday Dessert & Coffee Social December 16, 2016 1:00— 3:00* Fairway Room*
*NOTE THE TIME AND PLACE CHANGE
See page 8 for more information.
To Renew Your Membership
Print out and complete the enclosed Membership Application (page 7) and mail with your renewal fee to:
Mt. Diablo Genealogical Society, 1001 Golden Rain Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94595