Meeting Notes from 7/26/7

Cathy Pappas
Cathy Graupner
Roena Bayes
Curt Wright

MaryEllen memichael@fredco-md.net

Cathy Graupner brought in a printout from this site:
http://www.familytreemagazine.com/101sites/2007/

This is a webpage published by the magazine that discusses genealogy online resources and lists their top picks. Cathy brought several copies and I have the extras on the library shelf next to our box of genealogy resources flyers.

Roena brought some magazines she wants to share with others. We passed them around and I also put them on top of our shelf near the genealogy section in the library. She also related a wonderful story about a serendipitous event in her genealogy search. She attended a DAR ceremony at the Great Conewago Presbyterian Church where she discovered the gravestones for David and Hannah Simpson from 1789. These happen to be her ancestors and she did not know about the grave sites.

Curt said he has had some luck talking to undertakers in the areas where he is searching for ancestor’s graves.

Cathy Pappas said she has a stack of unidentifed pictures. Curt suggested looking at the photos for photographer identifiers which may help to determine a year and place so that an educated guess might be made about the identities.

We talked about the new version of Family Tree Maker, a software package that is becoming the standard for genealogy researchers online. Many sites require this software to easily access the information on the site.

Curt demonstrated a new feature on Ancestry.com, Cadastral Maps (A map displaying property ownership boundaries, dimensions, and other useful information, such as parcel identification numbers). He had downloaded one for New Matamoros in Ohio where some of his ancestors owned land. He showed he could magnify and manipulate a map display once it is on your computer.

Cathy Graupner told us about a book store in Westminster that is no longer operating brick and mortar but is still online. Go to this site to read more about this excellent resource for genealogists. http://www.willowbendbooks.com/. You will find another link on that page to http://www.heritagebooks.com/, a spin-off from the original enterprise.

We explored www.genealogy.com a bit. Curt explained that this site is one that depends on Family Tree Maker software.

Cathy Graupner talked about her Mayflower decendents. Curt suggested that she could try to find the ships that early immigrants arrived in using the ISTG site http://www.immigrantships.net/

We explored some other sites
http://www.ellisisland.org/ - a site where you can search for immigrants who came through Ellis Island
http://www.cyndislist.com/ - a site with links to genealogy resource sites online