) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Bower Cottage 3. GEDCOM Project 4. Lookup Project 5. A request from Colleen 6. Cottage queries If you've been with the family [the BOWER-L list] for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraphÂ… TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer/Baur lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bauer/Baur lines or any of the variant spellings that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://www.crosswinds.net/~bowerhomestead>, or you can use or shortcut URL of <http://embark.to/Homestead>. We also have a newly opened sister site, the Bower Cottage, that we're currently preparing to fill. At present only the frameworks are there -- NO names or data are there yet. This coming week we should begin to enter information. The Cottage is at <http://www.crosswinds.net/~bowercottage>, or you can use the shortcut URL of <http://embark.to/bowercottage>. BOWER COTTAGE I remember waaaay back, when the BOWER-L first came together and the Homestead's walls still reeked of freshness, that I asked all the cousins who were in the family at the time to think of what our home would look like in a year or two down the road as far as crowding. We were at GeoCities then and our home was only allocated 11-megabytes maximum of space. That may sound like an enormous amount, but cousins, we were EATING bytes up at a terrific rate - even at the beginning. We don't have that problem at Crosswinds now, but we do need to start looking ahead. At the present, the Cottage is set up to house four large projects -- our vital records certificates the Continuum (state/country project) the Lookup Project the GEDCOM Project Also there are the beginner helps. Within the next two weeks I hope to have the novice/advanced research helps/tips online. Cousins please, think a year down the line. Does anyone have any suggestions for any other project or genealogical area of interest you might like to see housed there? We don't have to start working on new ideas right away, nor do we need/want to make the Cottage as large as the Homestead, but I do need advance notice so I can begin plotting where to put any new projects/fields before we start filling the Cottage up....and, once we start entering our data there, it WILL fill up fast! GEDCOM PROJECT This coming week the GEDCOM project will FINALLY get off the veritable back-burners it's been sitting on for over a year. I currently have only three cousins' GEDCOMs ready to put online - one being the one I will add. If you want to put yours online this first time out, please send it to me as an attachment (not a zip file since I can't open it) no later than Tuesday, 13 June. I hope to upload our first GEDCOMs on Wednesday. Following are the guidelines for GEDCOM submissions: 1.) Absolutely NO living persons are to be included in your GEDCOM. 2.) Your GEDCOM must be Bower[s], Bauer, Baur or a variant spelling-related and can be of any size. Please do not include your extended lines. You can, however, include the parents of spouses who marry into our surnames of interest. 3.) I will be using Personal Ancestral File (PAF) to import and export GEDCOMs. Unfortunately, PAF is not compatible with everyone's GEDCOMs and may throw numerous errors, particularly your notes. I have been searching for a genealogy program whose import/export process is compatible with many, many genealogy programs rather than just a few but no luck yet. This run of the GEDCOM database will not be updated again until October. LOOKUP PROJECT Our current lookup volunteers are preparing their lists of references to be entered online. You should expect this project to officially launch next weekend. Would you like to be a lookup volunteer? If so, please send me a list of the resources you'll offer for free lookups along with a 5-letter code to be used as your volunteer login. A REQUEST FROM COLLEEN The time since our move from GeoCities and our site-fight win has been a terribly busy period for me. I've let things go at the Homestead that seriously need working on. But, the Cottage is almost ready and I can finally see the veritable light at the end of this tunnel! :) I would like to ask that each of you not forget about our upcoimg reunion and to please get your "dishes" to me as soon as possible before the 10 July deadline. The more lead-time I have to prepare, the better I'll be able to gauge my time as far as balancing everything (Homestead, Cottage, projects, reunion, etc.). Thanks, everyone. COTTAGE QUERIES Do you have a query at the Homestead? Are you wondering whether or not then, if you should also post one at the Cottage? The answer is YES! Once we start getting traffic, if a visitor comes only to the Cottage your Homestead query won't be seen. Keep in mind that not everyone who visits the Cottage will necessarily want to also go to the Homestead. (and why not?) :) Family ... it's what we're all about. I really enjoyed this time with you. It was so nice. I hope you all have a fantastic upcoming week. I wish you all a week filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'