Ancestral Endeavors A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF LAFAYETTE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY www.nettally.com/lgsla Volume 2004 Issue 6 June 2004 The Minutes of the June 17, 2004 Meeting Call to order for Committee Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Committee members talked about donations for our society and ways that were the best to represent our society. Allowing us to gain possible businesses to support our efforts. In addition, the committee spoke about the speakers and classes which will be offered at our up coming October Conference. The help we will need from our members such as contact committees; press committee; printing committee's; etc. The committee spoke about ways to get our vital records CDs burned, possible future projects, and additional ways to promote the Society. Another topic of Discussion was about updating our Web Page. The society web page has not been updated for about 2 years. And members would like to see it more productive. It was brought up that our society could possibly use ProPay for people to pay for the conference through our new web site. If we find ProPay works out for the conference. We will then think about it's possible use on our web site, to renew membership, obtain new members, ordering items we have for sell, such as our cemetery books, CDs, etc. It was discussed that the Lafayette Genealogical Society should change their host for their web site. By using Rootsweb.com, a genealogical site that several societies use and are frequented by many genealogists. Rootsweb does not charge our society a fee to host our site. Plus they will give us unlimited web space. This making it possible to do a lot more with our web site. An additional benefit for our society, is that web updating can be maintained even when someone moves or is out of town. As all passwords are property of the society. Cindy Hofmeister has offered to help design the new web site for our society. And has asked for help from all members. She is looking for ideas and things to put on our site. Please contact her at hofsearch@aol.com if you have any ideas. (Remember this is your society so volunteer with ideas) Our regular scheduled meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m. and consisted of a general Welcome, Moment of Silence for our military and for Eula's progress. Followed by the Pledge. We had 20 individuals present at our meeting, two of which are new members Please welcome James and Norma Deshotels. We are glad to have you become members of our society. And look forward to working with you in your ancestral needs. If you have any questions or are in need of personal help? Please contact one of our committee chairs. We will be glad to assist you in anyway possible. Speaker Cindy Hofmeister - TRICKS FOR HAVING SUCCESS WITH INTERNET RESEARCH. Cindy briefly discussed some of the more widely used web sites such as Ancestry.com; FamilySearch.org; Genealogy.com; Rootsweb.com; Cyndi'slist.com. this part of the class was a basic over view of their pros and cons. She then went on to discuss different tricks for using search engines. "Google" being the main example. Below is information included in Cindy's class handout, this area contains different tricks when using search engines Many genealogists don't understand different search engines and how they work. For the purpose of this class, I will discuss some of the more widely used ones. Such as google.com; altavista.com; yahoo.com And different tricks to use, in order to have success when researching your family. Typically I will use google. 1. Try is just placing your surname in the search field. See how many hits come up. Such as hofmeister 2. Next try doing this search. Rootsweb: hofmeister 3. Try doing a search. Rootsweb: Louisiana hofmeister 4. When you want to narrow your hits, try putting quotation marks around your particular name. "george hofmeister" 5. You can also try such things as Native Americans Try searching different search engines this way. You will see some of the same results. But several times you will get different hits. In addition, Cindy spoke on using different archives to obtain genealogical information. She mentioned several states and national archives are making information available online and these should be resources you use often. If you missed our June meeting and would like a copy of the handout please contact Cindy Hofmeister at hofsearch@aol.com and she will send you a copy of the handout. Old Business - Rayne's Genealogy Conference seminar September 25, 2004 with volunteers Brenda, Cindy and Regina. We would like to be able to sell our vital record CDs at this conference. And are in need of individuals, who know how to burn CDs. Or possibly a place that will charge a minimal fee for doing this service. However, FREE is best! Ancestor Road Show through the library. The society talked about the Ancestor Road Show and voted on having this take place in January. We are in need of society members to volunteer for this project who have a variety of knowledge in genealogy. We are in need of Saturday volunteers for the library. If you have not volunteered, Please put your name on the list!! (This is one of the ways we pay the library back for having a facility to host our meetings.) New Business - Earl Gates spoke about the software program called GenSmarts. Information about this program was sent out in LALGS email list earlier in the week. GenSmarts uses artificial intelligence to analyzes your genealogy file, produces research suggestions you should try and why. In addition, GenSmarts gives a To Do List (marriage date missing for relative), ( birth date missing, death date missing) and offers places you can find you answers. Visit http://www.ohanasoftware.com/. Earl Gates spoke with Lauren Smith about adding HeritageQuest to the library's databases. Lauren said in the past, she was told the money was not in the budget. However, she is now in charge of database management for the library (She has been promoted to Electronic Resources Librarian). She has spoken with a representative and gotten some information. She will see if this is one database that can be added, but cannot promise anything though until she has reviewed this year's budget. We have a new Genealogy Librarian. Ms. Fedrick has worked as a paraprofessional before receiving her masters to become a librarian at the Blue Bonnet Library in Baton Rouge. Ms. Fedrick will start in July. Please be nice to our New Genealogical Librarian and welcome her with open arms. We get success better with honey, not with vinegar!!! TREASURER'S REPORT PERIOD ENDING MAY 2004 $2,829.68 BEGINNING BALANCE MAY DEBITS NEWSLETTER/Publication POSTAGE/BOX RENT $0.00 SUPPLIES/presents $11.18 BOOKS $0.00 Banquet/Publication $0.00 CREDITS DEPOSITS (MEMBERSHIP DUES) BOOK SALES (Calendar) Postage BANQUET $0.00 ENDING BALANCE $2,818.50