Hark when the night is falling Hear! hear the pipes are calling, Loudly and proudly calling, Down thro' the glen. There where the hills are sleeping, Now feel the blood a-leaping, High as the spirits of the old Highland men. Towering in gallant fame, Scotland my mountain hame, High may your proud standards gloriously wave, Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart for ever, Scotland the brave. High in the misty Highlands, Out by the purple islands, Brave are the hearts that beat Beneath Scottish skies. Wild are the winds to meet you, Staunch are the friends that greet you, Kind as the love that shines from fair maiden's eyes. Towering in gallant fame, Scotland my mountain hame, High may your proud standards gloriously wave, Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart for ever, Scotland the brave. Far off in sunlit places, Sad are the Scottish faces, Yearning to feel the Kiss Of sweet Scottish rain. Where tropic skies are beaming, Love sets the heart a-dreaming, Longing and dreaming for the homeland again. Towering in gallant fame, Scotland my mountain hame, High may your proud standards gloriously wave, Land of my high endeavour, Land of the shining river, Land of my heart for ever, Scotland the brave. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Twenty third Psalm The Almichtys my Shepherd, I winna be wantin He gaurs me lie doon in the girse that's sae green He taks me tae faur caum waters await me And soothes my sair hairt wi' the love in His een If I gang wi Him, then stracht forrit He'll tak me In the mirk o the valley nae feartie I'll be Nae maitter hoo daurk or stormy the nicht is Yon rod & yon staff will aye comfort me. He gies me my meat richt here in the mids O folk whas delyt wid be my doon faa But richt roon aboot me are great muckle airms He poors in the ile tae cover it a Noo guidness and mercy are aye richt akin me Gin it is a daurk or the heat o the day Nae maitter hoo lang in this world I'll be traiket My hame's in the hoose of the dear Lord for ay.

The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2003 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.RootsForum.com. - Your Guide to Cemetery Research This week I had a chance to read Your Guide to Cemetery Research by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack. This book is a reference full of information about not only cemeteries, but also all other records created when a person dies. The book describes just about every phase of cemetery research. Chapter titles include: Records of Death Locating Graves, Cemeteries and Their Records Searching A Cemetery Bringing Home a Tombstone – Legally! Cryptic Clues in the Bone Yard American Burial Customs and Folkways Ethnic and Religious Funeral and Burial Customs Cemetery Projects and Preservation Making Cemeteries a Family Affair The book also has several appendixes: Gravestone Art, Symbols, Emblems and Attributes Historical Time Line of Deadly Diseases, Epidemics and Disasters in America 1516-1981 Historical Medical Glossary for Causes of Death A Case History Using Obituaries as Family Histories Cemetery Transcription Forms The book also includes an extensive bibliography and an index. I must admit that my eyebrows shot up a bit when I read the title of the appendix on "Historical Time Line of Deadly Diseases, Epidemics and Disasters in America 1516-1981." I have an interest in pre-1620 settlements in North America, but I know that the year 1516 is a bit early. I quickly turned to that section to find that the author mentioned the "first major smallpox epidemic spread among native tribes in Hispaniola brought by European colonists." Hispaniola is now known as Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Many other epidemics are listed as well. I noticed that a cholera epidemic was raging in the northeastern U.S. cities at a time when one of my ancestors died at an early age. I think I'll go look at some newspapers of that city at that time to see if there is a mention of cholera being rampant there. I was especially pleased to read Sharon DeBartolo Carmack's advice on photographing tombstones. For many years, genealogists would fill tombstone engravings with shaving cream to improve contrast in the photographs. In later years, many people claimed that shaving cream has a low pH, which means that it is acidic, and will harm the stone. Still others launched counter-claims that only a few brands of shaving cream were acidic and also that the few minutes of exposure to shaving cream acid was far less damaging than the acid rain that falls on tombstones in a single rain shower. Sharon sidesteps the issuenicely by showing how to make high-contrast photographs without shaving cream. Why use it when you don't have to? Your Guide to Cemetery Research has many illustrations to amplify the discussions within its pages.Transcription forms in the back of the book will also help organize a trip to a cemetery. This 263-page publication is a worthwhile addition to your bookshelf. Your Guide to Cemetery Researchby Sharon DeBartolo Carmack sells for $19.99 and is available from most any bookstore. If the book is not in stock, most bookstores will order it for you if you specify ISBN 1-55870-589-9. I also found it on theWeb site of the publisher, Betterway Books, for $19.99 and on Barnes & Noble's Web site for $17.99.

I have just learned that the Canadian Prime Minister has announced that the 1906 Canadian Census will now be made public. I have also found a couple links to this census online. Perhaps one of you will be interested. They can be viewed at http://www.archives.ca/02/020153_e.html http://www.archives.ca/02/020153_f.html

Here is a summary of the main discussion points from our meeting last Saturday concerning the future of our SIG and topics/locations for future meetings. Possible Topics for future SIGs - Organizing data (include storage options such as types of drives and formats) - E-mail (how to use for genealogy and storage tips/tricks) - Internet (Rootsweb, search engines, message boards and basic genealogy research on the Internet) - CD Library - Research Logs In response to our discussion about other locations to hold our SIG, primarily for "hands on" training sessions, several critical questions were answered by the group and I have enough information to approach the Golden Gate Computer Society (GGCS) and determine what steps are next to ask for use of their classroom. John has an excellent lead on our use of a Marin Community Foundation training room at Hamilton and will continue that avenue as another location (which it sounds like may be even better than the GGCS option). I hope you enjoyed my presentation on the use of a digital camera and how I have used it for genealogy research. I expect to see more digital cameras on our next field trip! See you at the next MCGS Computer SIG. Gene Pennington Member, Marin County Genealogical Society

An Associated press article by Anick Jesdanum appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, among others, the last few days, discussing the fact that archivists can't rely on digital storage because technology is changing so quickly that older formats can't be read by newer programs. This includes digital photography, which can lose details as it's converted from one format to another. A serious consideration for those of us who are storing all our genealogical information in various computer programs such as FTM, which may not be readable by our children's computers! The full article can be found at: http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204%257E21478%257E1120959,00. html Babette Bloch

Dear Listers: If you are able to attend this lecture you will not be dissappointed. Be prepared to write fast! Nora packs a lot of information into her lectures. I have had the pleasure of meeting and hearing her speak ato MCGS on a couple of occasions. Unfortunately her all day lecture schedule conflicts with another committment I have the same weekend. She draws a packed house, so sign up soon! Perhaps our Program Chair can get her scheduled to return to lecture to us next year? It has been a while since we've had Nora visit us. [hint-hint, pester Susan!] Slainte! Lauren ................................................................... 15 March 2003, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. The San Mateo County Genealogical Society (SMCGS) IRISH SEMINAR will be held at the 1st Presbyterian Church, 25th and Hacienda, San Mateo, California. The featured speaker is Nora M. Hickey of County Cork, Ireland, whose topics will be: Debunking Myths of Irish Genealogy, Extracting all the Information from Griffith's Valuation, Little Known and Under Used Irish Genealogical Sources, and Discussion of Common Problems in Irish Genealogy. Attendees may submit questions at least two weeks ahead for a specialized Question and Answer session to Cath Trindle at [email protected] . Cost $20 members; $22 others ($23 at the door). Lunch $6 ($7 at the door). Registrations postmarked by 31 January will receive two free raffle tickets; those postmarked by 28 February will receive one. Additional tickets will be available at the door. Mail your registration (include name, address, phone, e-mail address, number of attendees, and check) to: SMCGS Irish Seminar, PO Box 5083, San Mateo, CA 94402-0083 (650) 572-2929. For more information, contact Cath Trindle [email protected]

Sonoma County Library and the Sonoma County Genealogical Society present an INTRODUCTION TO GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH Forum Room Sonoma County Main Library 3rd and E Streets Santa Rosa, California February 15, 2003 1:00 PM conducted by Anthony Hoskins History, Genealogy and Archives Librarian Sonoma County Library For more information please call 707/545-0831, ext. 562

I got a kick out of this and thought maybe it would be a good idea if we ALL double checked our old posts. CLEANING UP MESSAGE BOARDS DEBRIS: Tips from Elvis. Elvis has not left the building. However, he has left a trail of old e- mail addresses behind. He personally asked me to share this information with y'all. Yes, it's me, Elvis. Most people think I died but, the truth is, I only decided to drop out of sight to take up the pursuit of genealogy. They call me "The King" and I got to wondering whether I might actually be descended from Kings. So I decided to find out. One of my favorite tools for trying to locate information about my ancestors is the RootsWeb Message Boards. Now I move around a lot and I change e-mail addresses frequently, too. Recently when I checked in at the Message Boards and searched to see whether I had any responses to my old queries I realized to my horror that no one could find me no matter how hard they had been trying because the contact addresses on my old messages were obsolete. Every attempt to contact me was "returned to sender, address unknown." I get all shook up when I think of all the opportunities to meet my kinfolks that I've missed and those kissin' cousins that I haven't been able to connect with. I set out to take care of business and update my contact address on all of the old messages. Discovered that there were several steps I needed to take to ensure that all past messages now list my new address, which is: [email protected] I started off with updating my most recent, but no longer valid, address [email protected] This address was one I had registered previously (created an Ancestry account by clicking on the NEW TO ROOTSWEB link and completing the required information on the registration form) and had been using for messages posted on the Message Boards within the past year. Now, updating this one was a cinch and very logical. All I had to do was login under my account and click on MY PROFILE. I changed my e-mail address in two places where it says E-mail and Post E-mail. I clicked to submit the changes. This took care of updating my address on all messages which I had posted using THIS account. But, wait a minute ... I did a search of the boards for messages posted by Elvis, using the AUTHOR box on the ADVANCED SEARCH page, and then sorted out which ones I really posted and which were made by those pesky impersonators. Well, whoooooooeeeee, there were still quite a few of my messages with my obsolete e-mail addresses on them. So, next I decided to check out whether I might have other Ancestry accounts. I logged out of my current account and then clicked on LOGIN and then clicked on FORGOT YOUR PASSWORD. I sent for all account information under all e-mail addresses for which I can currently receive mail that could possibly have an account associated with them. I then logged in under each one, one at a time, and updated the MY PROFILE information just like I indicated above. In the process, I learned that I had accounts I was not aware of that needed updating. Then I did another search and found, dang it all, there were still some of my old messages with outdated addresses -- ones where I can no longer receive mail like [email protected] and [email protected] For those accounts, I needed to contact Ancestry Customer Support to have all account information mailed to me -- I made certain that I listed each e-mail address that might have had an account associated with it. I found Ancestry Customer Support by going here: http://ancestry.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ancestry.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php? When that information arrived I logged in under EACH account and updated the e-mail information for each one. In each case, I made certain to update the address in BOTH places under MY PROFILE -- E-mail and Post E- mail. Did you know that it is actually the Post E-mail address that shows up on the messages and fixes them as displayed on the boards? Now we were getting somewhere, but, then I still found some messages from years ago that had old non-working e-mail addresses on them, including my old office e-mail account. Now, listen closely to The King, because here is where things start to get a bit complicated. Uh huh. If you are an old-timer at using the RootsWeb Message Boards and you have posted messages say prior to about mid-2001 when registering and logging in was first started, or if you posted messages without logging in after the creation of the current RootsWeb/Ancestry combined Message Boards, you need to make note of which old e-mail addresses appear on the old posts. If you are like me, you might even have posted messages on both the old RootsWeb/GenConnect Message Board system and the old FamilyHistory Message Boards at Ancestry.com. If so, you might have old addresses on messages that were transferred over from both sets of boards to the current combined RootsWeb/Ancestry Message Boards -- and they all need to be updated -- if you want your cousins to find you. Now pay attention because this is the really weird part. To fix this mess, you need to create a NEW registration/account for each OLD address (yeah, you heard me right -- for the addresses that are no longer working) listing your NEW account information exactly as it appeared on the OLD messages you want to update. Then login using each of the new accounts with the OLD information on them and click on MY PROFILE and update each one. This should update your e-mail address on all of your old messages on any of the RootsWeb/Ancestry boards no matter how or when you posted them. So don't find yourself out of luck like a hound dog that ain't never caught a rabbit. Check today to be certain all of YOUR e-mail addresses are current on YOUR RootsWeb Message Board posts. Don't be cruel -- pay attention to "The King," and, oh yeah, stay off my blue suede shoes.

Dear Listers: That was a great piece posted by Cathy! As a Board Administrator for Rootsweb/Ancestry I appreciated the humorous way used to explain what is pretty dry information. At some point in time, the Computer Interest Group will cover "How to more effectively use the Boards, Lists and Archives of Rootsweb/Ancestry." If you are interested in learning more on this topic, stay tuned for notice of that meeting! Happy Trails, Lauren List Admin, MarinGenSoc-L and others... Founding Member, Marin County Genealogical Society Computer Interest Group

Part of the meeting this Saturday will be used to continue the discussion started in October and November about the future meetings and/or topics for MCGS SIG in 2003. To help with that discussion, below is a copy of a message I sent to John Deadman in November. This should help to bring everybody up to date with what I've learned and some options to help our SIG move forward. Gene Pennington http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~genepenn/ Researching Pennington - Wann - Stickney - Tankersley - Lancaster - Justis Member of these genealogy associations/groups: Pennington Research Association - http://www.penningtonresearch.org Marin County Genealogical Society - http://www.maringensoc.org/ BARUG (Bay Area Roots User Group) - http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~barug/ National Genealogical Association - http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/ California Genealogical Society - http://www.calgensoc.org ============================================= Copy of part of my message to John Deadman dated 11/12/02: I have spoken to a couple of people at the Golden Gate Computer Society (GGCS) and learned that since I am a member of the GGCS I can request to use their classroom. The process is for me to appear before the Board of the GGCS and make a presentation asking for their approval. Before I make such a presentation, there are some questions our CIG should answer. I'll detail those later. First, let me review how we could make good use of the GGCS classroom. I think we could put together a very good program for the entire 2003 year that combines sessions at the Villa Marin AND at the GGCS classroom. Not all our programs need "hands on" computers and if we produced two (2) sessions a year that do require "hands on" computers, that is workable. We have a wide range of topics to choose from for these sessions. In my message to you dated 10/16/02, I outlined 11 such programs. We can select from any of those, or use other topics suggested by other members of our CIG. If the two (2) sessions a year model were used, and each session was 4 classes, that would let us cover 8 topics of the 11 listed in my message dated 10/16/02. If our CIG meets 11 times a year, 8 of these meetings can be "hands-on" using the GGCS classroom and the other 3 can be on different topics (such as the digital camera presentation I'm doing at our next meeting). We can reduce the number of "hands-on" sessions if we have other topics we want to cover during 2003 that do not need the classroom. Second, here is a summary of what I learned about the classroom for the GGCS. 1. The classroom can accommodate up to 20 people sitting at 4 tables. Each table has one (1) computer so the 4 people sitting at each table will have to share the computer. There is a location for the instructor to use for his/her laptop, notes, etc. 2. The classroom is equipped with a LCD projector and a screen so the instructor/presenter can connect his/her notebook to it and display his presentation onto a screen. 3. The main classroom computer is connected to a single broadband (DSL) connection to the Internet and that connection can be shared by the 4 other classroom computers. This means that people can go to the Internet during a presentation/program to follow along with the instructor, etc. 4. The classroom coordinator does not see a problem with our CIG loading software onto the classroom computer for our classes. He will work with our person to ensure this is done properly, etc. We may have a problem finding enough legal copies of a specific software to load copies onto all of the computers in the classroom (a total of 5 copies will be needed). I can work on this issue later as I believe we can contact the software companies and get approval to use just one copy since it is for a classroom presentation and for a genealogical society. 5. The GGCS does NOT charge for use of the classroom by its' members but does charge $5.00 per class for non-members. This could be a little on the expensive side for our CIG. For example, if we had one session with 4 classes (i.e. one (1) class per month for 4 months) and one of our students was NOT a GGCS member, that would be $5 x 4 classes - $20 for the session for just that one (1) student. 6. The classroom is used each Saturday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm so if we wanted to use the classroom we will have to pick another day and/or time. 7. The classroom is located in San Anselmo behind the Redhill Shopping Center on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Now for the questions: 1. Is there interest by members of our CIG to use the GGCS's classroom? 2. If yes, are we willing to pay a reasonable fee for members of our CIG who are NOT members of GGCS? I briefly discussed with the classroom coordinator the possibility of GGCS charging us a fee based on some other formula such as a per session fee for non-members of the GGCS. For example, if we have 20 participants attending a 4 class session (i.e. one (1) session per month for 4 months) and 10 are members of GGCS and 10 are not, rather than pay a $5.00 per class for a non-member, could we pay a per session fee to be determined by the Board of the GGCS? This could be based on 20 students per session times the number of classes at some reduced rater to keep our costs down. He thought the Board might consider this if there was a possibility some of our CIG members might join the GGCS. 3. What other day and/or time would be our choices since the Saturday 10:00 am to 12:00 pm time is taken? They do have several other classes which meet in the classroom but without looking at their classroom schedule, I don't know which week night would be available. The suggestion was made that we ask for Saturday from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm since that was open. He also said Sunday was open but I'm not in favor of doing our classes on Sunday. I hope you find this information helpful. If any of this is not clear or you have a question, please contact me. Once we have the answers to the questions (1 - 3) and they are positive, then I will contact the GGCS Board and make a presentation to them. If the answers are negative, then we can fall back and regroup. End

Marin County Genealogical Society Meeting Wednesday, January 22, 2003, at 7:30 p.m. Lutheran Church Annex, 1100 Las Gallinas Avenue, San Rafael "Lovelines and Bloodlines" The winning students in the Family History Month contest sponsored by Marin County Genealogical Society in conjunction with the Marin County Office of Education will appear at the meeting to read their essays about family members. T Stephanie Acree

Dear MCGS members and other Listers: On one of the other lists I administer, there is a very active collaborative effort and sharing as Juliana mentions in her article. I would encourage that sharing of this type of report can be very effective. It may help you connect with others, if not now, in future via the archives. And it could provide sound information that may either keep one from chasing one's own tail or knock a few bricks from the wall. Happy Trails, Lauren List Admin ===================================================================== "SHARING FINDINGS IN A REPORT," by Juliana Smith ===================================================================== Collaboration can be among the most rewarding parts of family history research. Finding another researcher to work with gives you someone to share your finds with who totally understands you. This is a person who can relate to your obsessive need to stay up until the wee hours of the morning browsing through a New York City census, page by page, because your ancestors are hiding there. Your fellow researcher is not going to look at you like you're nuts when, after a full week working on a computer, filing, and doing assorted office work, your idea of a great Saturday is working on a computer searching databases, filing papers, and doing assorted office work. Someone still needs to explain this one to my husband.) This is someone who understands your obsession for collecting books, and why instead of reading this week's bestseller, you're deeply engrossed in a history book. Your research partner gets it--and probably does the same. One of the challenges of working with someone else is how to share what you've found and the ground you've covered. I'm fortunate in that I am collaborating with my mom on our research. The problem is, with both of us researching, we often find ourselves duplicating work. There's nothing more frustrating than to stay up half the night and make an exciting discovery, only to learn that my partner found it last week. That just takes the wind right out of my sails. To avoid this problem, I've started creating little reports of my family history exploits. I'm finding them very helpful, so today we'll take a little time and discuss putting findings into a report. WHY? Why would I want to add to the prolific piles of papers and electronic files that constantly threaten to overwhelm me? Putting my thoughts down on paper is a helpful part of my thinking process. As I create my report, I am analyzing my finds and as I transcribe records, and explain any rationale I used to connect the find to our family, I often also find ideas for new avenues to research. Of course, sometimes I also find that my research has holes and I'm way off base, but even these negative discoveries are still discoveries. Disproving a relationship is as important as proving one--although it's not nearly as fun. HOW? Later when my brain cells inevitably fail, this report will also remind me where I left off. I can easily review what I've done, how I came to any conclusions, and where I've already searched. In addition, if I later run into someone else who is also researching that person, I can quickly and easily share my report with them and get them up to speed on my research. For those individuals where I haven't quite proved the connection to the family, these reports can be invaluable. I recently created one of my Tobin family. Those of you who have read my columns before, have probably heard me whining about this family before. My third great grandfather Thomas Tobin was a hatter, and although I have found several records of his life, he's one of those ancestors that seems to have appeared from no where. After digging through some old files and reviewing an interview my mother had almost thirty years ago with an aunt who has since passed on, I found a mention of a brother named Peter, also a hatter. Here was an avenue that we had totally overlooked. I set to work researching Peter and as I located census records for him and traced him through the years, I began creating a report. I chose a word processor for the task because I wanted the flexibility to include a variety of records, with varying fields of information, as well as lengthier narratives with my analysis. In the report I've included: 1) Records found (arranged chronologically, including source citations) 2) Notes 3) Follow-up I transcribed the records, gleaning every clue I could from each one. As the pieces fell together in my mind, I made notes of any clues I noticed and my rationale for any conclusions I drew. As the pieces fell into place, I had ideas for later research. These ideas were included in a follow-up section at the end. There are examples of professional reports found in the appendixes of "The BCG Standards Manual," and Chapter 5 in Karen Clifford's "Becoming an Accredited Genealogist" addresses "Report Writing." While most of the examples are aimed at professionals doing research for clients, I found a review of them helpful and used them as a basis for my report. WHAT ELSE? My findings started as quick notes, taken as I researched late into the night. The next morning when I was a bit more alert I worked them into more coherent sentences and made sure all my sources were completely cited so Mom could easily pull the records I had found online from home. I was glad I didn't wait long to put my findings into the report, because despite the fact that I just did this research over the holidays, as I looked over the report this morning, I was reminded of several follow-ups I wanted to do and had promptly forgotten. (You know where I'll be tonight!) Now, Mom has a full report of my findings to keep in her files and we can plan our next step. I also dated the report and put a copy into my research log. In it, not only did I note the records I found, but also the records I searched unsuccessfully. Since the records I found are transcribed, it is now easy to insert them and the source citations into my genealogy database and into existing timelines. With all that done, I'm ready to go back for more. Hopefully, Mom will be getting another report from me tonight. REFERENCES: Clifford, Karen. "Becoming An Accredited Genealogist--Plus 100 Tips To Ensure Your Success" (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1998) http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=P1184 Board for Certification of Genealogists. "The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual" (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 2000) http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=P1956 (Copyright 1998-2003, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries.) Reprinted with permission from the "Ancestry Daily News".

LEGISLATIVE REPORT - January 6, 2003 In the October CSGA Newsletter, Norma Storrs Keating reported on HIPPA: Another Threat to Records? Jean Nepsund contacted me and we both tried to locate information on this federal bill. I was unable to find it. But Jean received information from a long time Immigrant Genealogical Society member who had also read the item in the Newsletter. The acronym was incorrect, which accounts for the problem we had locating the bill. It should read HIPAA--Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. [A.K.A. CFR parts 160, 164-- <http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/]. Bob Peppermuller, whose company will fall under the bill's requirements had just finished his first training session to meet the April 14, 2003 deadline. While in his work, 'insulin pump therapy business, their help line must record calls (patient records).' As part of his job, he occasionally reviews those call records which accesses private patient records. This is the type of private information the bill addresses. Bob go on to say that in the 123 pages of Q&A, on birth and death records obtained from a public vital statistics office, nowhere had he found that a public vital statistics office was classed as a 'covered entity.' In the 77 pages on permits on 'covered entities' there is not language prohibiting the disclosure of protected health information to public authorities who are legally authorized to receive such information. The bill does not effect the information a doctor or a hospital can disclose to a public agency. He tells us that it will help protect the public's private health information that companies such as his have privy to from misuses. I thank Jean and Bob for their help. I have received numerous reports of problems on the issues of the birth and death indexes in various county recorders/clerks offices. There appears to be a great deal of confusing, not surprising. Counties are only loosely governed by what the State sets out in legislation. Often they over react, or interpret legislation to suit their needs. I have a call in to the State, I will check and review how the policy changes will play out. To get this report to our editor on time I do not have the time to get additional information. I will let folks know as soon as possible. Federation of Genealogical Societies Records Preservation & Access Committee launched a web site on 4 November 2002 <http://www.fgs.org/rpa> to keep the genealogy community informed of issues relating to the preservation and access of records of genealogical and historical value. The new site has been developed over many months and with feature these categories: Who we are & How we serve you; Formal Actions, Opinions & Activities; State-by-State Reporting; International Issues; Strategies for Records Preservation; Strategies for Access; National Reporting; Panic Button. At the state level, the information will narrow in focus: Background Information; Record Retention Schedule; County-by-county Reporting; State Liaisons; Current Issues; Legislation; Core Records to be Retained; Vital Records Information; Panic Button. This is a great deal of data to gather. The site will not launch with all of the data, but rather it will added as they are able to collect it. If you would like to view a good example of what the site can become, please review the pages for the State of Arizona. These have been compiled by Linda McCleary, Arizona state liaison. As you know California has been in the forefront of the fight to preserve records of historical importance to researchers. Considering the growing trend on the part of many legislators who seem to think the best way to protect privacy is to close records, the job of preserving these important records and access to them is growing. We need to take our present operation and expand on it. It will take more effort and more work on the part of California researchers. In the past CSGA and the Council under my leadership has coordinated their efforts. More is needed. I plan to draft proposals and an outline of what will be needed for us to continue our work on this growing problem. The CSGA/Council Legislative Network reports will be bringing you updated information. California will need to be well represented and expanding the efforts to protect our records, the FGS's web site will be an extraordinary addition for our work. To follow State Legislation, check the State Web site at http://www.sen.ca.gov> To be added to my Network, send your name, name of your organization, and E-mail address, to me indicating you wish to be added to the Legislative Network, <[email protected]>.---6 January 2003, CSGA Legislative Network Coordinator, Iris Carter Jones. [Permission granted to reprint Legislative reports. Please cite your source.]

===================================================================== GEORGE G. MORGAN: "ALONG THOSE LINES . . ." "Making Your Ancestor's Vote Count" ===================================================================== One of the privileges of citizenship in the United States and elsewhere is being able to cast one's ballot in an election. Exercising the right to vote affords a person the opportunity to influence the outcome or express something. In a formal election, a citizen may exercise a choice in determining the future direction of a government or direct some action to be taken through a pro or con ballot on a referendum. In order to participate in this process, a person must register to vote. This typically involves completing an application form or registering in some formal, official way and confirming one's identity. From a genealogical research perspective, the records generated by the voter registration process are important tools for a variety of reasons, In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, let's explore these often overlooked records, their potential content, where you might find those of your ancestors, and what value they have in your research strategy. EXAMINING THE HISTORY OF THE VOTE IN THE UNITED STATES Voting is a privilege of citizenship in the United States. Aliens who have not been naturalized are ineligible to vote, although there are documented cases where some may have unwittingly (or even knowingly) have voted and poll officials may not have caught the irregularity. The right to vote may also be denied to persons convicted of certain crimes. While not everyone who is eligible to register for the vote does so, and not everyone who is registered participates and casts his or her ballot in an election, there are indeed voter registration records, which may extend quite far back in time. It is important to understand the history of voting in the United States in order to determine whether your ancestor may or may not have been eligible to register to vote. The framers of the U.S. Constitution made provisions for the election of the President, Vice- President, Senators and Representative. Initially the privilege of voting was the province of white males twenty-one years of age and older who were born in this country or who had become naturalized citizens. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress on 26 February 1869 and ratified 3 February 1870, changed the law to state that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" and gave Congress the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Therefore, now African Americans males could exercise the vote. The 19th Amendment, which finally gave women the right to vote, was passed by Congress on 4 June 1919 and ratified on 18 August 1920. The change stated that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Although Native Americans were given a number of citizenship rights through treaty provisions and under special statutes, it was not until passage of the Snyder Act of 1924 that Native Americans born in the U.S. were granted full citizenship and the right to vote. (See http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/election/voters9.html and http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_citizens_1.html ) for additional details.) Still, some states barred their participation in elections. It was between 1948 and 1962 that these states' laws were finally changed or overturned by the courts and all Native Americans were finally allowed to vote. The 24th Amendment, passed by Congress on 27 August 1962 and ratified 23 January 1964 outlawed that the right to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax." The 26th Amendment, passed by Congress on 23 March 1971 and ratified on 1 July 1971 stated that, "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age." Congress was afforded the power to enforce each of these articles by appropriate legislation. (For complete information, images, and text versions of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Amendments to the Constitution, you can visit the NARA "Charters of Freedom" website at: http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/charters_of_freedom.html ) WHAT INFORMATION IS REQUIRED? Take a few minutes to locate your own voter registration identification card, and study the information on it. In order to register to vote, you may have completed a specific registration card. In some states, a person is registered to vote as a result of his or her motor vehicle registration or the issuance/renewal of a driver's license. These so-called "motor-voter" registrations eliminate the need for making separate application to register to vote and are a quite recent governmental development. Our ancestors from earlier times, therefore, were not subject to this automatic registration and had to make application to vote. The customary information that is required in order to register to vote includes the following: --- Name. The applicant must provide his or her name and may well have had to present some evidence of identity. (That had become a requirement in more recent times.) --- Date of birth. The applicant must supply proof of the date of birth or age, and sometimes the place of birth is requested on the registration document. --- Address. The applicant must supply his or her address, and may have to provide evidence of this. --- Length of residence. Most areas have laws, which dictate that, in order to participate in an election, the voter must have lived in the voting ward, precinct, parish, for a specified period of time. --- Proof of citizenship. If a person was not a native born citizen, he or she had to indicate (and usually provide proof of) the date and place of their naturalization. --- Signature of the applicant Other information and/or proofs may have been required in various places at various times, but these are the most important, salient facts. These might include the telephone number, political party affiliation (for purposes of voting in primaries), marital status, occupation, physical description, homeowner or renter, and potentially other information. As you can see, there may be information of significant genealogical value to the information provided on the voter registration form. WHERE CAN I FIND VOTER REGISTRATION RECORDS? Voter registration records are generally open to public inspection. The county or city in which the individual resides (or resided) has jurisdiction over these records. There may also have been indexes prepared for convenience in conducting reference work in the administrative office and for ease of transport to polling places for on-site verification of voter registration and status. Copies of the indices may also have been provided to the secretary of state's office. The retention of original voter registration cards or forms varies from place to place, even within the same state. The secretary of state's office usually issues guidelines to the counties and municipalities for the retention or destruction of various records, but implementation of the recommendations can be found to vary. Some offices have retained all of the records, keeping the most current ones on-site and archiving older records off-premises, perhaps in a county records retention facility. Other offices may have already purged or destroyed the original records, retaining only the indices or reports because they occupy less space. Still other offices may have microfilmed the original records before purging them, and may retain both the microfilm/microfiche and printed lists. Requests to obtain copies of the records may vary as well. Some offices may accept a request by telephone, while others may require a written request. Still others may not release a copy of the record without more stringent identification and explanation for your need to request the copy, and I've even heard a report that one courthouse would only provide a copy if you requested it in person. Since voter registration cards are considered an important form of identification, government offices are understandably cautious in releasing copies of the information. HOW CAN VOTER REGISTRATION RECORDS HELP WITH YOUR RESEARCH? Voter registration records can play a very significant part in your research. First and foremost, they can provide evidence of residence in a specific place of residence in between the decennial Federal censuses. Coupled with the use of city directories and, in some cases, jury lists (which often are derived from lists of registered voters), voter registrations can establish or corroborate the presence of a person in a certain place at a specific time. It is not unusual, then, for voter registration lists to be used as census substitutes. Voter records can point to a specific residence and, if the person was a homeowner, to land and property records, real estate/property tax records, homestead records, and a variety of other related records. There may still be insurance records in existence for the property. And if the person owned property, it is probable that there will be a will and probate packet for his or her estate (and/or records in the probate court minutes). Establishing a place of residence using voter registration records can also be used to translate the person's address into a census enumeration district, beginning with the 1880 Federal Census, using the enumeration district maps or descriptions. This can be a critical timesaver in working with multiple decades' census records, making it quicker to locate your relatives in the census. Another benefit of establishing the place of residence is that you can then place your ancestor in geographical and social context with his or her neighbors. It is also possible that other family members live close by. (On several occasions, I've sidestepped a brick wall to research one of my ancestor's siblings and, by following the sibling, located the information or another link to take me beyond the impasse. Voter registration records have twice been the key to other records for me.) A crucial research key to an immigrant ancestor's origins is the identification of the year of naturalization. If your ancestor was an immigrant, he or she would have had to become a naturalized citizen in order to vote. If the person's date of naturalization, date of birth, and birthplace are included in the voter registration records, you are well on your way to locating the naturalization. By extension, once you have the naturalization documents, you will have important clues back to the ship's manifest and possibly a direct pointer to the native land and hometown. (Remember, though, that there are exceptions to the naturalization process. A close friend recently reexamined the 1920 Federal census population schedule for Newark, New Jersey, for his widowed Jewish great-grandmother. He found that she stated her year of immigration into the U.S. as 1888 and the year of naturalization as 1888. What? No waiting period between the declaration of intent and the naturalization oath? A check of naturalization law shows that between 1855 and 1922, an alien woman automatically became a citizen if she married an American citizen.) MAKE YOUR ANCESTOR'S VOTE COUNT! By now it should be obvious that voter registration records are more than a little interesting and important. You can derive a great of discrete information about your ancestor, as well as clues and pointers to other evidentiary sources. If your ancestor was a citizen, registered to vote, and exercised that privilege, the chances are that there are some records somewhere to help corroborate his or her presence and activities in the community. Make your ancestor's vote count in your family history. Explore the options and elect to research the voter registration records. Happy hunting! George Copyright 2003, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Ancestor Daily News

Dear Computer Interest Group Members: Here's another article by Beau. I enjoy that he is so aptly able to explain things technical and in a manner that is not completely dry or too "geek speak." You might want to print this out and include it in your "computer binder". Happy Trails, Lauren ===================================================================== "ROOTSWORKS: USB CONNECTIONS," by Beau Sharbrough ===================================================================== One of the real challenges for computer designers is to deal with the peripheral device. In the '80s, that meant mice, monitors, and printers. In the '90s, it meant CDRom drives, tape drives, and modem connections. Now, computers connect to cameras, MP3 music players, CD burners, high-speed networks, external hard drives, and many other devices. Not only is the list of things that you can connect getting longer, but the data flow rates are climbing. These things go hand-in-hand. It would be difficult to download a 3 megapixel color photo from a camera if you were limited to using a serial port running at 19,200 bits per second. That's a very thin straw, and people wouldn't do it. There are a variety of ways to connect peripheral devices to computers, and today we'll discuss one of them: the Universal Serial Bus, or USB connection. WHAT IS IT? USB is a specification, much the same way that GEDCOM is. It was developed because working on PCs was such a headache. I've paid good money to forget the hassle of opening the case, setting a jumper on an adapter card to set the IRQ, and fighting over memory addresses for I/O. Suffice it to say that adding a device to a computer usually meant an Arthurian quest where the dragon ate you repeatedly. The peripheral manufacturer's instructions and tech support were less than ideal, and often there was a lot of finger-pointing between the support people you might call. "It's the motherboard." "It's not the motherboard, it's the BIOS." "It's not the BIOS, it's the new adapter card." And my personal favorite, "You'll have to reload Windows." (I think they have this on a huge banner at the tech support office for Dell. I think they pay those people extra for every time that they say it on the phone.) The installation spells and chants rang to the heavens, accompanied by a complex ritual of turning things on and off, and the vigorous exercise of the plugging arts. But the prayers, they were in vain, and the people, they did not compute as they wished. USB came along in 1995, produced by a consortium of computer makers. The members of the USB-IF realized that if people couldn't use their products easily, they wouldn't sell as many. The USB spec allows two kinds of devices-hubs and peripherals. A hub is a gizmo that lets you plug multiple USB devices into a single USB port on your computer, like a power strip does for electrical connections. I've had really mixed results with some of the less expensive hubs. If you buy one, be sure that you get one you can return if it doesn't work. You can use the credit to buy the next highest one. NAME TWO OF THEM Hail to the New King, same as the Old King. USB 1.1 allowed for full speed at 12 miles per hour. Well, it's actually megabits per second, but I'm going to use mph here. USB 2.0 runs at 480 mph, and that's just fast enough to compete with another connection protocol named FireWire. I suspect that the FireWire versus USB debates will rage for some time, and here is some ammunition for you to use if you get into a pub argument over them. First, USB was a Windows toy, and FireWire was an Apple toy. Now, both connections work on both computers, but the Windows versus Mac arguments have drifted into FireWire versus USB arguments. FireWire works at 400 mph, USB 2.0 at 480. It looks like that old Cold War Arms Race one-upmanship to me. However, just about every computer I've seen has a USB port, and very few have a FireWire port (although it's growing). I don't see Bluetooth and other connection types very often either. The wide choice of connection methods means that the ideas are still being formed. Today, we're not arguing about which is better, but describing the USB spec. WHEN IT WORKS, WHAT DOES IT DO? With USB, you can connect a hundred devices on a single port. I don't know anyone who has tried it, but you can "gang" the connectors and hubs until you run out of things to plug in. You can "hot-swap" the devices-a technical term meaning that you can plug and unplug them at will. I recently had an opportunity to connect an inexpensive Epson 1606 scanner to a USB 2.0 port on a computer running Windows 2000 at 667 MHz. I should point out that I've been scanning a long time, and that I still have a working HP Scanjet 2p with the sheet feeder. I'm quite accustomed to a fairly quick preview, some cropping or adjustment, and then a much slower actual scan. I was so surprised to see the scan take a couple of seconds. I thought I had pressed preview again. I scanned another picture, same thing. I got out a bag of slides and scanned those. Then an envelope of negatives. Finally, a process that can be completed within the time of my attention span! I turned the house upside down finding things that I wanted to scan. WHAT'S THE DOWN SIDE? First of all, if your computer doesn't have a USB 2.0 port, you will have to install an adapter card inside your computer's case for this purpose. The Adaptec 4-port card costs $50, the SIIG card is $20. I can't tell them apart. Still, if you're like me, opening the case could mean that you're down for three days. There are also $70 PCM- CIA adapters for USB 2.0 ports on laptops. Connecting that digital camera to your laptop was never easier. Beyond the potential for an installation step, there's the compatibility issue. USB 2.0 is backward compatible, so you can connect a new scanner to an old port and vice versa, but you'll only get the slower speed. To reach the magical high speeds, you'll need a device and a port that is USB 2.0 compatible. If you run out today and buy a USB 2.0 adapter and install it with old devices, all you'll accomplish is to dust off your installation skills. I am not suggesting that you go out and buy all new peripherals so that you can process the graphic side of your family history. However, as you replace various items, please keep these points in mind. Make sure that the new one is 2.0 compatible. WHAT'S THE GENEALOGY TIE-IN? We recently discussed scanners and cameras. Those are two great applications for this connection due to the amount of data to transfer. Another area that I think will see increased use in family history is flash memory. I'll describe this more in future articles, but let me say that I have a friend who has a 64 megabyte flash chip, with a USB adapter, on her key chain. A person can carry a lot of family history information in 64 megs-and the chips are getting bigger all the time. You can find a thumb-sized "flash drive" that has 256 megs for under $150 today, and get transfer times of 5 megabits per second. Some users report that the performance is comparable to the performance of regular hard drives. LINK ME UP (More Stars is Better) Everything USB **** http://www.everythingusb.com/ Another great site for USB news. USB Org Home **** http://www.usb.org/home This is the home of the USB-IF, the people who manage the USB spec. Lots of news, good background. RootsWorks-USB *** http://www.rootsworks.com/usb I put a few photos and links on the RootsWorks site for more background. WHAT ELSE? Back on 13 November 2001, PC Magazine made USB 2.0 the recipient of its Technical Excellence Award. The USB-IF people are so proud of it that it's still on their home page. I recently saw an external hard drive, 120 gigabytes, in a computer store for less than $300. I've been using a large hard drive as a backup medium on my home office LAN for some time. The idea that you could carry a hard drive that size from computer to computer, and copy the information at high speeds, is fascinating to me. I wonder if I might want to carry something like that with me when I travel. Imagine having that kind of space in your hotel room, or at the Family History Center. I'll bet that Dick Eastman already has one. The idea of adding devices without opening the case is a real convenience, but now the stuff that was inside the case is all over my desk. Somebody is going to make a gazillion dollars if she can figure out how to make stackable USB peripherals. Each device has to be somewhere near the computer, and I'm running out of space on the desktop. After you plug in about the fifth USB device, you will either need a bigger desk, or some kind of Container Store unit to allow you to stack them. It wouldn't surprise me to see several standard "form factors" emerge, that would allow you to stack the big ones, the little ones, and the middle ones. Copyright 1998-2003, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries.) Reprinted with permission from the "Ancestry Daily News".

Mill Valley Library will be sponsoring a discussion, "Genealogical Resources on the Internet," by Jana Black on Thursday evening, 2/6/03, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Admission is free. If you are interested, you can sign up by calling the M.V. Library at 389-4292 (then press "4" for the Reference Desk). You don't have to be a Mill Valley resident to sign up. The lecture will be in the basement -- ask for directions at the Circulation Desk. There is both elevator & stair access to the basement. The library is located at 375 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley.

This is a repeat of the notice sent in November. Gene Pennington will be leading our next meeting. He has some great ideas for the coming season and we are looking for your comments and suggestions. In addition,ene will bring his digital camera and tell us how he used it during a recent genealogical journey. He will also explain what he was looking for when he purchased the camera. If those of you who have digital cameras would bring them to the meeting and share with us your experiences, it would make for a very interesting and helpful meeting Hope to see you at the meeting John Directions: FROM SOUTH of San Rafael: take hwy 101 to the Freitas Parkway exit at Terra Linda. Go over the overpass, head west to Northgate Drive (at the second signal) turn left onto Northgate Drive (you will see a Pier One Imports store on your right.) follow Northgate Drive 0.4 miles south across Las Gallinas Avenue towards Northgate One and past Mervyn's. Turn right onto Thorndale Dr. proceed 0.2 miles to your destination at 100 Thorndale Dr. FROM NORTH of San Rafael: Take Hwy 101 to the Freitas Parkway exit at Terra Linda, get in the right lane and do *not* follow the right turn lane as it would make it necessary for you to immediately cross three lanes of traffic! Continue in the right lane as though you were going to proceed through the intersection and simply turn right onto Freitas Parkway. Immediately get in the left lane and prepare to make a left turn onto Northgate Drive. (you will see a Pier One Imports store on your right.) Follow Northgate Drive 0.4 miles south across Las Gallinas Avenue towards Northgate One and past Mervyn's. Turn right onto Thorndale Dr. proceed 0.2 miles to your destination at 100 Thorndale Dr. It has been requested that we park on the street or in places which are uncovered. The Meeting will be held in the Auditorium, which is to the left and down the hall from the entrance. --- John Deadman --- [email protected] --- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet. --- John Deadman --- [email protected] --- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.

Dear Listers: Most of us spend all of our time collecting as much as we can on our dead ancestors. We need to remember to write our own life stories for those that come after us. And to do it now, while our memories are clear. I am sure I remembered a lot more when I was 20 or 30 than what easily comes to mind now. Some suggestions are: actually take pen to paper -- there is something creative about this act. Things can just flow from brain to hand. And it has an added bonus that your descendants will have something written in your own hand. Such a treat! You can type it up as well to save electronically. begin a sentance and see where it leads you --- you don't have to have a specific scenario in mind. play music from a specific time in your life --- music seems to imprint itself in some magic way in our lives and invokes memory of when we heard it first, where we were, what our surroundings looked like [in detail!], even what the weather may have been like or aromas we experienced. A song can bring to mind a particular person at a particular time in your life.... "Canadian Sunset" always brings my sister Betsy to mind, when she was younger than 19. She was 16 years my senior. use aromas to invoke memories --- there are certain scents that you associate with times in your life, places, people, events. Bacon cooking -- brings me back to my summer home on Sunday mornings. Bay Rum Cologne -- brings back memories of my father at Christmas. Toll house cookies baking -- rainy days after school. What aromas do you have at hand to invoke your memories of days past? get out the photo album or the shoe box of photos --- write down the story that comes to mind about the photo or what you recall of the day it was taken. While you are at it -- write down who is in the photo! Don't leave your descendants wondering who the heck the people in the pictures are. Be sure to use real names, not just gems like "Babe and me 1932." take a look at the heirlooms in your home -- consider not only what your elders left to you, but also what you are leaving for the next generation as an heirloom. Write about its place in your life or the person that it came from. How did you come to have it in your possession? What do you know of its history? I have my mother's stuffed Stief lion. "It's only a stuffed animal." Well, that is what my father thought in the 1930's when he threw away my mother's grandmother's stuffed lion she had saved. The one I have is its replacement. And all of my mother's grandchildren and now great grandchildren associate Lions with my mother. They think of her whenever they see one. She did not collect them, but they buy them in her memory. examine the milestones in history that occurred during your lifetime -- Where were you when the Berlin Wall came down? Where were you when Kennedy died? Nixon resigned? Thatcher came to office? Where were you when the Viet Nam Conflict ended? Where were you when the men landed on the moon? What are your memories about the Korean Conflict, World War II, rationing? Who was the President/National Leader that had the greatest effect on how your life is/was? How did the Great Depression affect your family? What contraptions have been invented during your lifetime? What invention/scientific breakthrough would most surprise your Ancestors or surprise your descendents did not exist before you were born? Who was the storyteller you remember in your family? take a trip to the library or the garage and look at old magazines and newspapers --- note the clothing styles, modern appliances, vehicle design. What memories do they invoke? Share the details of your first experience driving a car! What hair styles were popular? Did you get the Mom haircut of bowl over head and scissors trim around? Did you "die of shame" as a teen when the swimming pool turned your hair green? And why was that not a good thing?<g> as you do your household chores --- consider.... how were they different when you were a child? What were your responsibilities? What tools did you use? My gawd! What the heck is a mangle!<g> it surely does not sound like a good thing to use on anything, even clothes. Make a pact with yourself to write. To do it now. To make a schedule of when you will or how often. A holiday memory with each holiday? A weekly paragraph or page on a topic? Check in with yourself monthly or quarterly? No less than every year on your birthday or Christmas? Or on the ocassion of each of your children or grandchildren's birthdays, share a story or memory that revolves around them. Save it for when you are no longer here. My mother was a diary keeper. Her diary had a name and she wrote letters to it. Her entries began, "Dear Tim....." This might be a way to make it easier to keep writing. Correspond with yourself. Don't worry about perfect writing. The object is to get your thoughts out of your brain and onto paper. Don't keep your memories locked in a file cabinet that will disappear when you do. You or your descendants can always polish the grammar, spelling and order of the stories later. Writing too tiresome? Get out the tape recorder and talk with yourself. Invite an interested descendant to transcribe your ramblings or do it your self. You might even consider sharing a memory or two now and again with the list. It may spur them on to sit down and write. Happy Trails, Lauren

===================================================================== "LESSONS LEARNED FROM MISS RUMPHIUS," by Juliana Smith ===================================================================== My daughter's favorite book of all time is "Miss Rumphius," by Barbara Cooney. The first copy got so worn, that we had to go buy a second one. It's a wonderful story, narrated by a little girl named Alice about her great-aunt, Miss Alice Rumphius. Alice grows up near her grandfather who is a painter and lives by the sea. He regales her with stories of faraway places and she helps him with his paintings in his workshop. Eventually, she tells her grandfather that when she grows up, she too wants to visit faraway places and come back to live by the sea. Her grandfather tells her that's all fine and well, but she must do one more thing. He tells her, "You must do something to make the world more beautiful." Alice grows up and does indeed follow in her grandfather's footsteps. She travels to far away places and eventually comes home to live by the sea. She remembers her promise to her grandfather and decides to plant lupines all around the area in which she lives and becomes known as the "Lupine Lady." The narrator goes on to say that she too wants to visit faraway places and come back to live by the sea. Miss Rumphius reminds her of that third thing that she must do, and the book closes with little Alice pondering what she can do to make the world more beautiful. Last year, my daughter and I planted our first lupines in pots, and when the flowers died back, I harvested the seeds to bring to our new house. This year, there will be a special section of the garden for lupines. The book sends a number of good messages, and I am hoping that our tradition of planting lupines will help remind Maddy of those messages. So what does this have to do with family history? Well, I also see some "messages" that we might want to keep in mind as we begin another year of researching our ancestry. SHARING FAMILY STORIES Alice is inspired by the stories her grandfather tells her, so much so that she patterns her life around them. Are we sharing our stories, and those of our ancestors, with the younger children in our families? While they probably aren't going to show much interest in our pedigree charts filled with names and dates, children love to hear stories. Just as I loved to hear my parents and grandparents tell me stories of their life and travels, my daughter is constantly asking my husband and I to, "Tell me about when you were little." I tell her stories of when I was growing up, stories my mother, father and grandparents told me from their youth, and also share stories I have learned about our ancestors. Facts like birthplace and vital events, migrations, and occupations, can be woven into the historical background of the times in which they lived to create memorable stories that children can carry with them always and pass on to their children. If I have pictures of ancestors available, I incorporate them, too. The photographs give a face to the people in the stories. You may want to put the story down on paper first to get your thoughts in order. Don't be afraid to overact a bit. Younger children will especially love it and if you make the story exciting for them, don't be surprised if you are asked to repeat the story often. This will help keep the story fresh in their memory and create a lasting bond between you and the child. Who knows what impact these stories can have? They just might inspire children to new heights as they grow up, just as little Alice was inspired. SHARING YOUR HERITAGE If storytelling isn't your thing, try sharing your heritage in other ways. Miss Rumphius spent time working with her grandfather who was an artist, where he would sometimes let her paint in the sky on his paintings. Is there a certain talent that has been handed down to you through the generations? Drawing or painting, cooking and baking, woodworking, writing, knitting or crocheting, quilting, needlework, etc.--anything you learned as a child (whether from family or friend) can be shared with stories of how you learned that particular craft. Both my grandmother and Aunt Chula showed me how to embroider and Aunt Lynn showed me how to crochet. These are skills that I am starting to teach my daughter. It doesn't have to be a difficult task either. As I write this, it is not yet Christmas and I spent last weekend making Styrofoam ornaments using sequins, with my daughter and her friend. I can remember countless Christmases with my sisters and I caught up in this same endeavor. Tomorrow, we have a day of cookie baking planned where I can share even more stories and traditions with her. GOALS Just as Miss Rumphius set goals for her life and followed through, we should also be setting goals for ourselves, not only in research, but in how we can share our research with others in our family--both children and grown-ups alike. We have a brand new year ahead of us to come up with some ways to share our family history and in the tradition of making New Years resolutions, why not resolve to undertake a project to share and preserve your family's heritage? You could publish your family history in a bound volume or simply arrange documents and stories in a binder or scrapbook to give to family members. You can make a point to share some oral history with younger generations. If it's not possible to do it in person, tape your story and send it to them. You could even make it into a children's book, complete with pictures of your family. Use your talents and gifts to create something that not only tells the family story, but is a reflection of you, and it will be cherished for generations to come. Whatever method you choose, you too will have accomplished that third task. What better way to make the world more beautiful than to share the gift of your heritage with your family? .......................................................... Copyright 1998-2002, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Reprinted with permission from "Ancestry Daily News"

According to the Newsletter, the winners of the Family History contest for Marin Co. children, Lovelines and Bloodlines, will read their essays and be presented their prizes. Should be fun! Cathy