Don’t
Forget The Photo Competition
Future
Meetings
Below is a list of dates the for 2007, these dates have been confirmed.
October 3rd
October 31st
November 28th
December 19th
Last Month….
Peter
Simpson gave us a fascinating insight into the art of Genealogy
and how to get started creating your own family tree. Peter’s
presentation centred round some of the websites that are available
to help you with your quest. Peter explained that he had only
been working on his own family tree for about a year now but it
had already produced some unexpected results on the way.
With
the aid of a PowerPoint presentation, Peter explained that there
are many websites out there that will help you and some he listed
–
www.genesreunited.com
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.cwgc.org (war graves commission)
www.familysearch.org (Mormons database)
The only thing to be aware of is that these sites invariably require
a subscription to access their databases if you intend to use
them to their potential.
Peter
demonstrated how www.genereunited helps to build up the family
tree. He found that its uncluttered layout was very easy to follow
and simple to update as more family information becomes available.
Registration to the site is free but it does carry an annual membership
subscription of £9.95. Peter using his Grandfather as an
example showed how to search through the websites databases for
occurrences of the name. The databases use the national censuses
and indexes of births/deaths/marriages.
Once
the names have been located and sifted by the user then more explicit
detail is available but only to paid up members. This information,
be it a page from a census or a death certificate can then be
downloaded and saved. Peter emphasised that the style of family
tree produced is a personal choice and he showed another version
which to his mind was too cluttered and not some user friendly.
The website has a message page where members can make contact
and share information. This is also part of the subscription service.
The
next site we looked at was the heavyweight www.ancestry.co.uk
which has an annual subscription of £79. For your subscription
you have unlimited access to its massive database which not only
includes all the information available on the previous site it
even has the full details of convict transportation to Australia
in the 19th century. The search engine is excellent and extremely
thorough. Peter felt, although the site carries a hefty annual
subscription, it is definitely worth joining for a year for the
vast amount of detailed information that is available.
All
sounds quite straight forward so far. However, peter explained
that there are many pitfalls and dead ends on the way. Some of
the problems the budding genealogist will undoubtedly come across
will be down to census errors created by the enumerators collecting
the data. Very often ancestors will have been illiterate and details
such as name spelling could be at the enumerator’s discretion.
Other complications are caused by poor handwriting and even transcription
errors by the people who transferred the original data onto the
databases. There are many more examples that will lead you up
the garden path – but then again it is the detective nature
of the genealogist’s drive to overcome these pitfalls and
move further back into the family past.
The
1841 census is the earliest on record and prior to that you must
go to Parish Records if available. Some of the early ones are
very difficult to read and decipher and very often have been destroyed
during times of turmoil. Irish records are a particular problem
due to record destruction in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some
final advice from Peter was to keep the tree simple and do not
overcomplicate it by taking offshoots and following sibling branches.
The
evening generated a lot of interest and surprisingly a few other
members were also deep into their own researches. Our thanks go
to Peter for an excellent informative and enjoyable evening which
I am sure has generated interest in members who haven’t
yet got started. Finally Peter’s last piece of advice, just
type ancestry into your favourite search engine and see what comes
up.
Dave
Robb
Photographic
Competition December 2007
This
years Digital Photographic competition will be held as usual during
the December meeting. So just to remind you of the subject categories
for this year.
Sunrise
or Sunset
Portrait in monochrome
Nature
Image Manipulation (use of any program effects to enhance the
photo)
People at Work
Pub sign or Business Sign
Best
of Luck to everybody and we look forward to seeing your entries
as usual.
Club Christmas Meal
Our annual Christmas dinner will be Thursday 13th December and
Ben has kindly volunteered to organise it again for us. The venue
will be the same as last year. “The Bowls Club Restaurant”.
Ben needs to have names, orders with the money as soon as possible.
The price of the meal this year is £12.95 + £1.00
towards the tip. Cheques to be made out to The Club House Restaurant.
The menu is on the back of the newsletter.
Ben
can be contacted on Tel 01664 454888
Last month I started to look at the technologies used in Sat Navs.
I was intending to continue this month but I have run out of time
for the next part of the article. I will however try to complete
the next part for next month.
Derek
Windows
XP gets reprieve
Microsoft has announced it is to extend the life of Windows XP
by five months. This means systems can be shipped with the venerable
OS until the end of June next year.
XP was originally due to be retired at the end of January 2008.
Microsoft claims it is pleased with the uptake of Vista, but the
decision to keep XP hanging around a bit longer would appear to
contradict that.
Some observers point to the different driver model used by Vista
meaning that some old peripherals don't work under the new OS
and that users are putting off upgrading due to the cost of buying
shiny new printers and scanners that do have Vista drivers.
Some system builders, including Dell and Lenovo, have reintroduced
XP as an option.
Low-power
USB 3.0 standard on the way
I recently came across a snippet about an Intel-backed USB 3.0
group that has been formed to promote technology offering 10 times
the speed of the existing USB 2.0 standard.
The third-generation Universal Serial Bus interconnect will transfer
data at speeds up to 4.8Gbps, 10 times faster than USB 2.0's 480Mbps.
It will be backwards-compatible with USB 2.0, which is backwards-compatible
with the first USB 1.1 definition.
Intel stated that the USB 3.0 specification would be optimised
for low power and improved protocol efficiency. The USB 3.0 ports
and cabling will be designed with both copper and optical cable
capabilities, meaning even higher speeds will be possible in the
future.
Christmas
Menu
Tomato
and Basil Soup
Prawn
Cocktail
Field
Mushroom, Smoked bacon and Stilton sauce
Lime
and coriander salmon goujons
*************************
Chicken
Breast Fillet with a Creamy Stilton Sauce
Braised
Pork served with Apple and Cider Sauce
Roast
Beef with all the Trimmings
Roast
Turkey with all the Trimmings
Salmon
Hollandaise
Leek
& Mushroom Crumble
*************************
A selection of cold sweets
Xmas
pudding
********************
Coffee & mince pies
£12.95
Please add a tip of £1.00 per person
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