WCGS Meeting - January 2011 and Upcoming February Meeting

WCGS Meeting - January 2011 and Upcoming February Meeting

For followers who would like to keep up with the doings of the Williams County Genealogical Society, I have a post from my research pal about what happened at the Jan 2011 meeting where yours truly was one of the guest presenters.

By Patricia Goebel

The WCGS met Jan 10, 2011 at the Bryan Public Library.  Marti Richie and Pam Lash explained some of the reasons for using genealogical software.  There are over 40 family tree software programs currently available. Using genealogy software gives you a platform to work with-see what you have and what you don’t. It allows you to put your information in a chronological and understandable order and be able to document your sources quickly and easily. It provides you with charts to easily identify your ancestors-how far back you can go, and where you or someone in your family fits into the grand scheme. It enables you to share your work by print or email and to build trees on sites such as Ancestry or WeRelate. It lets you have fun with your hobby.

There are challenges and cost factors to consider when deciding which software to use to record your information.  It takes time and patience to learn new skills but the reward can be most beneficial. Some additional devises may be needed to upload pictures and documents into your program.

They then played a tutorial CD from RootsMagic as an example of what software programs would be like and passed out a copy of the CD to those who asked. The meeting was very helpful and next month they will continue presenting ways to make recording your family information easier.

The next meeting will be February 14, 2011 at 6:30 in the West Annex of the Bryan Public Library.  Marti and Pam will present a power point presentation of basic computer skills when researching on the Internet such as cut and paste, copy and paste, creating a folder in word document, and how to transfer from a web page into a folder on your computer.  They will also introduce you to Google Books and Ancestry and how to transfer items into your software program. It should be an informative meeting so come join us.  The program is open to the public.

REMINDER: Bring items in for “Trash or Treasure” program to photograph is needed.  Forms are at the library local history department.  Forms and pictures must be turned in to Jane Kelly at the library by May 1, 2011.