Midwest Computer Genealogists 
Newsletter for January 2004
Volume 11 Number 1

John Kuhns will present a program "Working with photographs for genealogists" on Saturday, January 17, 2004. John lives in Parkville and has a long list of accomplishments to his credit and this sounds like a very timely topic, as many of us are now thinking of how to get photographs into our genealogy write-ups.

Other groups:
The Family Origins users group meets at the Blue Valley Library, located at 151st and Antioch on the first Saturday of each month from 9 AM to 11 AM. Their next meeting dates will be Feb. 7, and Mar. 6, from 09:00 am to 11:00. The new Blue Valley Library address is 9000 W. 151st St. For information on this group please contact Jim Stout at jimstout@earthlink.com or Rowena Shaffer at snowtop@juno.com. There was some construction activity causing changes in driving directions so possibly the following will help you out. New Directions to the library: I-435 west to highway 69 South. Take 69 South to 151st St. Go right or west on 151st. past Antioch. It is the first right-turn after Antioch. Then look for library sign. Another street has been added. The library is now the second right after Antioch.

To check on the status of FOG use this revised URL: http://chezjacq.com/fog and 
to check on MCG use: http://chezjacq.com/mcg.

The TMG (The Master Genealogist) group Meeting meets the 2nd Saturday of each month starting at 10:00 AM. The meeting is at the Cedar-Roe Library at 5120 Cedar in Roeland Park KS this is West of the shopping center. For questions contact Judy Revare at 913-491-1768 or email to judy@revare.com. You may also get information from John Middleton at jmcpa@planetkc.com or check his web page at Web Page: http://www.planetkc.com/jmcpa . We also have the following TMG web sites for upcoming news; http://chezjacq.com/tmg and http://jacq.org/tmg.

Combination Secretary and President's Comments for the month.

Well here it is a new year for all of us and hope is well with everyone. First off will say that the month of December was sort of a let down at my house. The sewer line back up when the wife went to drain the washing machine. Well the tree roots must be in it again so get the plumber with the roto-rooter out to open it up. Well he hit dirt so was told the sewer pipe is collapsed. Had to get a new plumber out for that and so they start to dig where everyone thought the sewer line was, surprise no pipe found after they go down about 10 to 12 feet. Find out the sewer line runs under the basement floor to the north end of the basement and than goes out to the street so we get another hole in the ground there. Well come to find out the foundation group a year ago had put a steel pipe dead center in the sewer line. Using a lot of elbows the new plumbers got the line built out around the steel pipe so the plumbing now works. We are not set up as when I was going up on a farm and no indoor plumbing then either but we had the tools to do without the indoor features of today.

I have sort of taken a vacation from many things after the above mess and hope to get back into things again as have some email to answer that I just put off answer to questions asked of me.

As I said in the short note last month we have the new checking account set up and so can start to pay any and all bills again. We need to talk about this at the upcoming meeting as to how to cover the dues into the future. We will have more details on this at the upcoming meeting.

I got the new update to legacy Family Tree version 5 and they added a lot of things to it. But to be truthful have not done much with it up to now.

Many software programs now want you to download them off the net, but if you have dial up and not to fast a connect speed which I think it is due to the copper line for the telephone and not much can do about it, it takes a long time to do it. Had one program I could get and I left the machine running all night to get it downloaded all 42 Meg. Same thing with many web sites they doll them up with a lot of graphics so the download time is long and you don't go back very much after the first time and then again many web sites seen to have very little change over time, seen it once is usually enough.

Can use some material for the newsletter. Did any one get some new toys or software for Christmas? Lets have a review of it. My daughter had to give me something I didn't have so she got me a fog machine. It is a bowl with water in it plus an ultra sonic generator that also has varying color lights. The ultra sonic generator causes the water to make fog like flow from the bowl. Looks different in the evening darkness.

I was thinking of putting this newsletter into pdf format with some new software I have gotten but as of yet it is still a dream to work. I have a book called a Dream is a Dream until it becomes a Reality, and the book is about a men's dream to build a Viking ship and sail it back to Norway. He got it built and saw it float in lake Superior but he didn't get to sail it east as he died. His children along with some others sailed it back to his home land. So my dream still has a chance.

Don

Jack Revare sent me this rememder on this upcoming conference that will be due east on I-70.

The 2004 Gentech Conference will be held in St. Louis 22-24 January. The headquarters hotel is the Millennium, downtown. This is a conference for both genealogy & technology relating to genealogy. Topics such as "Googling for Grandma", Effective Electronic Queries", "Using Palm PDA's for Genealogy", "Web Sites", etc. Since the St. Louis County Library now has all the family history books from the Natl. Genealogical Society, both the conference & the library could be visited on the same trip. For further details, E-Mail conference@ngsgenealogy.org or visit the website at www.ngsgenealogy.org.

Interesting tidbit of information

For each generation back in time your grandparents double. By the time we go back 21 generations, about 700 years to1200 A.D., we have 2,097,152 grandparents. Most of us go back three or four generations and will not find nobility in our family. By the time we check out two million grandparents, it is almost a certainty that we will find nobility, or probably even royalty. In most countries, only one son got to keep the castle and the title. The rest of the children melted into the population, unless they could keep on marrying into nobility. For that reason there are members of nobility families all around us, and we are probably included in that number. (From email list)

New virus alert

I thought you would want to know about this virus. Even the most advanced programs from Norton or McAfee cannot take care of this one.

Symptoms:
1. Causes you to send the same e-mail twice.
2. Causes you to send a blank e-mail.
3. Causes you to send e-mail to the wrong person.
4. Causes you to send it back to the person who sent it to you.
5. Causes you to forget to attach the attachment.
6. Causes you to hit "SEND" before you've finished.
7. Causes you to hit "DELETE" instead of "SEND."
8. Causes you to hit "SEND" when you should "DELETE."

IT IS CALLED THE "C-NILE VIRUS." Be very careful, as there is no cure once you have received this virus. It appears to affect those who were born prior to 1960. As for those of us who don't seem to be affected by this virus, we wish you well. (From email list)

We will leave this newsletter short and hope to see everyone at the meeting this Saturday.