Just thought I would post a couple of websites that I've found helpful in the past.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txgenweb/society.htm
This page has a handy list of addresses to Texas Genealogical and Historical Societies. If you find yourself needing information from a particular county, and can't travel therre in person, you might try writing or emailing them for help.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/
As I have said many times in the past, you need to know your history. This site tells about the horrible influenza empidemic of 1918, which very well may have affected your ancestors lives. Well work a look!
http://www.rootstelevision.com/program_guide.php
Roots Television™ is by and for avid genealogists and family history lovers of all stripes. Whether you’re an archives hound, a scrapbooker, a cousin collector, a roots-travel enthusiast, a Civil War re-enactor, a DNA fan, a reunion instigator, a sepia-toned photos zealot, an Internet-junkie, a history buff, an old country traditions follower, a cemetery devotee, a story-teller, a multicultural food aficionado, a flea market and antiques fanatic, a family documentarian, a nostalgia nut, or a mystery-solver, Roots Television™ has something for you -- and that “something” is quality programming. Check it out!
Hope you enjoy these sites and let me know what you think of them!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Hello Again!!
Today is the 13th of April. Can you believe that? This year is just flying by. Before you know it we will be faced with the anniversary of the first roof collapse on our library, which occurred early on the morning of July 29th, 2009. So much as changed, and will keep changing (for the good we hope) in the next few months.
Some of you might have attended our recent cemetery walk. The day turned out beautiful and we heard many great comments about the presentation and the presenters. We already have next years’s walk on the calendar, so watch for more details about it on this blog and the Palestine Public Library’s website. The event is scheduled for Saturday April 2, 2011 and will encompass a different section of the cemetery. We hope to see you there!
I am still doing queries for patrons via email. If you need a copy of an obituary, or some other Anderson county reference, please drop me a line or give me a call. I’ll be glad to do what I can to help. I’ll also give you help and tips on how to trace your family if you wish. Or even how to start your quest! Just give me a call! Our number is still (903) 729-4121 and my email is klang@palestine.lib.tx.us
For those of you who haven’t checked out our website lately, you might want to do that. We now have a Digital Branch! There are E-Books and Audio books for our patrons to download straight from our website. It’s really an easy process, but if you have problems with it, just give us a call and we’ll walk you through it.
Currently, we have several blogs that are maintained by us concerning different areas of the library. If you would like to read them, you can access them from our library’s website. Our website is: http://www.youseemore.com/palestine/ Click the tab titled “PPL on the Web” to read the blogs. We also have a facebook page for our library now. Check it out, and let us know what you think!
And don’t forget! April 12-30th, every comment you contribute to any of our blogs or to our library facebook page, automatically enters your name into the drawing for the Free Sony Reader. There is no limit to how many times you can enter, so start commenting! Remember, if you comment anonymously, we won’t know who you are. Include your first and last name on the comment for us to ensure that you get your chance at this exciting prize!
Until Next time!!
Some of you might have attended our recent cemetery walk. The day turned out beautiful and we heard many great comments about the presentation and the presenters. We already have next years’s walk on the calendar, so watch for more details about it on this blog and the Palestine Public Library’s website. The event is scheduled for Saturday April 2, 2011 and will encompass a different section of the cemetery. We hope to see you there!
I am still doing queries for patrons via email. If you need a copy of an obituary, or some other Anderson county reference, please drop me a line or give me a call. I’ll be glad to do what I can to help. I’ll also give you help and tips on how to trace your family if you wish. Or even how to start your quest! Just give me a call! Our number is still (903) 729-4121 and my email is klang@palestine.lib.tx.us
For those of you who haven’t checked out our website lately, you might want to do that. We now have a Digital Branch! There are E-Books and Audio books for our patrons to download straight from our website. It’s really an easy process, but if you have problems with it, just give us a call and we’ll walk you through it.
Currently, we have several blogs that are maintained by us concerning different areas of the library. If you would like to read them, you can access them from our library’s website. Our website is: http://www.youseemore.com/palestine/ Click the tab titled “PPL on the Web” to read the blogs. We also have a facebook page for our library now. Check it out, and let us know what you think!
And don’t forget! April 12-30th, every comment you contribute to any of our blogs or to our library facebook page, automatically enters your name into the drawing for the Free Sony Reader. There is no limit to how many times you can enter, so start commenting! Remember, if you comment anonymously, we won’t know who you are. Include your first and last name on the comment for us to ensure that you get your chance at this exciting prize!
Until Next time!!
Friday, March 26, 2010
New Links!
I have added several new links at the bottom of this page to sites I had bookmarked. I think they're worth a look!!
Let me know what you think! :-)
Let me know what you think! :-)
This is the JustGenealogy area on Second Life. Chats are held with avatars sitting on the round red plaid cushions seen in the firepit area. The sign under the flags to the left of the seating area is actually a whiteboard area where power-point presentations can be shown. When you are in-world, you can click on the box to the left of the whiteboard for a copy of the current calendar of events. Or if you are not currently on Second Life, you can visit the following website to view a copy of the calendar:
Tuesday March 2nd has a chat scheduled at the JustGenealogy area called "Publishing isn't that Far Fetched" hosted by Clarice Beaumont AKA Pat Richley. You might have heard of her before. She has been writing the "Dear Myrtle" Column since 1995, and has since become a very well known genealogical speaker as well as author of several books on learning how to do genealogy. She has done so much, and is so knowledgable, I can hardly say enough about her here. Visit her website and let me hear what you think!
Until next time... :-)
Monday, March 22, 2010
Hello again!
So much has happened since I last posted to this site that I hardly know where to start. I guess chronologically would be the easiest, so here goes.
During the late hours of July 29th, the roof on the south side of our library began to collapse. Our director, along with firefighters and several people from city hall including the city manager and the mayor, managed to move every single item out of the Special Collections room and my office. The next morning, after bracing the ceiling up, the decision was made to move the remaining books out of the south side of the building into the north side, so that we could remain open while repairs were being made. Special Collections would be moved into the large meeting room, which was located inside the old Alamo school portion of the building.
We managed to reopen on the morning of August 24th, and remained open until Saturday September 12th. During that night the south side of the building experienced the same thing that the north side had. We were forced to box up all the books and shelves, and put them into storage until a suitable building was found for us.
The staff moved into a building located in the “new town” section of Palestine, where we have been ever since. Looking on the bright side, we have had time to complete several ongoing projects, as well as plan and create new opportunities for our patrons that I doubt would have happened before.
In February of 2010, the city signed the papers for the purchase of the old mall, located on the south side of Loop 256, and is remodeling it to contain our library, a branch of Texas State Technical College, and the Summit High School, which is an early college high school program. It’s all very exciting for our library as well as our city in general. As far as when we’ll open again to the public? We don’t yet know. We hope to be open sometime during the summer, but there has not yet been official word. I’ll post it here as soon as we have the official word.
In the meantime, I thought I would tell you about some of the new things I’ve learned about genealogy. I’ve joined the Association of Professional Genealogists, and we have formed a chapter on Second Life. Let me explain what Second Life is to those of you who have never visited.
Second Life is a downloadable program that creates a virtual world on your computer. You can visit www.secondlife.com to read more about it, but I’d like to stress that it is FREE! (Yes, that’s a favorite word for everyone nowadays!) There are a group of genealogists in Second Life who hold online educational chats and talks about genealogy. I’ve even been a presenter myself! I’ll try to post a few photos from Second Life (SL) on this site so you’ll be able to see what it looks like.
In the meantime, if you’re interested, you might drop by this website: http://brickwalls.ning.com/ . There is a calendar of events for the UGG (Union of Genealogy Groups) for Second Life. There are also other opportunities on that site for networking with others who do genealogy. So check it out!
I know I have said in the past that I would update this regularly, and I’ve been terrible about this, but I will make it one of my main goals to do better. So check back often!!
During the late hours of July 29th, the roof on the south side of our library began to collapse. Our director, along with firefighters and several people from city hall including the city manager and the mayor, managed to move every single item out of the Special Collections room and my office. The next morning, after bracing the ceiling up, the decision was made to move the remaining books out of the south side of the building into the north side, so that we could remain open while repairs were being made. Special Collections would be moved into the large meeting room, which was located inside the old Alamo school portion of the building.
We managed to reopen on the morning of August 24th, and remained open until Saturday September 12th. During that night the south side of the building experienced the same thing that the north side had. We were forced to box up all the books and shelves, and put them into storage until a suitable building was found for us.
The staff moved into a building located in the “new town” section of Palestine, where we have been ever since. Looking on the bright side, we have had time to complete several ongoing projects, as well as plan and create new opportunities for our patrons that I doubt would have happened before.
In February of 2010, the city signed the papers for the purchase of the old mall, located on the south side of Loop 256, and is remodeling it to contain our library, a branch of Texas State Technical College, and the Summit High School, which is an early college high school program. It’s all very exciting for our library as well as our city in general. As far as when we’ll open again to the public? We don’t yet know. We hope to be open sometime during the summer, but there has not yet been official word. I’ll post it here as soon as we have the official word.
In the meantime, I thought I would tell you about some of the new things I’ve learned about genealogy. I’ve joined the Association of Professional Genealogists, and we have formed a chapter on Second Life. Let me explain what Second Life is to those of you who have never visited.
Second Life is a downloadable program that creates a virtual world on your computer. You can visit www.secondlife.com to read more about it, but I’d like to stress that it is FREE! (Yes, that’s a favorite word for everyone nowadays!) There are a group of genealogists in Second Life who hold online educational chats and talks about genealogy. I’ve even been a presenter myself! I’ll try to post a few photos from Second Life (SL) on this site so you’ll be able to see what it looks like.
In the meantime, if you’re interested, you might drop by this website: http://brickwalls.ning.com/ . There is a calendar of events for the UGG (Union of Genealogy Groups) for Second Life. There are also other opportunities on that site for networking with others who do genealogy. So check it out!
I know I have said in the past that I would update this regularly, and I’ve been terrible about this, but I will make it one of my main goals to do better. So check back often!!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Project #2 - Miniature Collection
The first Christmas season that I worked for the library, another employee was showing me around the attic in preparation for dragging out all the saved decorations. She showed me a box full of all sorts of small miniature animals and other figurines and told me she didn't know where they had come from. After picking some of them to use in displays, we put the box back into the attic and I promptly forgot about them.
Last Christmas, I was once again rummaging around the attic, and came upon another box of minis. Inside this particular box was a small sign that stated that the figures were a collection originally owned by a woman named Ivy Payne, and that were donated to the library when she died in the 1980's. She was apparently an animal lover who lived in the Elkhart/Slocum area, but I've not been able to find out much else on her.
When I dug farther into the box I found an exquisite china tea set, all in miniature, and a tiny Limoge pitcher and bowl along with several other small vases and figurines. This turned out to be only one box of several, one being the box we found that first year, that contained a huge collection of miniature animals... a lost treasure of sorts, hidden in the attic for years.
When I showed them to our director, she was very excited and wanted them all photographed and added to our catalog for future reference. Little did I know what a job that would turn out to be. You see, there are well over 500 individual objects we have located so far, and I think there very well may be still more hidden in the attic.
Our Catalog Librarian and I brainstormed, trying to figure out the best way of dealing with them, and, never having added an artifact to our catalog in the past, still haven't come up with a good template to accomplish this. You see, our library uses a system called Marc for cataloging. I don't really understand much about it, but from what I gather, it's intended use is for cataloging printed material, not artifacts. In other words, it's not museum software. Anyway, our catalog librarian is working on that puzzle, and I'm confident that she'll figure something out.
In the meantine, it was decided that I would go ahead and begin inventorying and photographing them. I began by sorting the items and then creating standard accession numbers for each different item to be used as one of the identifiers in the record, along with assigning a standard barcode to the item. I've still got a couple of boxes left to go on this task, but, to break the monotony, have also begun photographing them.
Keep in mind that there are 100's of these items, some as small as 1/4" x 1/4", and each one (with the rare exception) has to be dealt with separately. I originally tried using our Canon PowerShot A95 with 5.0 megapixels, on a standard copy stand, but on the smaller items, this didn't produce a clear enough photo. So I brought my camera from home to use, which produces a little better picture. This camera is a PowerShot A630 that has 8.0 megapixels. I also rigged up a small stage using a lightbox and some cardstock, that I placed under the lights on the copy stand. With both the lights from the stand, and the lights from the lightbox turned on, it illuminates the objects pretty well. Using this setup, I was finally able to get some decent photos. I'll try to figure out how to upload a sample photo later in the week so you can see what I mean. If you have any other ideas on how to make a better photo, please don't hesitate to let me know.
I've worked on this project for a total of about 2 months now, off and on, but have had to once again set it aside because of the urgency of other projects. I do plan on getting back to it sometime during the summer, and for now, all the tiny objects are all safely packed in boxes, taking up the limited space in my office. I hope that when I finally get back to the project, I'll have a cataloging template so I can go ahead and totally finish one item before moving on to another. I'll probably be sick of looking at them by the time I'm done, but for now, I think they're a pretty special treasure. :-)
Last Christmas, I was once again rummaging around the attic, and came upon another box of minis. Inside this particular box was a small sign that stated that the figures were a collection originally owned by a woman named Ivy Payne, and that were donated to the library when she died in the 1980's. She was apparently an animal lover who lived in the Elkhart/Slocum area, but I've not been able to find out much else on her.
When I dug farther into the box I found an exquisite china tea set, all in miniature, and a tiny Limoge pitcher and bowl along with several other small vases and figurines. This turned out to be only one box of several, one being the box we found that first year, that contained a huge collection of miniature animals... a lost treasure of sorts, hidden in the attic for years.
When I showed them to our director, she was very excited and wanted them all photographed and added to our catalog for future reference. Little did I know what a job that would turn out to be. You see, there are well over 500 individual objects we have located so far, and I think there very well may be still more hidden in the attic.
Our Catalog Librarian and I brainstormed, trying to figure out the best way of dealing with them, and, never having added an artifact to our catalog in the past, still haven't come up with a good template to accomplish this. You see, our library uses a system called Marc for cataloging. I don't really understand much about it, but from what I gather, it's intended use is for cataloging printed material, not artifacts. In other words, it's not museum software. Anyway, our catalog librarian is working on that puzzle, and I'm confident that she'll figure something out.
In the meantine, it was decided that I would go ahead and begin inventorying and photographing them. I began by sorting the items and then creating standard accession numbers for each different item to be used as one of the identifiers in the record, along with assigning a standard barcode to the item. I've still got a couple of boxes left to go on this task, but, to break the monotony, have also begun photographing them.
Keep in mind that there are 100's of these items, some as small as 1/4" x 1/4", and each one (with the rare exception) has to be dealt with separately. I originally tried using our Canon PowerShot A95 with 5.0 megapixels, on a standard copy stand, but on the smaller items, this didn't produce a clear enough photo. So I brought my camera from home to use, which produces a little better picture. This camera is a PowerShot A630 that has 8.0 megapixels. I also rigged up a small stage using a lightbox and some cardstock, that I placed under the lights on the copy stand. With both the lights from the stand, and the lights from the lightbox turned on, it illuminates the objects pretty well. Using this setup, I was finally able to get some decent photos. I'll try to figure out how to upload a sample photo later in the week so you can see what I mean. If you have any other ideas on how to make a better photo, please don't hesitate to let me know.
I've worked on this project for a total of about 2 months now, off and on, but have had to once again set it aside because of the urgency of other projects. I do plan on getting back to it sometime during the summer, and for now, all the tiny objects are all safely packed in boxes, taking up the limited space in my office. I hope that when I finally get back to the project, I'll have a cataloging template so I can go ahead and totally finish one item before moving on to another. I'll probably be sick of looking at them by the time I'm done, but for now, I think they're a pretty special treasure. :-)
Project #1 - The Cemetery Database
This is, by far, the biggest, and longest running project that I have ever been involved in. I had the idea to create a database such as this many years ago, but was never in a position to actually do it until I went to work for the Palestine Public Library. I started my employment there in the summer of 2004, and shortly thereafter shared my idea with our director. She was thrilled and gave me permission to work on it for our Special Collections Room. Many, many hours later, and with the help of our great volunteers, we now have a database that is well under way to being a valuable tool for genealogists with roots in Anderson County. My sincere Thanks go out to each and every one of you for your help and encouragement. The only other thing I can offer in return, is the hope that our work will survive and be of help for years to come.
My original goal was to list every cemetery in our county (Anderson) and cross reference every name that each one has been known as over the years into one master database. Then to add links to maps, written directions, GPS coordinates, enumerations (listings of burials), and photos of all of the headstones in each cemetery.
I did not (and still don't) have a program for webpage building, and indeed originally had no intention of making it accessable on the internet. While I do have the ability to write basic code, I know my limitations. I do not know enough to build what I had in my mind, nor do I have the time or inclination to learn how. So I fell back on an old reliable program to create my masterpiece, MS Word :-). Yes, I know it has it's limitations, but I was already familiar with it and felt confident that it would do what I wanted it to do. And if it was only accessible through a computer in our library, then so be it. Bottom line, it would attract patrons into our library.
But over time, I realized that being able to present it to the world through our library website is what my goal should have been the whole time. Yes, I was wrong. I admit it. In the past, we were limited on what changes we could do to the site, but times have changed. We now have the ability to include the database with little or no expense. So now we're investigating web-building software, looking for a program in which I can not only import the work I've already done, but that has several badly needed features that are not available in Word. If anyone out there has any suggestions, please don't hesitate to tell me. With any luck, before too long, we'll have found a tool that will make my life much easier, and the researchers much happier.
I'll go into more detail about this project in another post later on. I've rambled on way too long in this one. I'm going to move ahead to try to summarize the other projects that we're working on at the library. If you want to know more about this database before I post more, please don't hesitate to email me. Thanks for your time!
My original goal was to list every cemetery in our county (Anderson) and cross reference every name that each one has been known as over the years into one master database. Then to add links to maps, written directions, GPS coordinates, enumerations (listings of burials), and photos of all of the headstones in each cemetery.
I did not (and still don't) have a program for webpage building, and indeed originally had no intention of making it accessable on the internet. While I do have the ability to write basic code, I know my limitations. I do not know enough to build what I had in my mind, nor do I have the time or inclination to learn how. So I fell back on an old reliable program to create my masterpiece, MS Word :-). Yes, I know it has it's limitations, but I was already familiar with it and felt confident that it would do what I wanted it to do. And if it was only accessible through a computer in our library, then so be it. Bottom line, it would attract patrons into our library.
But over time, I realized that being able to present it to the world through our library website is what my goal should have been the whole time. Yes, I was wrong. I admit it. In the past, we were limited on what changes we could do to the site, but times have changed. We now have the ability to include the database with little or no expense. So now we're investigating web-building software, looking for a program in which I can not only import the work I've already done, but that has several badly needed features that are not available in Word. If anyone out there has any suggestions, please don't hesitate to tell me. With any luck, before too long, we'll have found a tool that will make my life much easier, and the researchers much happier.
I'll go into more detail about this project in another post later on. I've rambled on way too long in this one. I'm going to move ahead to try to summarize the other projects that we're working on at the library. If you want to know more about this database before I post more, please don't hesitate to email me. Thanks for your time!
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