Terrebonne Genealogical Society

TGS Newsletter
Vol. 18 No. 11 February 2000

Visit our home page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~laterreb/tgs.htm

Newsletter Editor Ed Hicks, 5306 Hwy.. 1, Raceland, LA 70394-2033
E-mail: edgarhicks@worldnet.att.net                 Phone: (504) 532-3586

Membership and/or address changes:
Please send by mail to TGS, Station 2 Box 295, Houma, LA 70360-0295



NEXT MEETING Saturday, February 26, 2000
North Branch Library, Gray, LA 1:00 p.m.

   What a lovely home! What a gracious hostess! What an interesting presentation! We are talking about January’s program, which was most unusual, in that it was presented before the meeting time and not in the Library. Mrs. Wanda Gaidry showed us through Residence Plantation in East Houma. Her talk was filled with references to events and people that were important to Houma’s history. Robert Ruffin Barrow was one of the early settlers who saw the growing town’s future. We tried to convince her to submit the text of the talk for publication, even though it would not be surrounded by the historic house. Keep watching to see if we succeeded.
   Don’t miss the meeting, this month. It will be our election meeting. Slated to run are all of this year’s officers plus nominations from the floor, and at least six candidates for the four slots in the Executive Board. In other words, Phil Chauvin, Jr., Ed Hicks, Nancy L. Wright, Jess Bergeron, Jr., and Sheila Rodrigue will run again as incumbents for the offices of President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Corresponding Secretary and Recording Secretary, respectively. Known to be running for the four openings in the Board of Directors are Essie Cavalier, Louis Duet, Patty W. Gravois, Daniel Guidry, Jackie Thibodaux and Wade Usé. We hope that all of the above-named persons are, in fact, paid-up members of the Terrebonne Genealogical Society. We hope also that all of  those who plan to vote in the election are paid-up members! (We’re kinda kidding, but just in case, you might take a moment to see if, perhaps this is the last newsletter you will ever receive. You wouldn’t like that to happen, now, would you?)
 
MEMBERS
   Godfrey Olivier is back home recuperating from heart surgery, and is getting around the house fairly well. Not well enough to start working actively  on his genealogy, however, so don’t take him off your prayer list. Hurry back, Godfrey, we miss your smiling face at our meetings.
   Members Harold Joseph and Elaine Tregre Terracina announce the birth of their fifth grandchild Desi Marie Lasseigne on 20 December 1999 at 3:15 a.m. She is the daughter of Dale Alan and Dawn Marie Terracina Lasseigne of Bayou Blue. Desi weighed 7 lb. 11 oz. And was 20 ½ in. long. Welcoming her home was sister Delani Elvidge. Paternal grandparents are the late Wilton Joseph, Sr. and Elvidge Naquin Lasseigne.

SEMINARS
   The National Genealogical Society will present their Regional Conference on Saturday, 25 March 2000 (which just happens to be the same date as our meeting in March) in New Orleans. Scheduled to speak are Christine Rose, author and lecturer who specializes in on-site courthouse research throughout the United States. She also has experience in evidence analysis, military records, methodology and writing. Curt B. Witcher, manager of the Historical Genealogy Department of the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, specializes in research methodology and the use of library and government resources. Both are scheduled to speak at four different times during the day. Registration fees for NGS members is $40 and $50 for non-members. Saturday luncheon is $14.50. Contact NGS Regional Conference, 4527 17th Street North, Arlington, VA 22307-2399 or phone (800) 473-0060 for registration questions. E-mail <conference@ngsgenealogy.org> A few rooms have been blocked out at the Radisson Inn, New Orleans, 2150 Veterans Blvd. Mention the Conference when you call (504) 467-3111
   Good news for those who live in the Houston area and look forward to the biennial seminar hosted by the Houston Genealogical Forum. This year’s Spring Seminar will be held on Saturday, April 29, 2000, at the Scottish Rite Temple, 2900 N Braeswood, Houston, Texas. The featured speaker will be James L. Hansen, national lecturer recognized for his informative and entertaining presentations, as well as a noted genealogical instructor. We received an invitation for our society to reserve space to put up a table to recruit new members or display their genealogical publications and/or services at the Seminar. No mention is made of a fee for those attending the seminar for their own benefit, so we can’t tell you how much it will be. Perhaps we will get more information later. Watch this space. They did say that registration was from 8:00 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. No clue as to the time of the presentations.

COMPUTER CORNER
   One of the fun things about working on your genealogy is discovering relatives you didn’t know you had or restoring communication with those you haven’t seen or talked to in ages. You might hit it lucky and find the cousin that inherited the family album, or at least some pictures of great-grandma and great-grandpa. The computer, and an internet connection, will help you greatly in that area. If you lost contact with that cousin, but know the name and state, you will want to try the following search engines.
        http://people.yahoo.com or http://www. whowhere.lycos.com
   If you use a search engine for your research (and who has not done that?) you may be interested in  a site that explains the purposes and uses of almost all of the common search engines. The second site is called “Search Super Seek” and will open a browser window for each of the search engines that you choose, up to 12. That’s some serious searching.
        http://www.nni.com/search.html                    http://www.gogettem.com/
   After you’ve put together your electronic family history, you can preserve it on your hard drive, save it on disks -- or have it all transferred to CD-ROM. Family Dimensions is just one of many online companies that specialize in transferring computer files to CD-ROM. Basically anything that you can save on your hard drive (that’s digital photographs, family stories, video or audio recordings) can be stored on a CD. Fees vary. Try this location:  http://cyber-pages.com/fotoscan/
     They will label your CD with a thermal transfer CD printer so that you avoid the amateurish marking pens and the paper labels that could come off inside your CD drive. If someone you know has a Recordable CD-ROM drive, that person might be able to transfer the files, but few individuals have the CD printer. This company will also scan your photos and documents, even digitally repairing and/or restoring your old photographs. They will provide a new photo negative from the repaired digital image and you can store that in a safe place, using it to produce a new photograph any time you wish.
   You may have seen the warning in a popular advice column in your local newspaper concerning photographs produced by color printers. As beautiful as these photos are, they do not last as long as photographs produced by the photographic process on good photo paper. Those color printer inks are not permanent. So, if you want to preserve your pictures, the advice column suggested you have a photo negative made at a photo store, and put it in a safety deposit box or other safe place. I would think that a CD is almost as good. However, I worry that our technology will advance so much that the old programs and formats will be superseded and forgotten in 20 or so years. What do you think?

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