Next meeting: Saturday, January 27, 2007
Main Branch Library, Houma, LA 1:00 p.m.
QUARTERLY COLLATING
We REALLY need your help, this time, no fooling.
Several of our members are seriously incapacitated and will have to stay
home. So WE NEED YOU!!!
We will start at a little after 12 noon on
Thursday, 25 January, 2007, at the North Branch meeting room. BE THERE!!!
P.S. If a lot of helpers show up, we could
finish in record time, and you can take a copy home with you to read right
then.... and a good time was had by everyone at the Christmas Social. I’m
sure. I know I did. We had a short (absurdly so) business meeting, introduction
of guests, and lots of refreshments and gifts (not necessarily in that
order). I particularly want to note that some of our guests made a special
effort to attend our 25th anniversary celebration. I distinctly remember
seeing Wilma B. BOUDREAUX, Ledora S. HERNANDEZ and her husband, Juan, Jim
and Judy COGSWELL, and I enjoyed listening to their reminiscences of how
things were done “in those early days of the society.” We owe all those
early members a debt of gratitude, for it is largely because of the work
that they did that our society has the respect that it has today. You can
contribute, too, if you wish. Tell us what you need and how we can help
you “do your genealogy.” What kind of articles do you need in our quarterly?
Let us publish your memoirs and your research. Have you traced a family
back to Acadia, England or France? Send your thoughts and ideas to our
quarterly editor, Audrey WESTERMAN, at the address of the society, above.
Or email her at the following address: awesterman at mobiletel.com. She
will be glad to hear from you, I guarantee. And she just loves queries.
No matter how long you have been looking for someone, don’t give up on
your queries. Audrey told me that she found a query online that had been
there since 2002, waiting for a response, and just this week was able to
send the person an answer. Submit that query or queries. The more the better.
But make sure the query gives everything you know about the person being
researched.
Speaking of the beginning of the society,
be sure to check out Vol. 1, No. 1 of the newsletter, noting the enthusiasm
of those early days. Have we lost some of that drive? Don’t get confused,
now. The information is twenty-five years old. Your dues are different,
now (Surprise, surprise!).
And speaking of dues, it is time to check
your mailing label to see if you need to renew your membership. On the
first line is the mailing code: MS, 5-3, 4-C. 6-C. etc. tells the volunteers
how to sort the newsletters to please the U.S. Postal workers. Next is
the type of membership: Complementary, Contributing, Exchange quarterly,
Family, Individual, Lifetime or Library. The last item on the top line
is EX2/07 and/or EX2/08 which tells you when your membership expires. If
you see 07 then your membership expires at the end of February, 2007.
And, of course, 08 means February 2008. I hope I don’t have to tell you
that February 2007 is next month. So, if you want to keep receiving this
scintillating newsletter and our fabulous quarterly, Terrebonne Life Lines,
you have to make sure your label says EX2/08 by sending in your dues. Which
are: $25 for an individual, $30 for families. Check out the enclosed application
blank for the latest and best information.
DEATH: It is with a heavy heart that I report the passing of
a good friend and faithful charter member of our society. Dorothy NAQUIN
SMITH died Friday, December 1, 2006. She was 83, a native of Gray, LA,
and a resident of Schriever, LA. Dorothy was buried in St. Bridget Catholic
Church Cemetery, after services in the church. She is survived by one son,
William SMITH, Jr.; two daughters, Ananell BRACY and Phyllis SMITH; one
brother, Donald NAQUIN; three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband, William R. SMITH; her parents,
O’Neil and Jeanne PREJEAN NAQUIN; one granddaughter, Jodie BANAS; one brother,
O’Neil NAQUIN Jr.; and one sister, Ann NAQUIN ROBINSON.
TERREBONNE PARISH LIBRARY: Do you want to learn how to use the new
equipment? Specifically the ST200 Scanner. It works through the computer
that is placed against the wall to the right as you enter the Genealogy
Department. It can scan books and other printed material, and besides that,
can copy from microfilm. It makes a digital copy, so whatever you do with
a digital copy, you can (eventually) do with this. Make a hard (printed)
copy, email it to yourself at home, or to another researcher, put it on
a portable memory device, like a floppy disk or a USB flash drive.
I purposely said “eventually” because the
email and printer have yet to be set up, as of this writing. But I’m excited
about the flash drive. If you use a computer, you may want to get one of
these, anyway. They are available pretty much anywhere, now: Office Depot,
Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Target. I found some good bargains at the last
two places: 512MB for $13.99 and $9.99; 1.0GB 2-pack for $37.99. Should
I explain that MB and GB are measurements of storage space? You may already
know that a regular 3.5-inch floppy can hold a little over 1MB (1.44MB,
to be exact), so a flash drive that can hold 512MB will hold as much as
355 floppies. A flash drive with 1.0 GB of space can hold as much as 1000MB
— like two of the 512MB drives or 694 floppies. About names: people call
them different things: Target calls them “USB Drives,” imation (a manufacturer)
calls them “Flash Drives,” Sony calls theirs “Micro-Vault Tiny — Lexar
Jump Drives,” Memorex “Travel Drive,” SanDisk “Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drive.”
Depending on your expected use, you shouldn’t need a very big one, (They
are all small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.) (I’m referring to capacity.)
somewhere in the range of 64 to 256MB should be plenty big enough unless
you want to download music or graphics. Some of the files from the scanner
ran in the 0.5MB to 1.0MB range. Of course, if you can afford it, go as
big as you can.
Back to the subject: learning how to use the
equipment: Darryl ESCHETE, Reference Librarian, has kindly offered to give
instruction on the ST200 to our members on Tuesday evenings January 23
and January 30 at 5:30 in the Genealogy Department. It should take less
than an hour, depending on questions, of course. After this month, we will
see about individual training for volunteers from our society.
LOUISIANA GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY SEMINAR: Mark your
calendar: Saturday, 14 April 2007 is the date; Holiday Inn South, 9940
Airline Hwy., Baton Rouge 70816 (Airline at I-12) is the place. John A.
SELLERS, nationally known speaker, and a specialist in courthouse research
in Texas and Louisiana will give four presentations. Full details are available
at http://www.rootsweb.com/~la-lghs/
Members registering before April 1, 2007: $30. Non-members & members
registering after April 1: $35. Attendees will have to find lunch elsewhere.
Baton Rouge has plenty of good places to eat. A block of rooms has been
reserved at a special conference rate. Contact Holiday Inn directly at
1-800-HOLIDAY (or 225-924-7021 during business hours). |