Evansville's Oak Hill Cemetery Tour May 2013

Panoramic view of the crowd attending this interesting tour of Evansville's largest cemetery.

Dennis Au & Chris Cooke conducts this tour on an annual basis.

Click on the photo above for a larger image.

On the left side you can see Indiana Bones in the yellow shirt and hat.

Next to Indiana to the right in the blue blouse is Becky West.

On the other side of Indy in the red blouse is Deb Travers.

Many TSGS members were present: John & Becky West, Deb Travers, Sue Newcom, Irvin & Connie Conrad, Karin Kirsch, Kathy Wilson, plus at least 3 more.

DNA News

From Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

FamilyTreeDNA has offered the following announcement:

With the end of the DNA Day promotion, we (Bennett and Max), considered how to continue offering the best prices, yet keep control in the lab to avoid delays from high volume. Since demand is directly related to prices, we decided to implement a temporary price rollback whenever lab capacity allows us to do so.

Despite an extremely successful sale, we believe that with our increased lab capacity, we are able to continue offering reduced prices on several tests. While the prices are not as low as they were for the DNA Day promotion, you will notice that these temporary reductions are extremely attractive, and should be a real incentive to anyone that did not take advantage of the sale to order now, while the prices are reduced. With this system in place, prices may go up on different tests at any time based on lab volume.

Additionally, on April 1st when we permanently reduced the price of the Y-DNA12 to $49, we mentioned that our R&D team was working towards a price reduction for the equivalent mtDNA basic test. Good news! Not only did we manage to achieve this goal, but we did it for the mtDNAPlus test that covers both HVR1 and HVR2. Therefore, we're discontinuing the HVR1-only test. Our basic mtDNA test will now be the mtDNAPlus (HVR1+2) at the $49 price point! We hope that with the basic Y-DNA and mtDNA tests very reasonably priced, a whole new group of people will be tempted to begin their own DNA experience and increase the size of your projects!
You are welcome to spread the news, and as always, we thank you for your continued support.

(signed)
Max Blankfeld
Bennett Greenspan
Family Tree DNA

You can learn more at http://www.familytreedna.com/. 

West, Texas Explosion

Last week was a very bad week in the United States.  The Boston bombings and the fertilizer plant explosions in West, Texas will long be in our memories as a nation prayed for the families of those who died or were injured.  My family has a connection to the town of West, Texas.

Thomas Marion West was born November 5th, 1834 in Christian County, Kentucky. After moving to Texas he fought in the civil war becoming a Captain in the 19th Texas Cavalry Regiment. After the war he married Martha Jame Adams Steele in McLennan County, Texas. He was a farmer and later became the Postmaster at the Bold Springs train depot. The train depot was built on land originally owned by Thomas West. Later the depot with Thomas West as postmaster became known as the West Depot and in 1892 the area was incorporated as the town of West. Thomas West died on January 27, 1912 and is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Ross, Texas, about 5 miles south of West.

Thomas West was born in Christian Co., KY, the son of William Ellis West and Narcissa Stroud.  William Ellis West was a brother to my 3rd. great grandfather Jesse West, their father Charles H. West is a common ancestor for Thomas M. West and myself.  My 2nd. great grandfather was named for Thomas' father, William Ellis West.  He and Thomas M. West were first cousins.

Another son of Charles H. West was Thomas Allen West who also went to Texas settling in Denton County.

- Compiled by JGWest  [some of the above info was obtained from a web site supplied by Sandra Abbott yesterday http://www.west-tx.c­om/genealogy/ThomasWe­st/ including the grave marker photo (photo taken 7/5/2008 by bvm)... no contact info was available.]

TSGS Meeting Reminder!

TSGS (Tri-State Genealogical Society) Meeting Notice

When: Tuesday 09 April 2013 6:30 PM

Where: Willard Library – Bayard Room on the Second Floor

What: Monthly Meeting

A drawing for an attendance prize will be awarded at the close of the meeting... you must be present to
win.

The Tri-State Genealogical Society will have a brief business meeting followed by our program:

TSGS has announced that the program will feature Bettie Cook, CG.  She will present a workshop to help find wys to tear down "brick walls" in our genealogical research.  Please bring your brick walls to the meeting, Bettie will give you ways to knock holes in that wall and maybe even knock the whole thing down so you can continue your research back in time.

You do not have to be a member to come and participate at the society’s monthly meetings (except, no
meetings in July and August).

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This time of the year, weather conditions may cause the society to cancel
meetings... the decision to cancel usually is determined the day of the meeting, providing short notice.
Since a bad weather system may develop later in the day (or that night), check our blog (http://
tsgsblog.blogspot.com/) for cancellation notice or call Willard Library (812-425-4309).

Don Counts, TSGS President

Social Security Database - New Links

This from the KYGENWEB List:

Happy Easter everyone! One of our coordinators emailed me yesterday about
an email she received from Rootsweb/Ancestry. Wesley Exon is a content
marketing manager for RW and is trying to reach coordinators who have their
sites on RW. The Social Security database link has changed and he wants yo
to be aware of it! If you get an email from him, please answer! For the
rest of the coordinators (no matter where your site is), if you have a link
on your site to the SSI Database, please make sure the link is correct. The
new link is:  http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693


Thanks,
Suzanne Shephard
Assistant State Coordinator
KYGenWeb is part of the
USGenWeb Project

Just got this after posting the above!

FYI: RW's (Ancestry.com's) Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is no
longer free.  It was moved over to their subscriber's side many
months ago.  I believe they sited privacy concerns, if you can
believe that.  I changed my link to the SSDI at FamilySearch.org (
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535 ).  The main thing
that I miss is being able to search by exact birth or death dates;
with FamilySearch's SSDI database you can only specify by year or a
range of years.  There are a few other free SSDI databases out there,
but I found this one to be the most reliable and easy to use.

Brian K. Caudill
Malabar, FL

Special Memorial for Easter

A very special child who loved to swing and sing her favorite song "Jesus Loves Me."

Samantha Ann McDonald

Located in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville KY is the most beautiful monument for a sweet little child who loved Jesus.  Photos come from a great blog "Save A Grave" http://saveagrave.net/sami 

Go to Save A Grave for more and also visit

Find-A-Grave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=16477414

 The stone portion of this monument was designed by Terry Joy of Joy Monuments out of Louisville, KY. Tom White of Bethel, Maine was the sculptor of the bronze parts of the monument.

 "Sami"

 Visit Sam's Rock to learn about Sami and the work of her family to help others... http://www.samsrock.net/

The LORD is my ROCK - 2 Samuel 22:2

 Sami and Jesus

 A beautiful, innocent child swings with joy with Jesus!

 "This is a monument of Jesus holding the rope of a 3 year old Sami McDonald, who is swinging in a swing. They both have a smile and look like they are having a great time. Words to her favorite song “Jesus Loves Me” are etched into the granite rock. Along side her hand print are the hand prints of her Brother Jacob and her sister Becca."

"Jesus loves me, this I know... Let His little child come in... For the Bible tells me so!"

- Indiana Bones and the Tri-State Genealogical Society wishes everyone a very Happy Easter!

Reminder: TSGS Meeting Tonight

TSGS (Tri-State Genealogical Society) Meeting Notice

When: Tuesday 12 March 2013 6:30 PM

Where: Willard Library – Bayard Room on the Second Floor

What: Monthly Meeting

A drawing for an attendance prize will be awarded at the close of the meeting... you must be present to
win.

The Tri-State Genealogical Society will have a brief business meeting followed by our program:

TSGS has announced that the program will feature Rena Glover Goss. She has degrees in Music
Education from Muskingum University (Ohio) and Indiana University. She taught music for 27 years,
17 of those in Evansville and researched ancestors for over 50 years. Rena has written for musical
and genealogical journals. She has lived in Evansville since 1975. She is a member of TSGS and the
Association of Professional Genealogists. The title of her program is: Finding school records: Locating,
Accessing and Acquiring. Many of us have School Spirit and would like to know more about our school
and our classmates. We also wonder about our ancestors, what they did and what they accomplished in
school. This promises to be a program that you do not want to miss.

You do not have to be a member to come and participate at the society’s monthly meetings (except, no
meetings in July and August).

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This time of the year, weather conditions may cause the society to cancel
meetings... the decision to cancel usually is determined the day of the meeting, providing short notice.
Since a bad weather system may develop later in the day (or that night), check our blog (http://
tsgsblog.blogspot.com/) for cancellation notice or call Willard Library (812-425-4309).

Don Counts, TSGS President