Oak Hill Cemetery Cannons

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Both cannons
at Oak Hill Cemetery (Evansville, Indiana)
have been restored and returned to the Civil War grave site section! One was restored some time back, but the other one was just brought back looking great this month.

Cemetery Superintendent Chris Cooke has gotten both of these cannons back in good shape again (actually, excellent shape). Chris said there is still a lot of work to do to get the cannons set-up like he wants them for next years 150th. Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.

Photos taken (via cell phone) & submitted by Chris Cooke

THE CAPTAIN'S LOG –TSGS News

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TSGS prepares for 2010-11...

At last night's monthly meeting we had more business than normal, we voted to provide the Book Acquisition Committee another $200 to make a total of $2,200 for purchasing research materials for the genealogical collection at Willard Library. We will be joining Willard in its "Tree Tops" workshop for this fall. We will be financing the cost of the speaker for this free event. Mary Lou Bevers & John West were appointed to serve as liaisons with Lyn Martin for the workshop. Another appointment made was Terry Winchester as the Official TSGS Webmaster... he will be adding more information that will benefit members & the genealogical community - I am pleased to have him "onboard!"

Karin Marie Kirsch was elected to complete the term of office for Recording Secretary that was vacant due to a resignation (our fiscal year ends on 31 June 2010). It was announced that Hal Kasper had passed away on 01 May 2010 and as is the custom of TSGS any member officially announced as being deceased a book fund may be collected to purchase a book in that person's name. A small amount was donated during the meeting from 2 members.

Vannetta McDowell asked for volunteers to help fold the remainder of 2,300 flyers for Midnight Madness which included our TSGS Membership Renewal Notice (our regular TSGS Web Page has a printable form available, as well). About 8-10 people folded them during the meeting and got the job done! Thanks to each volunteer, these should go out by Friday of this week!

The society voted to start our TSGS meetings for 2010-11 to begin at 7PM instead of 7:30PM which will help us get out of the library by 8:30PM for the Willard Staff to secure & lock-up the building.

Election of Officers & Directors was conducted with the following elected:
President - John G. West
Vice-President - Doug Korb
Treasurer - Bettie Cook
Recording Secretary - Karin Marie Kirsch
Corresponding Secretary - Sue Hebbeler
Program Chair - Becky West
Membership Chair - Don Pierce
Packet Editor - Brenda Legate

Board Directors ~
Larry Goss, Rena Goss, Janet Mann, Gloria Strott, Mary Lou Bevers, Don Counts.

Congratulations to each and a special "Thank You!" for serving. At the June 8th. meeting the newly elected officers will be installed.

John G. West, TSGS President

THE CAPTAIN'S LOG –TSGS News

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Tonight!

The May monthly membership meeting will be tonight (11 May 2010 ~ second Tuesday of the month).

Join us at Willard Library. Invite a friend! You do not need to be a member.

7:30 p.m. Regular Meeting (Election of Officers & Directors).
Discussion Groups (choose one):
(A) TECH TALK (computers, photography, etc.) led by Larry Goss;
(B) WILLARD LIBRARY COLLECTION & SERVICES, led by Lyn Martin;
(C) PITFALLS led by Mary Lou Bevers.

John G. West, TSGS President

THE CAPTAIN'S LOG –TSGS News

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Tomorrow Night!

The May monthly membership meeting will be 11 May 2010 (second Tuesday of the month).

Join us at Willard Library. Invite a friend! You do not need to be a member.

7:30 p.m. Regular Meeting (Election of Officers & Directors).
Discussion Groups (choose one):
(A) TECH TALK (computers, photography, etc.) led by Larry Goss;
(B) WILLARD LIBRARY COLLECTION & SERVICES, led by Lyn Martin;
(C) PITFALLS led by Mary Lou Bevers.

John G. West, TSGS President

Happy Mother's Day 2010

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Happy Mother's Day to Mom & her mothers!


How should a genealogist remember Mom on Mother's Day? Well, in my case, Mom is not with me any longer - she died on 01 Oct 1997 with me and my two brothers watching her heart monitor in the hospital. It was a very important moment in my life, a life in which she gave me! She was very important to me in my development growing up. She gave me courage and confidence in myself when I was scared and so unsure of my abilities or what I wanted to do. I think most mom's are like my Mom was to me. Her name was Bernadine Long, the daughter of Mary Myrtle Wood (my grandmother).

I am not sure exactly how my Mom felt about her mother, but I know that grandma was there when Mom needed love and encouragement. Mom loved and respected her mother through the many great stories Mom told me about her mother. Grandma's mother was Donna Isabella Mays. Donna died when Grandma was just a little over 10 years old (Donna was only 33 when she died). My Great Grandmother Donna Isabella Mays' mother was Susan Apalone Lewis who lived to be 83 years old! Susan's mother, sadly died from complications from giving birth to Susan. This mother gave the ultimate for her child and her name was Margaret Mattingly. I have not, yet, learned what her mother's name was. So, that is the end, for now, of the mothers of my Mom. Without these generations of mothers my Mom would not have been born (nor would I) and I would have never known the greatest Mom in the world! Happy Mother's Day Mom. I love you and miss you, Mom!

- Written by JGWest in memory of my Mom

"Do You Have a Popular Surname?" - Just for Fun

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How Popular is Your Surname?

Back when I was giving my live demonstrations of my favorite genealogical sites on the Internet, for fun (and to add a break to get everyone involved), I would go to this site called Hamrick's U.S. Surname Distribution based on the U.S. Census reports. This site is still online at http://www.hamrick.com/names/ . The site would show a sliding scale of color according to the number of your surname as compared to others and this would be shown on the U.S. state map with each state having the distribution color. If the colors were mostly blues in the map your surname is not a common one, while on the other end if the map was mostly red or orange, it was a common name.

I just learned of another site on Eastman's blog Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter This one is on PublicProfiler.org and shows some different data about surnames and their popularity. For example some of my ancestors were named FLATT not a very common name... in the world the frequency of the name was only 18.9 per million surnames. The neat thing is that of the top five cities with the largest concentration of Flatt's the one in the U.S. is Cookeville, Tennessee - which is the area where my Flatt's lived! Here is this surname site:
http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/

Check them out... you might learn something about your family!

- Compiled by JGWest

"How to Spot an Email Hoax!"

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As we travel along our journey to find our ancestors, most of us are going to begin using the Internet to help us make connections with distant relatives, find some documents/photos, read U.S. Census & other records published online. We will decide to subscribe to email lists, maybe get a paid subscription to Ancestry.com or some other commercial genealogical organization. We will often get involved with all sorts of things on the Internet: FaceBook, Twitter, Blogs, Websites... we may even volunteer to be a County Coordinator for the USGenWeb Project. We will begin to get quite a few emails daily including junk mail, generally called "spam." Sooner or later (mostly sooner), you will start getting messages from well meaning people warning you of the latest disasters which generally are mostly false if not totally untrue. You will get messages that urge you to forward whatever message to everyone in your mailbox... some will even state that good fortune or bad luck will happen if you send it off (or not forward it) within a short time span. Most if not all are hoaxes based on rumors or partial truth - often total falsehoods!

I found a nice short (about 2 minutes) video "How to Spot an Email Hoax!" by Jonathon E. Stewart http://video.about.com/urbanlegends/Spotting-E-mail-Hoaxes.htm?nl=1

This is on About.com: Urban Legends. Another great site to check possible hoaxes is Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/

Before you forward a message to everyone you know... it might be wise to check and see if it is valid. There is nothing worse than one of your friends proving that you were a big, gullible fool passing on false information. Sadly, from then on you are guilty of spreading hoaxes. Remember to just think a little... if it sounds unbelievable, it probably is false! Most of these messages are designed to damage a person's reputation (usually for political purposes). It amazes me that too many genealogists will forward on these hoaxes without checking for documentation. There are a lot of family history hoaxes that you need to track down & prove or dis-prove before you pass it along to others. Your reputation hinges on passing along information that is as factual as reasonably expected... not just because you want it to be true or worse that you suspect it to not be true, but wish to pass it along anyway!

-Compiled by JGWest