Spanish American War Veterans Burial Project Database Completed!

We are pleased to announce the completion of another SLOCGS project! The Spanish American War Veterans Burials of the men who came to San Luis Obispo County and passed away there has finally been completed.

In addition, all of their names and military information has been sent to the The National Spanish American War Gravesite Recording Project so their names can be added to the database.

Visit the San Luis Obispo County, California, Spanish American War Veterans Burial site at http://www.slocgs.org/slosaw.htm.

A big thank you to project volunteers Joyce and Mary for their assistance with this project!

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

Volunteers Wanted for 5 October Meeting!

Attention genealogists and family history nuts: This is your chance to show off! Any member who would like to participate is welcome - see below for details.

October 5, 2013 Monthly Meeting

Fantastic Family Finds – Members of the San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society will describe the most amazing document or item of interest they have found in the past year and explain how they tracked it down.

Each participant will have 5 minutes to show their document, picture, or other item, and describe how it adds to their family history. Please consider that the "family find" can be something other than an official record. It could be a quilt, a baby dress, or even a published history. Each speaker should also give a brief explanation of how they found the item.

To volunteer, please contact Mary Hansen. Share your amazing discoveries!

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

Volunteer Opportunity: Mortuary Project

Once upon a time... early members of SLOCGS began a "Mortuary Project." We would now like to update and complete this project.

The current format is odd, and not at all user-friendly, but with a little concentration and typing it could be reformatted into a decent database. Items in the project date from the late 1890's to early 1900's.

Requirements:

• Time to devote to working on a few letters of the alphabet
• Spreadsheet software

If enough volunteers participate, the work can be split up and will get finished quickly. This project will be done at home, and spreadsheets with the data already on it will be sent as attachments and returned in the same format.

To participate, please contact Martha Graham, SLOCGS Projects & Publications Chairman.

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

Volunteer Opportunity: Pine Mountain Cemetery

SLOCGS has been given permission to photograph the headstones in the Pine Mountain Cemetery in Atascadero. Five people have already volunteered to work on this new project, but it would be nice to have a couple more.

Requirements: 1) a decent digital camera, 2) must live in north San Luis Obispo County or be willing to travel (with gas the way it is, it is preferable for volunteers to live over the Grade), 3) and time to do at least one section. 4) And be sure-footed; it is not called "Pine Mountain" because the land is flat!

Please note that the method of sending in images has changed. We will use the Dropbox system and a dual-pane file manager.

There will be a meeting on Tuesday April 3, 2012, in the San Luis Obispo Genealogical Library, 995 Palm Street in downtown San Luis Obispo, at 10:30 a.m. At that time, section assignments will be given out, and volunteers will view a demonstration on how to use the file manager.

Please consider joining this select group of volunteers. It is a great project, and the last large cemetery in the county to be photographed.

To volunteer, please contact Martha Graham, SLOCGS Projects & Publications Chairman.

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

Volunteer Opportunity: SLO Cemeteries/Headstones Database

Help is needed with updating the SLO Cemeteries/Headstones Database for Arroyo Grande District Cemetery.

The cemetery has already been photographed, but the existing database needs to be updated with the information from the headstones. This process is extremely tedious and requires the ability to focus on both the images and the parameters within the database.

Step-by-step instructions will be given, and it is important to understand the reasons behind them.

Please note that you will need to have a computer with photo-editing software, Microsoft Excel spreadsheeting software, and a DVD drive.

To volunteer or for more information, please contact Martha Graham.

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

Volunteer Opportunity: California Digital Newspaper Collection

Here's another volunteer opportunity for those of you who like to work from home in your pajamas: the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is looking for a bit of assistance. Please see the following notice to find out how you can help with this worthwhile project.

You just never know what you might find for your personal research while you're working!

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The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is pleased to announce the implementation of User Text Correction in its archive.

The CDNC is the largest, freely-accessible archive of California newspapers. The collection contains nearly 475,000 pages - and growing - ranging from 1846 to the present. It is available for searching at http://cdnc.ucr.edu. The project is managed and hosted by the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California, Riverside.

User Text Correction (UTC) allows individual users of the CDNC to correct computer-generated text. When newspapers are processed from microfilm or paper originals, optical character recognition (OCR) software is used to generate searchable text. This OCR text, however, is often not perfect, particularly for older newspapers. By correcting this OCR text, users improve the CDNC by making more of the text searchable for other users. The CDNC is the first digital newspaper archive in the US that we are aware of to offer user text correction. To learn more, see the help section of the CDNC.

The CDNC is over six years old and has been supported in part both by the National Digital Newspaper Program, a joint effort by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, and by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. The CDNC has also worked with local institutions around the state to digitize their newspapers, and has started a project to collect current PDFs from California publishers. Please contact us at cbsrinfo@ucr.edu for more information on both projects.

The User Text Correction tool is part of the Veridian software used to host the CDNC. Veridian is developed by DL Consulting and is used by a number of prominent libraries around the world, including the National Library of New Zealand, the Singapore National Library, Princeton, and Cornell. The CDNC is the first archive to make UTC available and has worked closely with DL Consulting on its development, including beta testing by a number of CDNC users.

CDNC users have already corrected thousands of lines of text. Help us make the CDNC a better archive for all, and experience for yourself how fun - and addictive - correcting OCR text can be.

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society

Volunteer Opportunity: Civil Cases Project

The San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society is recruiting volunteers for the Civil Cases Project.

This very interesting project is one that can be done at home in your pajamas during your "spare time." There is no specific time frame for completion, but the abstracting process goes quickly, so it does not take a huge block of time to complete a roll of film.

How it Works:

Files for abstracting will be sent to you as PDFs via Dropbox. Use of Dropbox requires a quick download and installation of the free software.

Pertinent data is abstracted and put into either an Excel spreadsheet or a Microsoft Word table. You will use a split or tiled screen so that you are reading the pages and entering the data at the same time using two separate programs.

Please consider joining this group of dedicated folks who wish to help preserve local data for researchers world-wide!

For more information, or to volunteer, please contact Projects Chairman Martha Graham.

Copyright by © San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society