Honolulu County Genealogical Society Blog

Honolulu County Genealogical Society Oct 8, 2022

Oct 8, 2022 Zoom Meeeting

MONTHLY ZOOM MEETING OF THE HONOLULU COUNTY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY

Present: Janice Choat-Zavaval, Isabelle Rivera, Lenore Hansen-Stafford, Deborah Richards, Ellen

Schneider and Donna Wendt

Meeting was begun around 9:05 a.m.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Funeral service for member Trisha Robertson will be held on October 20, 2022 at St. John Vianney

Catholic Church, 940 Keolu Dr., Kailua, 10:30 a.m. Burial will follow at Hawaiian Memorial Park. More information will be posted by Donna Wendt on the HCGS blog site.

Rose Mary Thompson, wife of our past president, Stanley Yon, passed on August 15, 2022, in Atlanta, GA. Her service will be held at the Church of the Holy Nativity, 5286 Kalaniana’ole Highway, Aina Haina, 10 a.m. Inurnment will take place at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl).

James Case, husband of former member, Suzanne Case, passed away on September 21, 2022 at the

amazing age of 102. His services will be held at Central Union Church on October 30, 2022, 3:30 p.m.

We send Susan Victor prayers and best wishes for a speedy recovery of a back injury she sustained in

her home in Michigan. Her healing will be a slow and patient process but Susan seemed in good spirits.

She bravely joined our meeting for a shortened period and we admired her positive attitude.

OLD BUSINESS:

The topic of downsizing was brought up in the September 2022 meeting.

Donna Wendt shared on her ongoing goal to do just that – downsize. Currently she has been working on paring down her collection of books. She shared photos of books presented by her parents to each

other. These and other sentimental books, as well as favorite photos, will be kept and treasured, but

others are being sorted for giving away or donating.

For quite some time, Donna has been working on downloading individual photos and photos of

scrapbook pages on her Epson Fast Photo 680 wireless scanner. Sort your photos, removing the ones

you wish to store. Scan them into your computer.

Donna recommends running any favorite photos a second time with a higher resolution. Higher

resolutions will provide clearer copies, especially if enlarging, if you decide to print these photos. Now

you are ready to sort again. Choose which originals to keep, offer to family or friends, or discard.

Donna and Deborah Richards have stored hard copies in family folders, as well as in their computers.

Another source to load photos into is the Family Tree Maker program.

Donna cannot remind us often enough to always backup your computer files! Purchase a solid state

external hard drive. Look into Backblaze (a backup of your external hard drive) for additional source of

storage. Flash Drives are fine, but they are not a permanently secure product.

Donna has a lot of travel data. She found that the Friends of the Library of Hawaii do not want travel

guides older than 3 years, nor in worn condition. They also do not accept video (VHS) tapes and audio

tapes. Goodwill and Salvation Army still accept VHS tapes.

If you have LP records in good condition, try taking them down to Hungry Ear in Kaka’ako to see what they would offer you. FLH, Salvation Army and Goodwill also accept vinyl records.

Deborah Richards commented on the difficulty of downsizing as almost everything we collect has

meaning. We want to view our collections with the purpose of carrying on our personal, and our

family’s, histories.

PRESENTATION - Research Tips in Scotland by Donna Wendt:

The site to go to for beginners of genealogy research is Cyndi’s List, cyndislist.com. A site containing a

wealth of topics and advice as one starts their search for ancestors.

Specific sites for Scottish research –

nrscotland.gov.uk - National Records of Scotland

scotlandsplaces.gov.uk - historical resources relating to places throughout Scotland

scotlandspeople.gove.uk – good subscription site to search for vital records such as birth, death and

marriage

nls.uk - National Library of Scotland

Other sites to search on –

Familysearch.com ,

Findmy past.co.uk,

My Heritage.com,

Facebook groups (private & public),

FamilytreeDNA.com – This site consists of groups overseen by an administrator and co-administrators.

To request to join a group you simply email the administrator.

Search subscription sites for groups with a knowledge base of Scottish heritage.

Webinars are great learning tools. Numerous webinars are on YouTube. Legacy webinars are available

on www.familytreewebinars.com, example: “Who Were the Scots-Irish?” First time users can view a

few for free. A yearly subscription costs $49.95.

Donna did a story on a blog of her 2-time great-grandfather, Joshua Wallace. After reading Donna’s

blog, a Mike Donavan contacted her. He had in his possession a daguerreotype photograph of Joshua

Wallace with his second wife, Rebecca. In comparing the photograph with a crayon drawing Donna had

of Joshua Wallace she surmised that it was a match. Mr. Donavan chose to keep the daguerreotype but

Donna was able to obtain a copy of the photo.

In 2012 Donna experienced a memorable heritage trip to Scotland.

Relative, Larry Akin, directed Donna to visit the Scottish Genealogy Society Family History Center in

Edinburgh. At the center Donna met a most hospitable hostess, Ms. Ann King. Ms. King treated Donna

to a tasty lunch of Leek Spinach Tart with a tall glass of Scotch. A Google Images search provided Donna with the identity of the café, The Hub, formerly The Assembly Hall and Talbooth Church, Castlehill. After the meal Ms. King took Donna on a little tour of the area. Donna continued exploring the city with a visit to St. Margaret’s Chapel at Edinburgh Castle. Donna again used Google Images to identify a character on impressive stained glass window. This image turned out to be Sir William Wallace (depicted in the Braveheart movie). Sir Wallace was one of the main leaders in the First War of Scottish Independence. Donna is a descendent of Sir Wallace. Donna continued her journey with a visit to the North East Scottish city of Aberdeen. Sites visited were the Aberdeen Train Station, the offshore oil rigs and the Aberdeen & North-East Scotland Family History Society. One disappointment, Donna was looking forward but unable to meet an Aberdeen Angus (small beef cattle).

CALABASH BOWL:

Money Saving Tip: Amazon Prime & Netflix offer family plans. You can save on fees by joining with a relative who is already paying for the service. Partner up and share fees or find a relative who is willing to add you to their plan for free.

Deborah has been searching for a projector for presentations of her converted video files. She desires

to show videos, not on a computer or television screen, but on a larger scale, projecting larger images

for her family to view. Suggestions included asking Best Buy’s Geek Squad and searching Amazon Prime.

With the remaining time we had an impromptu practice session was initiated to see if remaining

members were able to participate on screen sharing. Lenore enabled “Share Screen” > clicked on the green “share”. The people who now has the share screen feature > minimized the zoom screen > brought up their computer file(s) to share. Clicking on the red “stop share” to end. Practice was a success as everyone was able to participate on the share screen. To learn more, view tutorials on zoom.us.

Our next meeting will be on Saturday, November 12, 2022, 9:00 a.m.

If you do not receive Lenore’s Zoom meeting notice or have a problem connecting onto the link she

attaches to her email, go directly onto the Zoom website, enter our ID number, 83224651197; and then

the password, DNA. If you have problems logging into the meeting, contact Lenore at (808) 341-0766.

Meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.

(minutes by Bella Rivera)