GFO's WRITERS' FORUM

Hello Aspiring Writers,

The Writers' Forum will meet on Saturday, November 12th, from 11:45 a.m.
until
1:45 p.m. at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon. We meet the second Saturday of each month.

Everyone is welcome, whether you have participated before or not. This is your chance to get started writing or improve your writing, whether you are writing for yourself or for others.

We learn about good writing techniques -- write and read what we write to each other. Without exception, everyone who has participated in this group over the last seven years writes better than they did when they started.

This year we are working with Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer published by Little, Brown and Company in 2006.
Each year we work with a book, but this particular book has been the most helpful of any book we worked with. Now we are working more specifically on language and at this meeting we will be working with Tool 25 Workshop:
"Learning the Difference Between Reports and Stories."

Bring your lunch if you would like.

Peggy

GFO ILLINOIS INTEREST GROUP

This Saturday, November 12, is the next Illinois Interest meeting.
All are welcome to attend. We think you will all learn something this month!
The meeting begins at 9:30 at the GFO on 12th and Division. (Don¹t go to the
old place!)
The meeting will be done by 11:30.
You will go home with more knowledge, more understanding, and a good
handout to help you learn even more.
Don Finel, assisted by Harlene Patterson, will be your leaders this month.
And you will have learned a lot about the lives of many one, or more, of your ancestors.

The group hopes you will join them!

Kristy, Don, and Harlene

"Random Acts Of Kindness" Offline For Now

A sad bit of news today: I received the following message from Bridgett Schneider, the Administrator of Random Acts of Genealogy Kindness (RAOGK):
RAOGK has been around with our volunteers helping other genealogists get copies of documents required to prove your lineage back to Adam and Eve (giggle). Pictures of your ancestors' tombstones were also high on the lists of requests. I hope everyone got as much service as we were able to give.
Our heart is saddened that we will be offline for quite awhile. Between computer problems (harddrive turning to toast) and the health of the administrator very questionable ... RAOGK, after 11 years, will cease to exist for awhile

Bridgett Schneider
RAOGK Administrator

JEWISH GENEALOGY

The National Archives holds over　ten BILLION original documents, created by over five hundred federal agencies.　 These documents are just waiting there to be an important part of your historical project, lesson plan, or family history research project.　Thousands of documents are related directly to　Jewish history.　 The National Archives is working DAILY to make all　records more available by placing document descriptions AND digital images online.　 Come learn how to find them.
guest speaker: Carol Buswell, Education Specialist with NARA in Seattle

Date:　　Tuesday, November 15, 2011Time:　　7:00 pm PLEASE NOTE that this program will start at 7. Please come earlier to schmooze.
Place:　 Ahavath Achim, 3225 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland, OR 　 　
Cost: Free to members, $5 for non-members. New members are invited to join at sign-in.
For more information contact Barbara Hershey, President/Program Chair at jgsoregon@gmail.com or 503-249-1976. The JGSO website has information about the organization and genealogy tools
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orjgs/.

Heritage Scrapbooking, Nov 6, 2011.

We don't usually have any topic, but because attendance is down, I've put together a little program on Heritage Scrapbook Themes for our November meeting as follows:

If you have been wanting to get started with scrapbooking your heritage photos, but are having trouble knowing how to start, consider creating an album centered around a specific theme. What theme? Stop by on November 6th at 1 p.m. and we'll discuss some different themes and how they might work for your family and photos.

Hope to see you there.
Bonnie LaDoe

GFO COMPUTER GROUP-SATURDAY, OCT.15TH

The newly revived Computer Special Interest Group will be having its first meeting this Saturday October 15th starting at 9:30 and going till 11:30 AM. We have decided that the first series of meetings will focus on popular genealogical programs. For this meeting Daphne Garrison, co-leader, will present Family Tree Maker. The program runs on both Mac and Windows operating systems keeping the same look and navigation properties. Daphne will be using her Mac for the presentation. A new version of the program has been released and some of the added features will be shown. In the future other software we will me investigating will be PAF (February '12), Reunion (April '12), Legacy, Roots Magic, (no presenters yet) and The Master Genealogist (when the publisher releases version 8).

Following the presentation, if time allows, will be a question/answer period where attendees can ask general computer type questions. You may or may not get an answer, but it's worth a try!

After the Computer SIG meeting and a break for lunch, the Master Genealogist Software Users will have their meeting starting about Noon and going till 1:30. There is no structured presentation scheduled, so we will be discussing general techniques, discoveries and problem solving.

We are excited to again have a computer interest group. Computers are becoming more important in our lives and knowing how to harness their potential can help us all. We hope the meetings that will follow can provide good information for harnessing that power.

Please join us for the first meeting. We would like your input for subject matter of future meetings.

Daphne Garrison,
Roger Ostrom...coordinators

OCTOBER PAF MEETING

The October meeting of the Portland Area PAF Users Group will host two classes. John Rudnick will present “It’s all Been Done”. Richard Halliday will present “new.FamilySearch for Everyone”. The newFamilySearch facility is now in the process of being opened to the public. See what is available and how to register to use it.
This meeting will be held at 9:00 am this coming Saturday, 15 October 2011 at the usual meeting place; the chapel located at 1271 SW Overlook Drive, Lake Oswego, OR 97035. It is across the street from Lakeridge High School.