Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting - May 8, 2008
President, Robert Ridenour, called the
meeting to order.
Reports:
Publications Chairman Barbara Hitch reported
that the Ten Year Stalker Index, 1991-2000, is complete; and we will be taking
orders for either a printed copy for $35-40 or a copy on CD for about $10. The
final costs are yet to be determined. The ordering information will be in the
next issue of the Newsletter.
Librarian/Researcher Elsie Wasser reported that we had received two more
volumes (Vols. VI and VII) of The History of Bunker Hill by
Carl Stanton. She also reported that she had heard from Shirley Daiber
who has finished her book on the life of Eulogis Leidle of Marine, Illinois,
and we should be receiving a copy soon.
Elsie reported that she has completed the recording of the death records of St.
Cecilia's Catholic Church of Glen Carbon. A copy will appear in a future issue
of The Stalker.
Elsie also asked for volunteers to assist in inventorying the Buck Road
Cemetery on Illinois Route 162. She hopes to do the inventory this spring,
weather permitting. No date has been set as yet.
We had a new member join at this month's meeting, Mary Ann Bonneville, from
Maryville, Illinois. She is researching Benda, Drda, Krouse, Scheibal, and
Tryska in Madison County.
One guest was present at this meeting, our speaker, Cathie Lamere from Hayner
Public Library in Alton, Illinois.
Cathie's presentation was a short
description of the new Digital Alton Telegraph, which replaces the old
microfilm version. She talked about the contents every page of the newspaper
from 1836 through about six months of the current date. The digitization trails
the printed version by about six months. She showed examples of the quality of
prints available from the digitized version as compared to prints from the
microfilm version. The copies from the Digital Telegraph are orders of
magnitude clearer than those from the microfilm.
The Digital Alton Telegraph is available on almost every public accessible
computer terminal in every Hayner Library Branch. It is, however, not available
outside of the library.
The search capabilities for the Digital Telegraph are very powerful. Searches
can be performed by word (or combination of words), date, range of dates, etc.
If you wish, you can browse page by page.
Assistance with the Digital Alton Telegraph is available from Cathie and her
staff at the main library branch form 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday.
Other library staffers do not yet have much experience with the new system.
After this
presentation, we had a workshop type question and answer session where those
present had opportunities to ask questions about any research they were doing
or problems they were experiencing, etc. Those people present then would
attempt to come up with answers to the questions or advice concerning any
problems. The participation in this part of the meeting was very good.