Begat Chat

I have decided to join the Placer County Genealogical Society, now that I live in California. The cost is only $10 a year and they offer monthly evening meetings, monthly day study meetings, and a monthly User's Group for Family Tree Maker. I'm not sure that I'll take advantage of all these meetings, but I am very excited to start off my first meeting tonight by hearing from Stephen P. Morse - The One-Step Website guy. Here is the advertisement for the meeting tonight featuring Mr. Morse.

August Evening Meeting - Thursday, August 24, 2006 7:00 pm

Stephen Morse
One-Step Webpages: A Potpourri of Genealogical Search Tools

The One-Step website started out as an aid for finding passengers in the Ellis Island database. Shortly afterwards it was expanded to help with searching in the 1930 census. Over the years it has continued to evolve and today includes over 100 web-based tools divided into twelve separate categories ranging from genealogical searches to astronomical calculations to last-minute bidding on e-bay. This presentation will describe the range of tools available and give the highlights of each one.

Stephen Morse is an amateur genealogist who has been researching his Russian-Jewish origins for the past few years. His websites on searching the Ellis Island database and the 1930 census have attracted attention worldwide. He was the recipient of the IAJGS Outstanding Contribution Award in 2003.

In his other life, Steve is a computer professional who has spent a career alternately doing research, development, teaching, consulting, and writing. He is best know as the designer of the Intel 8086 microprocessor (grandfather of today's Pentium processor) which sparked the PC revolution twenty years ago. He has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and still enjoys tinkering with electronics in his spare time.

I've been using Steve's website today trying to understand it better and there is really a lot of good information there. I've found a few birthdays for living people in my file using his Obtaining Birthdays in One-Step feature. His site makes it so easy to search different databases.

I look forward to hearing what he has to say tonight. And if you live in the area, come along!