POINTers In Person
Chapter 15
Northern New Jersey

P.O. Box 636
Totowa, New Jersey

 
Albert Marotta (#1018)
The Northern New Jersey  chapter of POINTers In Person met at the Elmwood Park Municipal Building on May 5, 2001.  Nineteen people attended.

Annita Zalenski (#39) opened the meeting by asking the Nominating Committee to revise the slate of officers.  The Nominating Committee named the following officers, who were approved by the members:
    President   Annita Zalenski (#39)
    Vice President   Maria Carparelli (#2100)
    Treasurer   Maryann Graham (#3654)
    Recording Secretary  Al Marotta (#1018)
    Corresponding Secretary Anthony Desiderioscioli
    Membership Chairperson Maria Carparelli (#2100)

Lillian Pappas (#2717) presented the treasurer’s report.  The chapter has 51 members, however only 30 people have kept their membership dues current.

Two presentations concerning the recording and organization of genealogical research using two different computer programs were given.  Both presentations featured informative handouts and used an overhead projector to show examples.

Maria Carparelli (#2100) gave a detailed overview of the Reunion program.  Her expertise was apparent.  Reunion  is a family tree software program.  Sierra On-line currently sells Reunion for Windows; however Leister Productions continues to own, develop and sell Reunion for Macintosh.  For details contact http://LeisterPro.com.  This software gives the user the ability to create reports, charts and to publish, as well as import and export various files.

Among the reports the user can create are:

 

The Person Sheet (lists information about only one person)

Family Group Sheet (shows information about one immediate family)

Family History Report (begins with one couple and moves forward in time, includes descendants of thesource couple and information about each descendant)

Register Report (a narrative paragraph is created for each person, beginning with a selected  couple and including all descendants up to a chosen number of generations.  Each  descendant is assigned a unique number.  The entire report is divided by generations)

Ahnentafel Report (a narrative-style report that begins with one person and moves backwards  in time.  Each ancestor is assigned a unique ahnentafel number.)

Tiny Tafel Report (contains general information about family lines, but no source data)

    Annita Zalenski (#39) gave an enthusiastic presentation on Family Tree Maker, using research about her own family as examples.  There are many versions of Family Tree Maker.  For details contact www.familytreemaker.com.

Depending on the version you use, the user can create:
 

Hou Color Coding  (creates trees that are much easier to read, using different shades to  distinguish individual tree boxes by gender or generation)rglass Tree (displays both ancestors and descendants together in one tree)

Book Layout Tree (neatly splits large family trees onto as many standard-size pages as it  takes, labeling each split with the page number where that branch is continued)

Fan Tree (displays ancestors or descendants in an expanding circle around a primary individual)

All-in-One Tree (displays everybody in your Family Files, related or not)

Expanding Facts & Events (records unlimited amount of information about individuals, including conflicting information)

Historical Timelines (shows each ancestor’s life span as a bar that’s graphed     horizontally across the decades of time and landmark events)

Interactive Research Journal (helps user record, categorize, sort and update research)

Color Coding  (creates trees that are much easier to read, using different shades to   distinguish individual tree boxes by gender or generation)

Custom Report Sorting (chooses any two columns and sorts each line of a report in  chronological or alphabetical order)

Reference Numbers (makes it easier to identify individuals and marriages)

Online Family Finder Reports (scours Internet for references to individuals in your Family File)

Sources Database (keeps track of details about your research sources in a computerized file)

Relationship & SOUNDEX Calculators (gives clues into individuals’ kinship and variations on their names)

Privacy Mode (creates printouts without including the private data of living relatives)

Foreign Language Form Letters

Family Maps

Data Errors Report (alerts user to potential mistakes, especially date impossibilities)

Family Finder Center (gives access to vast genealogical resources from CD to Internet, in one  place)

Family Finder Index (references a World Family Tree CD, whick links people tracing the same  family lines)

Family Books (automatically assembles the user’s choice of text, trees, reports, photos, etc into  one document with Table of Contents and Index)

Annita likes this last feature the best and showed the members the impressive fruits of her publishing efforts.

We hope to have John Celardo, from the National Archives, speak about the 1930 U.S. Census at our next meeting.  Future meetings will be held on August 4, 2001, November 3, 2001, February 2, 2002, and May 4, 2002.

 For details, see our website: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~njpoint/

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