CIG Notes

Thank you for completing the survey

Thanks to Program Committee: Gloria Church, Chuck Bliley, Jim Hall, Larry Naukam, and Larry Lavery

CIG Program Topics:

• GPSFTM

• Search AlternativesPC Maintenance

• Kodak Easy SharePhotoshop

• NEMGS Site reviewOCR

• Web site designGarage Sale/Q&A

• Moving movies & tapes to CD/DVD

CIG meetings are 2^nd Thursday of each month (September through June) except Nov 4, 2004 and May 6, 2005.

Jim Hall develops the monthly meeting notice for RGS and CIG. Paul Blake emails them and Jim posts them.

RGS budget deficit / Council Rock rental increasing.

We need to trim costs.

Email of notices will continue; postal mailings will stop.

Be sure Pat Mims has your email address!

Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Meet at Henrietta Plaza (Jefferson Rd. & East Henrietta Rd.)

Leave at 6 am return about 9:30 pm

Cost $30, minimum 30 participants

Sign up by September 16 ^th (RGS meeting)

Contact Bob Coomber: URL NOT shown here

Library website at www.nysl.nysed.gov

Archives website at www.archives.nysed.gov

Thursday, October 14, 2004

"Family Tree Maker for the intermediate and advanced user"

Over half of the CIG members have FTM. Paul Blake will show us how to take advantage of the many features built into this common genealogy program.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Mini-talk (7:00 pm):

• "Introduction to Genealogical Research" by Jim Swarts

Main talk:

• "Genealogical Resources of the New York State Library" by Vicki Weis

Satellite photos of the US and some international locations

• www.terraserver.com

Search on:

• Latitude/longitude coordinates

• City name

• ZIP code (5 + 4)

• County

• Address

Any current problems

Solutions to share

Larry Lavery

Rochester Genealogical Society

September 9, 2004

Some mapping basics

What is GPS

Genealogy and other uses

How to shop for a GPS

Demo - GNIS website, street map software

Questions

A GPS places your position on a flat map

Mercator is one example of a map projection

• map distortion causes errors

Coordinate Systems:

• Latitude / Longitude is the default

• UTM (Universe Transverse Mercator)

• many others

Map Datums - Mathematical models of the earth's shape

• WGS-84 is the default

• NAD-27 (most USGS maps)

• many others

Go to:

• http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  teacher/latlonarchive.html

The Space Segment, consists of 24 operational satellites in six circular orbits 20,200 km (10,900 NM) above the earth at an inclination angle of 55 degrees with a 12 hour period. The satellites are spaced in orbit so that at any time a minimum of 6 satellites will be in view to users anywhere in the world. The satellites continuously broadcast position and time data to users throughout the world.

The Control Segment consists of a master control station in Colorado Springs, with five monitor stations and three ground antennas located throughout the world. The monitor stations track all GPS satellites in view and collect ranging information from the satellite broadcasts. The monitor stations send the information they collect from each of the satellites back to the master control station, which computes extremely precise satellite orbits. The information is then formatted into updated navigation messages for each satellite. The updated information is transmitted to each satellite via the ground antennas, which also transmit and receive satellite control and monitoring signals.

The User Segment consists of the receivers, processors, and antennas that allow land, sea, or airborne operators to receive the GPS satellite broadcasts and compute their precise position, velocity and time.

To locate the position of a GPS receiver on the Earth's surface in 2 dimensions (latitude & longitude):

• the GPS receiver's antenna must be able to "see" 3 satellites.

To locate the position of a GPS receiver on the Earth's surface in 3 dimensions (latitude, longitude, & and elevation):

• the GPS receiver's antenna must be able to "see" 4 satellites.

Commercial devices

• WAAS correction

  • 25 ground stations

  • 2 geosynchronous satellites

  • Accurate within a circle of 10 ft radius

• No WAAS

  • Accurate within a circle of 30 ft radius

Professional / Military

• Accurate within a circle of X inches radius

Document or locate any position in the world

• Grave sites, homesteads, etc.

Find the compass bearing and distance to any marked location.

Other uses

• Clock - accurate to milliseconds

• Road map

• Odometer

• Speedometer - instantaneous & average

• Estimated time of arrival

• Backtracking

• Recreation (geochaching) etc.

Antenna must be able to see satellites

Computation time is slow

Take an extra set of batteries

Don't depend on it to save your life... take a compass and map

(GNIS) Geographic Names Information System

• http://geonames.usgs.gov

• GNIS, a US Government database

• Free to use... you paid for it

• Lists coordinates of cemeteries, schools, post offices and other points of interest for every county in the US. Doesn't list military sites unless historically significant.

Go to: http://geonames.usgs.gov

In the horizontal navigation bar toward the bottom of the page click on the 2^nd item from the left:

• US and territories
  Query

The next page appears. Its tittle is: "Query Form For The United States And Its Territories"

From the State or Territory: drop down menu, select "NY"

From the Feature: drop down menu, select "cemetery"

In the *County Name fill-in box, enter "Monroe"

Select "Send Query"

The next page appears. It is a list of 42 cemeteries in Monroe County, NY

The 15^th item in this list shows the coordinates of Lakeside Cemetery in the town of Hamlin, Monroe County, NY

These coordinates are:

• 43° 21' 00" N and 077° 58' 31" W

Select "Lakeside Cemetery"

The next page appears. It shows the data for "Lakeside Cemetery".

Select "TopoZone.com"

The next page appears. In the gray area on the left side of the window:

1. Under "Map Size" change the size from "small" to "large".

2. Under "View Scale" change the scale from "1:50,000" to "1:000,000".

3. Under "View Scale" click "Update Map".

You should see a map of the "USGS Hamlin Quad" with a red "X" at the position of the Lakeside Cemetery.

AniMap

• http://www.goldbug.com

• Tracks county boundaries for the years 1776 - 1915

• includes site finder... similar to GNIS

• AniMap 2.5 $79 for CD. Demo available on web

Deed Mapper

• http://users.rcn.com/deeds/

• $99 Deed Mapper 3.0 software (doesn't include maps)

• Construct your own deed maps

Buzz words

• 12 channel

• WAAS (wide area augmentation system)

• EGNOS (European version of WAAS)

• Base map (2 to 16 MB of memory)

• Waypoints (approx 500)

• Routes

• Tracks

• Display

• Map CD (StreetMaps, Topomap...)

• SD memory (32 to 512 MB)

Major Vendors

• Garmin (www.Garmin.com)

• Magellan (www.MagellanGPS.com)

Look for features and accessories you would use

Add memory to the basic models

Rechargable AA batteries

Shop for specials / discontinued models

gpsinformation.net

• A collection of links

Yahoo groups

• 59 unique Garmin groups

• 64 unique Magellan groups

• Download latest firmware

• Product specific Q & A

www.geochaching.com