Wilson Bingham Book Progress Report - January 2006

(The January 2006 newsletter was originally published January 3rd, but an e-mail malfunction caused it to need to be resent on February 1st.)

In This Newsletter
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I. PROGRESS REPORT
II. THE WISHLIST
III. THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Happy New Year everyone! Time for this month's progress report.

I. PROGRESS REPORT
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1) Murphy's Law of Technology seems to rule the day now that the loaner laptop I had from work isn't letting me log in. The good news is that I made a lot of progress marking words and phrases for further research. The bad news is that it's all still on that darn laptop. (These things always happen just after I think to back things up and just before I get around to it). So, that's about where I am, with 100 or so "tidbits" on which to toil to produce more background info and confirm dates and names. My insurance company is covering damage to my old laptop and a new one is on its way. I'm praying that all the horror stories I've heard about Dell computers are untrue.

2) On December 17th I received a letter from Todd Wilson with handwritten notes about his family and various items of family lore and memories. Thanks, Todd!! I'll be giving you a phone call soon to get more details. :)

3) I got a list of descendants of Dale and Grace Callan so that I can invite them to our mailing list. They also corrected and provided their middle names. Thanks, Dale and Grace!! Hopefully with increased numbers, we can substantially fill our family history anthology with many more stories and summaries of our heritage.

4) I've also been working on digitally archiving manuscripts and histories sent to me by Arlene Edsall about Elmo "Pose" and Ruby Page Wilson and their family. It's fascinating to finally get the details on all the family stories I remember my grandpa and grandma (Ray and Maxine) telling me as I grew up. I've been able to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on many of these manuscripts. All I have to do is feed them into my scanner and the software makes its best guess (between 80-95% accurate depending on the clarity of the type) as to what the characters are and then drops them into a word processor for me. Then I just edit and I'm done! This reminds me of a discovery I want to share with you all...if you have access to an inkjet or laser printer instead of a dot-matrix printer, go with the inkjet or laser (but I'll still accept dot-matrix). OCR software has a hard time correctly recognizing dot-matrix printing. :)

5) Here are some pictures of Sarah Elizabeth Harris and the whole Powell family. These were found at the WelshMormonHistory.org web site.

6) By happy coincidence, I happen to work with a fellow from Australia. When I told him about our connections to Down Under through Caroline Merchant and family, he mentioned that he would be vacationing there soon and offered to take photos of the area should he pass through Vacy, Allyn River, New South Wales. Speaking of photos, if you'd like to see photos of Swainby, Yorkshire from where Thomas Henry Wilson emigrated, look no further than here. Pictures of Yorkshire can be found here.

7) A number of you have inquired as to Marolynn Watson's new address and contact information now that she lives here in Illinois. Here you go. :)

[ommitted from blog version of newsletter for privacy purposes]

II. THE WISHLIST
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Here is the latest list of the items that will help move us towards our publication date of July, 2006.

NOTE: It is now January 2006. December 31 2005 was to be the initial "deadline" for turning in your autobiographies and biographies. If you would like to simply type them up in a reply to this message, that will be fine as well. Thanks!

1) The outline (initialoutline.pdf) has not yet been updated this month. When I do update it, I will send an email to the group. If you haven't done so yet, have a look and see if there is anything you can help with. It's in the "Files" section of our group web site.

Everything highlighted in yellow is something that needs attention. Please let me know if you are having difficulties opening or reading the initialoutline.pdf file.

2) If you have any computerized versions of your genealogy information, no matter how complete or incomplete you believe it to be, please forward it to me via e-mail. You can send it as a GEDCOM or PAF file. Family group sheets have been especially helpful in summarizing family info.

3) I would like to start extending our mailing list to the descendants of "the Wilson cousins". If you have email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers for your immediate and extended families, please email them to me and I will invite them to join the list.

III. THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Thanks again to Todd Wilson and to Grace and Dale Callan for their contributions in December.

Thanks to all for your time and willingness to see this through to publication.