A Little History
In 1943, I was born in Watsonville's, Community Hospital in California, USA. I graduated from Watsonville High School in 1961 and earned a bachelors in 1966 and an MBA in 1970 from San Jose State.
I worked for Lockheed starting in the late 60s and from 1978 to my retirement in 2007, for Kaiser Permanente. I've developed some competitive skills playing duplicate bridge, becoming an ACBL Silver Life Master in Unit 500 of District 21 in 2005. I've enjoyed exploring personal computers and the Internet, trying to absorb these tremendous resources. When my mom passed away in 1998, I was elected by my siblings to receive family history documents and continue with genealogy research she started.
News Flash
C L I P A R T - Do you ever need clip art for that great project you're working on? Well, try Googling the word "Clipart" plus another word(s), then [RETURN]. A large number of useable images will be displayed. Interestingly enough, when you use the Bing.com search engine, it does the same thing, but many different images from Google's. So, visit http://bing.com and then type "Clipart" plus another word(s) and hit [RETURN]. For example try typing in (without the quotes) "Clipart Genealogy" in both Google and Bing. It's VERY useful.
Stuff I'm working on
I started maintaining the Indiana County U.S. Pennsylvania Genweb Web Site on August 20, 2012. Rootsweb supplies so many things to the genealogy community including free web pages, e.g. http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~billgeorge, that I just started using. Rootsweb supplies many of the USGENWeb.org free web domains too. They are part of Ancestry.com, now.
My mother's genealogy... starting with Henry Austin Snider, my mother's maternal grandfather, born in Ohio in 1868. He has descendants in all over the west (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, California etc). I'm also working on my George line from time to time, but it's slow going. I've identified Samuel George b. 1815, d. 1889, m. 1842 from Indiana County, Pennsylvania as my 2nd great grandfather and am attempting to find his father who was Irish according to the 1880 census (of Samuel and Emily George, residing in Sandy Lake, Mercer County, PA since 1871). I volunteered to maintain the Indiana County, Pennsylvania GenWeb site to get some perspective on the area Samuel George lived in for most of his life.
Membership in several local Genealogy groups... San Ramon Genealogical Society http://srvgensoc.org (SIG coordinator) , East Bay Genealogical Society http://rootsweb.com/~caebaygs (webmaster), Hayward Area Genealogical Society http://rootsweb.om/~cahags) (webmaster), Livermore Amador Valley Genealogical Society http://l-ags.org (Genealogy docent - 1st Wed. 10am, Pleasanton Library), Silicon Valley Computer Genealogy Group http://svcgg.org in Santa Clara (I assist with Mac presentations),
Castro Valley Library twice-monthly Genealogy Study Group meeting - I'm helping my wife conduct this meeting. The Castro Valley Library has a very well equipped computer lab where we meet. We hold the class (usually) on the 1st and 3rd Mondays at 12:30pm but due to holidays, vacations and other committments it gets shifted occasionally. The library has a calendar on their web site and we set up a web site to support the class.
A Macintosh Genealogy Society I started in 2009 that has monthly meetings, at the Oakland FamilySearch Library. See http://www.macgen.org.
I play bridge in three local ACBL units, South County http://unit500.bridgeforyou.com, Livermore http://unit501.bridgeforyou.com and Diablo Valley http://unit499.bridgeforyou.com and also manage all their unit and club web sites... http://www.bridgeforyou.com.
Attend several computer groups, PC Community http://pcc.org, San Leandro Macintosh User Group http://slmug.org, Diablo Valley Mac User Group http://dvmug.org, Tri-Valley Mac User Group http://clubtmug.com, San Leandro Computer Club for Atari Computers and The Nybblers.
Photography, stamp collecting, keyboard playing.
I've accumulated many of the links on my personal genealogy web page. One link that's really cool is http://www.zillow.com/ that lets you be very nosy and see what home prices are.
I recently started using Twitter, Facebook and Google+. They are easy to set up, and are FREE, as are the blogs.
Internet Presence
Active- Billgeorge.com Web Site (this web site)
Not So Active
- Mac Discoveries
- Google Plus
- Flickr
- Myspace (dormant)
- Posterous (dormant)
- Tumblr (dormant)
Useful Stuff
- How to write a sensible email
- Leo Laporte and his wonderful TWIT web site.
Family
My wife and I have been happily married since 1982. She has a similar passion for computing, exploring the internet and is an accomplished miniaturist. She does enjoy her anonymity.
My families (Paternal is George, Maternal is Pardee) have get togethers annually. If you are a family member please contact me to be included.
Bridge
I created several Bridge Websites for ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) Units in the ACBL District 21 (Northern California).
- Diablo Valley - Contra Costa County - Unit 499 including the newest, the Diablo Valley Bridge Center.
- South County - Southern Alameda County - Unit 500
- Livermore Valley - Pleasanton and Livermore - Unit 501
- Overview
Computer Groups
I've helped to start four computer user groups since 1978. All continue to exist (as of May, 2011). I'm helping with a Castro Valley Genealogy Group that meets at the Castro Valley Library.
- 1979 - The Nybblers - for Windows, DOS and TRS-80 Computers. 7:30 pm, currently being held the 3rd Friday of each month at Ron Ring's house. Request information by sending an e-mail to thenybblers@aol.com.
- 1983 - San Leandro Computer Club - For Atari Computers, SLCC - Meets on the first Tues. of the month at 7pm at the San Leandro Community Library. Contact Robbie Bridges at (510) 797-5636 or rrbridges@comcast.net.
- 1988 - PC Clubhouse, - For IBM PC's and compatibles. It meets at 7:30 pm, 1st Friday of each month. See the web site for details. The name was eventually changed to PC Community.
- 2009 - MacGen for Mac computer users who are interested in Genealogy. See http://www.macgen.org
- 2012 - Castro Valley Genealogy Group - to assist with the twice monthly (1st & 3rd Monday) Castro Valley Library Genealogy Class.
