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 an advanced degree 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.
Stuff I'm working on
My mother's genealogy, starting with Henry Austin Snider, my mother's maternal grandfather, born in Ohio in 1868. He has descendants currently in Washington and California. I'm also working on my George from time to time, but it's slow going. His mother (my grandmother) was an only child so I have to go back another generation to research direct ancestors. I've identified Samuel George b. 1803 from Indiana County, Pennsylvania as my 2nd Great Grandfather and am working back from there.
Membership in several local Genealogy groups, San Ramon Genealogical Society (SIG coordinator) http://srvgensoc.org, East Bay Genealogical Society http://rootsweb.com/~caebaygs (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),
A Macintosh Genealogy Group I started in 2009 that has twice monthly meetings, at the Oakland Regional Family History Center. 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.
Attend several computer groups, PC Community http://pcc.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 keep a blog to assist with genealogy, http://bggenealogy.blogspot.com. 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 see what home prices are.
A personal blog at http://williamcgeorge.blogspot.com document my other obsession, Macintosh.
I recently started using Twitter, Facebook and Google+ recently. They are easy to set up, and are FREE, as are the blogs.
Internet Presence
Active- Blogger Sites Mac Discoveries | Genealogy
- Billgeorge.com Web Site (this web site)
Not So Active
- Google Plus
- Flickr
- Myspace (stopped using it)
- Posterous (dormant)
- Tumblr (dormant)
Useful Stuff
- How to write a sensible email
- Leo Laporte and his wonderful TWIT web site.
- Bill Gate's Last Day at Microsoft (Youtube video)
- SocialMedian.com - A News Aggregator
Fun Stuff
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)
- 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
