Be Sure to Visit my new 1900 Galveston Storm Website at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootseb.com/~barnette 

REFLECTIONS OF 2000

 All of the 2000 Your Family Tree columns are archived on the Internet at http://geocities.datacellar.net/barnette_geo/ It is interesting to review them and see what has happened, good and bad, over the past year.

 High on the list of genealogically beneficial happenings in 2000 was an index to the 1867 Texas Voters list published on CD-Rom and the placement on the Internet at http://searches.rootsweb.com of Indexes to Texas Births (1926-1995), Deaths (1964-1998), Marriages (1966-1997) and Divorces (1968-1997). Also placed on Rootsweb.com were the names of all those who received land titles in the State of Texas.

  It was, also, during the year 2000 that Houston's Clayton Library completed the acquisition of all United States censuses from 1790 to 1920 and all the soundex indexes to those censuses. This was a major achievement, one that took many years to accomplish. Clayton is one of only a very small handful of libraries in the United States with the complete census collection.

LEGACY FAMILY TREE NOW FREE

 Millennia Corporation recently announced that anyone can download Legacy Family Tree 3.0 for free from their website at http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/.

 Legacy Family Tree is one of the leading family history programs. Some of the many features available in Legacy are: Easy data entry, unlimited file size, To Do List and Correspondence Log, Web Page Creation, IntelliMerge, powerful Report and Book generator, Source Citations, Multiple Family Files in Split Screens, GEDCOM import and export, Spell Checking, Search and Replace, and many, many more.

 Legacy version 3.0 requires the following: A Pentium class computer with a minimum of 16 MB of memory (32 MB or more recommended), 35 MB of hard disk space, Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me or NT.

MESQUITE HOSTS GENTECH 2001

 The ninth annual Conference for Technology in Genealogy, GENTECH 2001, will be held Friday and Saturday 2-3 February at the Mesquite Convention Center in Mesquite, Texas near Dallas. The conference will feature over 35 nationally known speakers whose topics concern genealogical research and computers, scanners, software, the Internet and a host of other technological gadgets and issues.

 For more information, contact GENTECH at 888-522-7313 or visit the GENTECH webpage at http://www.gentech.org

SURF THE INTERNET

 Houston Community College at 1681 Cartwright in Missouri City will feature Mic Barnette with a Surfing The Internet- For Genealogy class. The class will consist of a live tour of some of the best genealogical research websites on the Internet. The class will be held on Wednesday January 17 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more information and to enroll contact HCC at 281-835-5539.

GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHING CLASS

 Mic Barnette, owner of Barnette's Family Tree Book Company and writer of this column will present a new class, How To Write and Publish A Genealogical Book. The course is geared toward those who wish to write an article or book and have it published online, self-published or published through a commercial publisher.

 The class will discuss privacy issues, software, organizing, writing, numbering, documenting, layout, pricing, prepublication, marketing, advertising and a host of pertinent issues.

 For more information and to register, contact Leisure Learning at 713-529-4414

NEWS FROM THE BOOKSHELF

 Looking for current or former military service men? The best book to explain how and where to look is How To Locate Anyone Who Is or Has Been in the Military. Now in its eighth edition this armed forces locator guide was written by licensed private investigators, Lt. Col. Richard S. Johnson (Ret.) and his daughter, Debra Johnson Knox, who specialize in locating current and former military.

 This book contains information useful in locating men or women who are on current active duty, in the reserves or retired. It offers suggestions on locating birthparents who served in the military, obtaining military records, determining if a veteran is deceased and how to locate veterans for a reunion.

 In addition, there are a number of helpful appendices such as a Directory of U.S. Military Installations and Coast Guard and Navy Ships, Directory of Overseas Installations, Directory of Military, Patriotic & Veteran Organizations and Directory of Military Unit Reunion Associations.

 This Armed Forces Locator Guide is available for $27, postpaid, from MIE Publishing, P.O.Box 17118 Spartanburg, SC 29301. It may also be ordered online with a discount at http://www.militaryusa.com.