29 October 2007

FGS Program for November 17th, 2007! "COLD MAILINGS"

Cold mailing? Family Survey? What does this have to do with genealogy? Well, lots more than you would think!

Just starting your genealogy? Stuck at a brick wall? Lost contact with family members? Create a mailing or survey to help reconnect with aunts, uncles, and cousins so that you can flesh out your family tree ... and maybe even locate the 'lost' family bible and other important family artifacts!

Hit a brick wall? Scour newspaper articles, obituaries, and other articles to help contact people who might be related.

This presentation, Cold Mailings, will walk you through using MS-Word and Excel for putting a survey together, automating cover letters, generating mailing labels, creating mail merge files that address both the letters and envelopes, create and maintain a budget, and help you compile summaries of results you receive from your relatives. Handouts will be available that walk you through the entire process and give you examples and hints for your own projects.

Our presenters are Pamela "Pam" Treme and Patricia "Pattie" Schultz. Both are avid genealogists and both are professionals in the software industry. Pattie is an experienced software support and installation representative, and a software development group leader for 20+ years. Pam has a B.A. in English and has worked as a technical writer for 15 years, using MS-Word on a daily basis to produce printed books and user manuals for commercial products. Both Pam and Pattie have the expertise to help each of us master the 'mysteries' MS-Word and Excel and to learn how to use these powerful software products to augment and complement our genealogy research projects.

Don't miss this great opportunity to learn how to really use these software packages more effectively and to incorporate them into your everyday genealogy research! You will not be disappointed!