Thursday June, 21 2001

Mail this Newsletter to a friend

Our second Newsletter. How time flies when you're having fun. We had hoped to publish this letter about every two weeks, it's looking like once a month may, at least for now, be a little easier. The web site is growing and thanks to the efforts of various members of our group it is being discovered. I am going to include a regular item in this and future Newsletters that will summarize our web traffic statistics since the previous letter. 

Please send any comments, suggestions, ideas, content, whatever ... to webmasters@bernehistory.org. 

Gordon and Joan         http://www.bernehistory.org

Web Stats - May 23rd through June 21st

Total Visitors 1,728 
Total Pageviews 4,325 
Total Hits 15,818 
Total Bytes Transferred 178M 

Average Visitors Per Day 57 
Average Pageviews Per Day 144 
Average Hits Per Day 527 
Average Bytes Transferred Per Day 5.95M 

Average Pageviews Per Visitor 2 
Average Hits Per Visitor 9 
Average Bytes Per Visitor 103,371 
Average Length of Visit 348sec 

"You have a terrific web site!!"

Jeffrey Campbell Sills, Basking Ridge, NJ

"Wonderful site. Your efforts will bring your local history to life for the descendants of those brave pioneers that settled in the Berne area."

Richard W. Hungerford, Jr., Omaha, NE

"I'm so glad to see this work being done to preserve the heritage of the Berne area."

Cheryl A Wright, Ravena, NY

 

These are a few of the messages left in our Guestbook by people who have visited our site. 

Check them out at www.bernehistory.org/data/guestbook.html

Wanted

Recent or Historic

Photos of Berne

We are looking for any interesting photos of the Berne area. We would like everyone to get out the cameras, dig out the boxes and send us some pictures of the area to publish on the web site. Anything sent will be scanned and returned and when published credit will be given. People, places, buildings, historic or not. Anything of the area. 

Please send any submissions to:

Gordon Wright

4210 East 100th Ave, #550

Thornton, CO 80229

or if already a file, email to:

webmasters@bernehistory.org

EMAIL Addresses

Our hosting arrangement with earthlink allows us five email addresses that are set up to forward to another address. We have set up the following addresses.

historian@bernehistory.org - This will be forwarded to Ralph Miller.

volunteer@bernehistory.org - This will come to Joan and I and be used to solicit additional volunteers from the web page.

newsletter@bernehistory.org - Used to subscribe or unsubscribe to the newsletter.

webmasters@bernehistory.org - To get related information to Joan and myself.

Volunteers

After reading some of the comments left on the guestbook I think it would be nice if we could find someone who could review the guestbook on a regular (daily ?) basis and respond or forward to the appropriate person any questions people leave. This is a very valuable resource for us to get feedback from our visitors and I would like to keep them coming back. If any of you are willing or know of someone who might be, please let me know at webmasters@bernehistory.org

Map Update

Darin has been busy working on the new map. He has put up a sample of what's to come that has links to land information, geneaology records and cemeteries. This aspect of the project is very exciting and is going to take a lot of work on Darins part to complete.

Census Update

Here is the Census Team update for the news letter.

We're moving along slow but sure.  We've had some technical difficulties with a couple of our templates, and we're trying to work them out as we go along.  Time wise, it will be a while before we show any real progress due to the amount of time that it takes to transcribe the censuses.  It takes roughly an hour per page to transcribe.  That doesn't seem like much until you figure some of the censuses are around 60 pages all together.  Otherwise, all is going good.

Kevin

I received Kevins first two completed transcrips a couple of days ago and have built the first page. Unfortunately in my first attempt all the records on one page where over 2 meg in size and any sane person would have been gone to yahoo.com before it finished loading. I have broken the data down into a number of smaller pages and have posted them tonight. I feel they are still loading too slow so I will be dividing them up some more tomorrow.

Gordon

Cemetery Update

Hello all,

Thought I'd get everyone up to speed.

On Saturday, Barbara Girodias and I finally met. Barbara and her family live in Knox, not far from the Berne town line. (So this makes two of us who are in those boundary areas.) They live on the old Zandt farm on Sand Rd., which is indeed a lovely piece of  property. She is a direct descendant.

Barbara, my daughter, Bethany and myself went to West Mountain Methodist Church Cemetery to photograph and document the headstones. You couldn't ask for a nicer day. It was sunny and temperate. The spot is naturally shaded by lovely old Sugar maples and Beeches, and the bugs weren't bad, either.

One of those Beeches, badly scarred by Beech bark blister disease fell down in the middle of the ground. We have photographic documentation. Luckily, the tree fell where it did minimal damage. One stone and its pediment are "tipped," but not even cracked. As soon as the tree is cleared, all will be back to normal. I've heard that the ground is privately owned. Someone does come in and mow the ground nicely. I think it would be appropriate to talk to the owner about this problem.

Lots of photos and 4x6" cards are ready to be sent to the Wrights in CO. The Cook/Barkman ground, Willsey family, Filkins' Hill, and Wilcox family grounds are currently recorded on this end.

So far, so good.

Regards,

Barb :)

Barbara has been busy! Since the last Newsletter Barbara has, with the help of her daughter Bethany, transcribed five additional cemeteries. Considering she is doing all the legwork to complete these cemeteries she has accomplished quite a bit in one month. Joan is currently entering the Dutch Settlers Society records into our database and we will publish these cemeteries as they are entered. When Barbara completes the transcriptions we will add the current information and the pictures. Maybe, with Joan and I working together we will be able to keep ahead of Barbara, just maybe. Our first one done this way is West Mountain Methodist Church and has already helped one visitor locate a relative. (see the guestbook)

Land Records Update

Hal Miller has been very busy cataloging the various land records. His plan is to provide references to the actual records that can be indexed by name or location. We are looking forward to being able to publish some of his work soon.