Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Next Saturday's U.K. Skypecast

This newsletter sponsored a 3-hour worldwide genealogy conference call about a month ago. The topic was "U.K. Genealogy." We had participants from England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In fact, I think there were more New Zealanders in the conversation than any other nationality.

Those who participated seemed to enjoy the conference call. We all decided to hold a follow-up session on the third Saturday of each month at 19:00 GMT. Translating that to some other time zones, the next Skypecast will start at:

The Next Skypecast

Reminder: The next “general purpose” Genealogy Skypecast will be held Thursday evening at 10 PM Eastern, 9 PM Central, 8 PM Mountain and 7 PM Pacific time. In much of the world, this will be early on Friday.

This will be an “open session” with the only items on the agenda being those items that YOU bring up.

Skype Me

I have written several times about the advantage of Skype's free service that replaces telephone calls. We also often have genealogy-related Skypecasts which are loosely the equivalent of conference calls. Now the bLaugh cartoon strip has a Skype-related entry that some people here might appreciate:

The above image is used here with the permission of bLaugh.

Results of Saturday's U.K. Genealogy Skypecast

A 3-hour worldwide genealogy conference call was held on Saturday, September 16 (early Sunday morning in some parts of the world). We had participants from England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In fact, I think there were more New Zealanders in the conversation than any other nationality.

We did not use telephones. Instead, we all plugged headphones and microphones into our computers' sound boards and conversed across the Internet. The 3-hour conversation was free: no toll charges involved.

U.K. Genealogy Skypecast and "Open Topic" Skypecast

This is a quick reminder that we now have regularly scheduled genealogy Skypecasts. These are genealogy "conference calls," but we do not use telephones. Instead, you may join in by plugging a headset into your computer's headphone and microphone jacks, then downloading the free Skype software from http://www.skype.com. The software is available for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux computers. All Skypecasts are free of charge with no toll calls involved, even though participants are often on different continents. Instead of talking over telephone lines, we are talking over the Internet.

Report on First Genealogy Society Management & Promotion Skypecast

On Monday evening a group of fifteen or more genealogists plugged their headsets into their computers and joined an audio conference call on Skype, hosted by this newsletter. The results were interesting to me, and, hopefully, to all the other attendees.

Genealogy Society Management Discussion

We will hold a Skypecast dedicated to the topic of managing genealogy societies. The subjects to be discussed will include attracting new members, fund raising, creating society web sites, and any other society management-related topic that you care to discuss. Like most of our other Skypecasts, there is no person in charge as group leader. Instead, this is strictly an open discussion in which the attendees can swap ideas. The Genealogy Society Management Discussion will be held on Monday, September 11, at 10:00 PM Eastern time. You may convert that to your local time zone at http://tinyurl.com/q3xnn.

The start time is from right now.

At the appointed time, you may join the online conference call at https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=29651

Skypecast #3: The Plans Expand

This newsletter's third genealogy "Skypecast" was held on August 24 and 25. This time we had attendees from all over the United States and Canada as well as from New Zealand, Argentina, Austria, and even one person who was in an oasis in the western Sahara Desert, one of the most sparsely settled areas in the world!

Skypecast #2 Opens More Doors

The second Genealogy Skypecast was held on Thursday evening, August 17. However, the attendees in Australia and New Zealand pointed out that it was Friday where they lived.

A "Skypecast" is a computer-to-computer voice conference call. It works in more or less the same manner as a telephone conference call with one major exception: we did not use telephones. Instead, we used our computers to talk with each other. Each participant used a microphone and a headset or loudspeakers connected to their computers. We all talked into the microphones and listened by using headphones or loudspeakers in essentially the same manner as any regular telephone. This week we had about fifteen participants in four different countries and at least six different time zones. Unlike telephones, there were no toll charges involved.

First Genealogy Skypecast is a Success!

The first computer-to-computer voice “conference call” for readers of this newsletter was held on Thursday evening, August 10.  We had simultaneous participants from all over the United States, several from Canada, two from Australia, one from New Zealand, one from Argentina, and one from Belgium. All of these people had microphones and headsets or loudspeakers connected to their computers. They all talked into the microphones and listened by using headphones in essentially the same manner as any regular telephone. There were two differences: (1.) we were using computers instead of telephones, and (2.) there were no toll charges involved.