You might also try Open Office, a free open source suite similar and compatible with MS Office.

See http://www.openoffice.org

Tom





On 4 October 2010 15:47, Suzanne Isaksen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
First, I'd like to congratulate you on being appointed as a town historian.  I've been Historian for the Town of Montgomery in Orange County, New York, and really enjoy my work.
 
I've been developing a searchable database of individuals within our town using Microsoft Excel.  Within the same file ("Montgomery Families") I have a spreadsheet pages by source (for example "1850 Census" or "Wallkill Valley Cemetery"), and I can sort the data any way I want depending upon what I am looking for.  I do have Microsoft Access, but I decided on Excel because I plan to give CDs of my file to the local libraries, and I figured that more people are familiar with Excel rather than Access.  I just decided that this would be more expedient to locate family names rather than doing the research every time there is a request, even though there is a lot of data entry.
 
Good luck with your project.  You are welcome to contact me anytime at [log in to unmask], if you want to share thoughts with or bounce ideas off another public historian.
 
Best regards,
 
Suzanne Isaksen
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">Ron and Alice Feulner
To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 11:34 AM
Subject: [NYHIST-L] scrapbooks

As a new town historian, I inherited a number of large scrapbooks filled with local newspaper articles cut and pasted into their pages covering a spread of many years. Until now, they have only been used by occasional curiosity seekers thumbing through pages until they tire of reading them. I would like to index them on computer so that researchers could find specific people, places, and events. I am thinking of using microsoft word tables (I cannot afford access.) to create lists that provide book, page, people names, place names, and events that we can then use the "find" tool to locate. This will be a big project for volunteers, so I would like to use the simplest yet effective technique. Would appreciate any thoughts. Thanks. 



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