Texas Grand Army of the Republic Historical Research Project
UPDATE March 20 2025
This is a link to the GAR Proceedings from 1905. It is posted on the Camp 2 server.
1905 – 20th Proceedings – Dallas, TX
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1890 Census Veterans Schedule w/ Index – BEXAR Co.
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GOOGLE DRIVE AND DATA COMPRESSION
The link below is to a compressed version of the 1890 TX Veterans Schedules A to D. The file started as a 270Mb monolith. After running Adobe Acrobat Data Compression it is a manageable 40Mb.
1890 Texas Veterans Schedules A – D
The compression tool is an online feature from Adobe. We need to compress all our larger files to make them more user friendly. It is easy. Here is the link.
This is all but useless on large files unless you have the PAID version of Adobe ($19.99/mo.) Seems OK on files under ~100MB as long as you run MAX compression. Lightweight compression doesn’t work at all. We are still going to need data compression or some other workaround on parts of the data. Some of the files are too large to upload even to the website storage. RGR – 01/08/2025
Here is a 265 Mb file stored on Dropbox. How quickly does this load?
1890 Texas Veterans Schedules E to H
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Welcome to the most comprehensive GAR database in the world. Enjoy your visit!
Think of a dignified yet stylish name for the project. Write an introduction where you talk about the various types of information available. Put in a few pictures… the GAR Post map Herb put together would be great, a picture of McClellan… whatever sounds and looks good we can do it on the main page. This page will take some design work so we’ll need to brainstorm how the whole thing will come together… we’ll only have to do it once, with maybe an occasional update with a new picture or something.
Each topic (Rosters, Encampments, Biographies, etc.) will have a sub-page. We can link to the sub-pages from the main page and create a dropdown menu on the website. Outside sources like the Department and National websites will be able to have one link to the Main page and we will take people where they need to go from there. There will be a Donate button!
Here is an idea for the Encampments page
Texas GAR Encampments
1896 – Sarah Emma Seelye joins McClellan Camp in Houston – LINK TO GOOGLE DRIVE
1897 – Isaac Conroe elected Department Commander – LINK TO GOOGLE DRIVE
1898 – Keynote address from U.S. President William McKinley – LINK TO GOOGLE DRIVE
1899 – Membership in Texas reaches a record 3,000 Union veterans – LINK TO GOOGLE DRIVE
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You could do something like the above for each year. Or how about a table with years? Click on the year for the PDF, no descriptions needed. That would be easier for everyone . . . but not as cool!
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The other pages can come together in a similar fashion, basically a very brief introduction, a picture or three, and a section with links to the information on Google Drive. Each sub-page will take a little bit of design work to get the various categories established. Once that is done we can add links to new files periodically, maybe monthly to start and quarterly once the flow of new information slows down.
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Getting started
- Post an Excel file to Google Drive.
- Post a PDF to Google Drive.
- Send me the links and I will post them on this page – do this right away so we know that everything is working properly.
- Once that is done start adding completed files to Google Drive.
- Use a Google Drive account that is controlled (owned) by the SUVCW. JVM can assist with this.
- Develop an organization plan for Google Drive.
- Create a protocol for file names.
- Think about the narrative and pictures to include on various pages.
- Give me a call if you want to discuss page design, file indexing, or pretty much anything that is on your mind.
- We will finish the design work and post links in January 2025.
