I would like to respectfully submit that I believe that a database of the
Files does exist. When Jack was president '92-'94 he loaded all the Castor
Files onto our hard drive. He found it exasperating to look for the lineage
of new members by systematically loading one disk after another into the
computer until he found the correct one.
To him, computers were suppose to do the work for you, not the other way
around so he wrote a program making a file of the files. Later on he put it
in Brothers' Keeper but I became interested in Family Tree Maker and now I
have several databases on it, including my own personal family database, the
Castor Files which also includes a notation indicating which file that
person can be found and that person's ID number (this was done automatically
by the program) and a database created from the Paulus book by Hal Ferguson,
president '94-'96. As I had had he same idea about the Paulus book but
found I was too busy with vp duties to finish it so Jack loaded Hal's
database to our computer.
At the same time Jack Kester created the database he wrote an index of all
the names in this database. All are indexed by last name and first name.
This index is in a very large loose-leaf binder. He made two copies. Jean
has one and Ken has the other. I recall our printer ran for hours when he
was producing this.
I also recall he offered this database to Jean and she wasn't interested.
Maybe she assumed it couldn't be done and didn't believe he could have
accomplished this feat.
A non-member arrived at the '96 Reunion, driving from PA to VA ,hoping we
could help him discover his lineage. Many of us were in the room containing
all the many books that Jean lugs to every Reunion when he asked for the
information. He knew many generations of names of his ancestry but no one
could figure out which line from which he descended. Jack Kester looked
around and found the Index book he had created and bingo! he found this
non-members line. A non-member became a member!
If anyone out there remembers any of this differently please post it here
and I will stand corrected.
Jo