I really need to take some time and get the archivists/file managers
focusing on the Archives purpose. LOL!!
It's for actual transcriptions of primary source material. Family group
sheets, converted gedcoms, etc., are not "primary" sources - like
Census, will books, deeds, marriage books, death registers, funeral home
records, cemeteries ... etc.
The purpose of the Archives is to provide research material, based on
those primary sources, so they can do their own research, with the help
of our search engine, too.
Data such as others' research results, or their family group sheets
should go on the USGenWeb county sites, if the coordinator will post it,
or at
worldconnect.rootsweb.com, which does a much better job.
The Archives has grown so huge.. with over *8 gigs* of text data,
visitors get 1,000's of hits - and information, such as family group
sheets, converted gedcoms, cause even more hits.
Another thing.... everyone knows about "loose papers" located in many
county courthouses.. they are a pain, right? Wouldn't it be nice if all
those loose papers were neatly organized into one book? It appears that
the Archives are getting many "loose papers" that could be combined into
the appropriate subject as one file. For instance, there are thousands
of files that have maybe two or three lines. The Archives notice is
larger than the info in some files. Some examples: one marriage record,
one burial record. These could be combined into files uploaded by year.
/state/county/vitals/marriages/year. For larger counties,
/state/county/vitals/marriages/year/a.txt or b/txt or a-c.txt or
marrbk-01.txt or marrbk-1870.txt.
For VA files, when a will is submitted - if they include the will book
reference, I combine it into one file - willbk02, willbk06, willbk-a,
etc. Eventually, I'll have an index for those, probably listing the
names on the toc for the link to the text file.
Comments and suggestions welcomed. :)
Linda