Hi again Jeff and all --
Boy, it sounds like you had a great and productive trip to Brynmawr.
Congratulations on locating those records for Calvary Chapel. What a find!< Yes, I was
thrilled -- but I give Pastor Foster and the good folks at the museum all the credit. I
was the bird dog, but they were the guns as it were.
I would be thrilled to have any and all of your photos of Calvary
along with whatever information you have, featured on my Brynmawr pages.... Please fell
free to send along some digital photos, and Ill get busy creating a new page for the
church.<
I'll send the church and cemetery photos ASAP. Regarding the records themselves,
since my first post the other day, I've been busy transcribing them from the digital
images to MS Word files. I've actually gotten quite a bit done and am eager to post
the records here in plain text format for starters, in hopes that others will be as
excited to find their ancestors' names as I was. I've got about half the images
done and could post those here immediately, and could also send those to you without delay
to post on your site in more readable HTML format. But I realized that there's one
VERY important step we need to take first, and that is to secure Pastor Foster's
permission to make the records public. I have ransacked my stuff for two days now trying
to figure out where I put the little slip of paper I jotted down his address on, and I
just cannot find it!! I really want to write him a letter of thanks for all he did for
me, as well as to ask for that vital permission. I!
wonder if someone on this maillist can get it for me -- or, to expedite things, can call
him in Maesgwartha and ask for his OK to post this information online?? Is there anyone
out there who could do this???
(I hope someone local will call Pastor Foster anyway to discuss saving these records in
better form than my quickly-shot images and transcriptions, if it has not already been
done. I'm not sure whether that would be David Rimmer (if I remember his name right)
at the archives in Cwmbran, someone from the Museum, someone from Gwent FHS, or someone
else. I've also thought about donating a CD to the Family History Library in Salt
Lake City, though I'm not LDS -- but #1, I don't have Pastor Foster's
permission and #2, I don't have a clue what the LDS acquisitions policy is for
materials like this. I also REALLY do not want to overstep myself in any of this and be
seen as some blundering outsider who barges in and is overly presumptuous about such an
important part of Brynmawr's heritage. I would really appreciate some comment from
local folks, either here on the maillist or privately, about the proper way to handle
these records if they are not already preserved somewhere.) !
As Ive mentioned to others, Id also like to feature other familys
stories from my pages, and Id also be happy to add a story about your family.<
Thanks, Jeff. I haven't decided yet exactly how to handle all the material I've
got. Right now it's in two principal, constantly-evolving forms: Family Tree
Maker/gedcom/Acrobat data files and Microsoft Word photo essays which run to 3-12 single
spaced pages per individual, plus several hundred related photos and maps. In other
words, I have quite a lot of it, and it's changing constantly. In full form it is
being shared with members of my extended family. In more condensed form, I do want to
make it available to others but I haven't quite decided how. I may put a website of
my own back up at some point, though I'm mixed about that. I used to have what I
thought of as quite an obscure website, part of which contained family history pointers
and resources, which only friends and family and my college students would even!
know of the existence of. I soon found that it was constantly bombarded with so many
nice, friendly queries and comments from all over the world that I simply couldn't
deal with all of them. I'd have had to quite my teaching to do so -- but I felt
constantly guilty and apologetic that I was too overwhelmed. I don't know how folks
like you or John Ball or all the rest of you with such terrific, popular websites handle
that, but you're obviously better time managers than I am! So since retiring and
dismantling that website, I've been really mixed about whether I do or don't want
to create another one. Anyhow, when I find the time I'd be glad to try and GREATLY
condense my Powell & Newman saga to post a synopsis at your site.
I've noticed that I end every posting here with apologies for length, and here I go
again.....
I will try to reform, I swear.
My best to all,
Judith Sylte
Whidbey Island, WA
USA