Hi.
I just want to ask if anyone knows what is really going on here? It
seems to me that there is a big power struggle (which I thought we as
census volunteers, etc. had dealt with some months ago) going on that
will soon affect the quality of the Census Project. I know that this
does not directly affect the GAGenWeb project, but feel that it may at
some point in the future. I personally own several of the transcriptions
of census records for GA and they are (I believe) probably archived in
both places (as well as on my own personal web site resident on my hard
drive), as my understanding was that the Archives people were copying
the Census Project records, thereby nullifying their argument that the
search engines couldn't access them.
I know for a fact that when this issue came up several months ago, there
were a LOT of individual census transcribers that were VERY confused on
what to think of the whole mess. And I think mess is the best
description I can come up with. Genealogy and its associated work should
never be a political enterprise. I signed on with Rootsweb so that I
could take advantage of the notion of free availability of genealogical
information, and I'm assuming that is why USGenWeb did as well. I
support Rootsweb (and USGenWeb) in what it is they are trying to do
here, but I'm beginning to think that in some circles this has all
become about political maneuvering and not about family history work.
My main question is: Is any of this information going to be disseminated
down to the census transcriber level? I'm certain that many of them
would have an opinion on what is happening, and it also appears that
they will have no voice in the matter. I run two counties in GA for
GAGenWeb and also maintain my own personal site on Rootsweb, and without
that "in", I doubt I would have ever heard about this as a census
volunteer...
Can anyone let me know what the accepted procedures are here and whether
even we as county coordinators have a say in any of this?
Mary Kozy
--
Mary Kathryn Kozy
mkozy(a)ibm.net
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~marykozy
Dougherty Co., GA USGenWeb page:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~gadoughe
Monroe Co., GA USGenWeb page:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~gamonroe
South King Co. Genealogical Society web page:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~waskcgs