Sheila,
Well said. Thanks for your comments.
Ed Hill
-----Original Message-----
From: KFurBallKell(a)aol.com [mailto:KFurBallKell@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 7:00 PM
To: inswitze(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [INSWITZE] Jefferson and Switzerland County GenWeb sites
To all concerned;
I hope I can answer some of your questions and concerns. As Bob Scott
said he did refuse to allow me to use any of his information for the new
sites
and for the reason he cited. He does not believe in the GenWeb concept.
Long before I became a County Coordinator, I was a user of the GenWeb
system, and my feeling about its value are obviously different than his.
As to why the information on the old site has disappeared, believe me by
no choice of my own. I deliberately linked to what was up for the old sites
as long as it was there and I hope the Hoggatts will choose to put it back
for
us all to use. There are rules for Gen Web Coordinators, some of those
rules
include, fixing broken links, updating on a regular basis (if for some
reason you cannot do your updates you only have to notify the State
Coordinator
and help will be given help to add the all things people send in). I feel
the
Hoggatts Jefferson & Switzerland County sites were excellent and I used
them
frequently. Yes, I would like to have seen updates but more important to me
was the information they had there for all of us to use. The Hoggatts have
chosen to block their sites, GenWeb or I had nothing to do with that
choice.
I needed two more sites like I need another hole in my head. I know for
at least the nearly two years I have been Coordinator for Jennings County
the
State Coordinator had been asking for the Hoggatts to do the maintenance
required. I e mailed Ruth and offered to help in any way I could. The
response
was nothing happened. A difficult decision was made by the State
Coordinator to
de link the sites from GenWeb because of this non compliance. I had some
choices to make. I love Southern Indiana, my family roots are there, I
intend
to retire there. I live in Indianapolis because I have to work because I
have
to support my mother and myself. I was offered the sites and because I want
them to be active and informative I took on the challenge. I am not an
author,
or a Genealogist. I love family history, Southern Indiana and trying to
help
others when I can. I make many research trips a year to the area and take
photographs of old documents which I then transcribe and will add to sites
as I
have done in Jennings County.
I pains me that this has happened, but I personally do not believe in
copyrighting information as has been done on many sites. These people are
just
not my family, what each of us have found in doing research may be just the
thing someone else needs to discover theirs. That is what interests me, I
was
adopted as an infant and did not discover it until I was in my 30's so
finding
ones Roots has many meanings for me. It is fun, challenging and something I
will continue to do as long as I can. Nothing on a site I am connected with
is copyrighted because neither the site or the information on it is "mine"
it
is ours, all of us who search and hope to find.
Here is a quote I have on the main page of the Jennings Site and it
pretty
well explains how I feel. Contributing to the Jefferson & Switzerland
County
sites is your choice, of course I would love to have anything you are
willing to share but the key word here is share, not keep and refuse to
share if
things do not go the way you think they should.
Thank You and Please read the following;
Sheila Kell
County Coordinator
Jennings, Jefferson & Switzerland Counties INGenWeb
"The Chosen"
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the
ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell
the
family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing
genealogy
is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who
have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have
one.
We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before
cry
out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find
ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost
count.
How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you
would be proud of us.". How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt
somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just
documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It
goes to seeing
a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying -
I
can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my
flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our
ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are
today. It
goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or
giving
up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes
to
deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a
nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it
for
us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us
birth,
without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we
can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them.
So
we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence,
because
we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I
tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next
generation
to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family
storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls
those young
and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never
known
before."
by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann
McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943."
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