To all volunteers, Thank all of you for the help you have given us over the past few years
in ciphering some of those impossible to read names.
Sure hate to see it go, one of the first certificates we transcribed was a surname listed
on Rootsweb as DURBER. After looking at it only a moment, I recognized it as a family
that we knew well. It was actually DUNBAR. No one would ever find this Dth Cert. looking
thru Rootsweb, because of the way it was listed.
We spent numerous hours correcting surnames that are listed on Rootsweb wrong. So sorry
to see this project go. This project turned out to be a blessing to those we have listed
1911-1918 as lying in Unmarked Graves in Caldwell, Crittenden, Livingston & Lyon
Counties as we listed them in special sections on those counties KyGenWeb sites.
Ken & Peggy Gilkey
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
----- Original Message -----
From: Sherry Slaughter <sheryl.slaughter(a)yahoo.com>
To: kygenweb-kvrp(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:25:06 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [KYVITALS] Future of the project
Dear volunteers:
Those of you who are newer to the project will not recognize my name, but I am Sheryl
Slaughter, and I started this project in 2003. I worked as the project coordinator until
the untimely death of my husband and a hasty return to college to get a degree a couple of
years ago. I have continued to work with Sherri Bradley and the other admins as time
permits--particularly in helping with transitions and programming to move the project
between sites. It is with Sherri's blessing that I write to all of you today.
The project is in a very difficult position. We have moved more than once to get web space
and speed to accommodate the growing project. We recently were alerted by our current
hosting service, BlueHost, that our account was to be turned off since we have more than
50,000 files. While this company advertises unlimited size and unlimited bandwith, they
have decided to change their terms of use to exclude sites of more than 50,000 files. At
the time of the announcement, we had more than 600,000 files on the site.
Sherri, the other admins, and myself have been researching options and discussing what we
should do. We have decided to discontinue the project in its current form. FamilySearch is
about to put the entire collection of Kentucky death certificates from 1911-1955 online,
including images and transcriptions. The estimated timeframe they gave me is 1 to 2 1/2
months. We are confident that these records will remain free forever, so they meet the
goal of our project to get those up. We are in process of pulling down all the images
except for the two years that are currently being transcribed.
We plan to leave up the database so researchers will be able to look through our
transcriptions for alternate spellings, etc. that might help them find their ancestors. We
also have a feature where researchers can see all surname variations in the database,
which will be a help for difficult surnames.
We will be going forward as we can with records that FamilySearch is not planning to put
up. That would include rarer sources such as family bibles, school censuses, odd lots of
records that have not been microfilmed such as the 1850's birth and death certificates
we found in Campbell County, and other records that show a birth, marriage, or death.
Beyond what records are already in the pipeline, there will be no more images processed.
Sherri and I are in the middle of downloading and deleting the images from KyVitals, and
uploading them to a KyGenWeb site where county coordinators or others can link to the
individual images. They are being uploaded by county, and within each county, by year so
all the images from the project will remain available to everyone.
Feel free to ask any questions of Sherri or myself as we work through this journey trying
to transition the project. If you try to access the project on any day from now forward
and cannot, it probably means BlueHost has shut us off. We are in danger of that every day
we are over their 50,000 file limit. If this happens, know that we are working on a
resolution and we will come up with one--even if it takes a few days. Your hard work is
not going away.
As you finish your work on the project, I want to encourage you to transcribe for
FamilySearch if you can. It is easy to do online, and the work they are accomplishing is
nothing short of amazing. Just go to
FamilySearch.org and click on the Indexing tab at the
top to sign up and get started.
I want to personally thank all the volunteers, past and present, for being willing to
sacrifice of yourselves to help realize my dream. I have made some lifelong friends and
gained valuable skills working on this project. I wouldn't have missed it for the
world.
With deepest appreciation,
Sheryl Neal Slaughter
-------------------------------
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