Concerning dual or multiple sponsorship of a county site:
I think we have to look closely at what we are trying to accomplish. My goal in hosting
the Currituck Co. site is to provide a sort of clearing house for information which would
be of help to anyone researching roots in that county. If other groups, such as AHGP,
ALHN, etc., maintain their own Currituck County sites, separate from mine and without open
lines of communication with me, then we risk duplicating efforts.
The question being posed is actually the reverse of this. If I become the Currituck Co.
coordinator for NCGenWeb, AHGP and ALHN, then all of the people who access those
organizations searching for information about Currituck Co. will eventually be funneled to
my site. I see this as a benefit rather than a drawback because there is no risk of
duplication of efforts, I will have a larger pool of people out there who might want to
contribute their Currituck Co. records to the one site, and those people looking for their
roots in Currituck will have a better chance of finding what they're looking for.
At this point, I am not a member of, and don't have any links to the other
organizations. Am waiting to see what additional points might be brought up in this
discussion--things I may not have thought of.
As for the question about the number of counties per CC, I think taking on multiple
counties is sometimes a necessity due to lack of volunteers. But I do think that it would
be better for each volunteer to focus on only one county. Considering the amount of
information we would like to make available (over three hundred years' worth in some
counties!), an individual could work on a single county for years and years and still have
plenty left to do. In fact, rather than one person working on multiple counties, I'd
rather see several people working on each county.
Marty Holland
marty(a)ec.rr.com