The internet is a terrific tool for genealogy research, we all agree on
that. But so far, most of the genealogy *research* has been.."do you
have a connection"..."will do lookups"...etc, etc.
All of that is good, and there have been numerous connections made and
millions of bytes of information shared. And I don't suggest we stop.
But this valuable medium we have has GOT to start being more useful,
provide more information, and become the genealogical tool it is
capable of.
I'm suggesting that each of us could transcribe some public document,
whether it be a census record for a particular county, marriage bonds,
wills, tax lists, civil war rosters, etc etc. Some of you even have
hand scanners that could be used to copy documents.
We can't sit around and wait for the information to "magically" appear
on the internet. "We" have to do something. The USGenWeb Project,
initiated by the Kentucky group, took the "bull by the horns" and
started a snowball project that has finally begun to get some
organization here on the 'net. An ftp site has been made available to
the project that can be used for these files. There will be more, I'm
sure. I remember reading that some senator is even proposing funding to
make genealogical information available on the net...we'll see how far
that goes. <s>
I would like to hear your comments, and if there is enough interest in
getting serious here.. not that you aren't serious!!....maybe we should
start a GenFile mailing list. Any anyone interested or willing to
contribute can join. The list owner could keep track of who is doing
what, etc.
Some of you may think "that is too far-fetched and impossible". Well,
it's not. We just have to stop talking about it and DO it. If there are
enough people willing to get involved in it, I'll start a mailing list.
If it would take 10 years to get everything on the net, available to
researchers, no matter where they are.. it can either start 10 years
from today.. or 10 years from next year....1998?..1999?...??? We could
wait around and talk about it.. discuss it... whatever...for years, and
it's just going to take longer.
The ftp site is being organized by State and county, and files could be
added as they are completed. We all have computers (or you know
something I don't know.. hehe), and can type. We all live near
libraries with microfilm machines. I'm not saying it's going to be
easy, but it needs to be done sometime.
Before anyone mentions it... I know there will be errors.. there have
been since the first book on genealogy was published, but if someone
searching the files found an ancestor on a census record in a
particular county, they could request a copy of that page.
If you haven't heard of, or seen, the USGenWeb project, visit it at:
http://www.teleport.com/~jmurphy
There's lots of room for more volunteers, in many areas.
Thank you,
Linda Russell Lewis
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Note: The
teleport.com URL was the original site of USGenWeb.
Linda