Tis Wonderful to Give Back When You Receive

Gone are the days in which the only choice in doing yourgenealogical research was to head on over to the local library or genealogysociety.  You’d pack up your notebooksand pens, spend hours looking at a few books and be pretty pleased if you foundanything new. Now, with just a few clicks, many of those documents, records andout of print books we desperately needed to get our hands on can be seen with afew clicks of the mouse. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhh…I like this form of genealogical couch potato-ness,(although I also still love my library trips)! BUT, those records don’t just upload themselves to the internet all ontheir own.  There is an army ofvolunteers, transcribing them for free all over the world, every, single day.  They’re fighting valiantly to save out ofprint books and documents which could disappear forever.  They’re the ones that let you sit on your duffin your living room and hand you that long needed source or an ancestor’s willthat makes your tree complete. I’m a part of this transcription army and amdarn proud of it.

Please won’t you join the transcription army?  It’s so easy to do, right at home and you candictate who you transcribe for, what you want to transcribe and if you willspend 5 minutes or 50 hours a month doing it. It’s like being a freelance historian – preserving our past one page ata time.

Here are just a few transcribing opportunities to get youstarted.  And, make sure to check withyour local genealogy or history society and public library to see if there isany way you can lend a hand with their transcription projects. If you have any suggestions for volunteering opportunities, please feel free to add them in the comments section.  I'd love to see all of your ideas!  Thanks!

• Sussex Online Parish Clerks
• FamilySearch Worldwide Indexing With their iphone and ipad apps, you can index virtually everywhere!
• Project Gutenberg Lots of different types of volunteer opportunities here to keep out of print and rare books alive.
• Billiongraves.com  Help document our cemeteries.  There's also a smartphone app to make it super easy.
• USGenweb 
• Ancestry World Archives Project  Lend a hand to the folks over at Ancestry.com.
• Genealogy Trails
• New England Historic Genealogical Society  You don't have to live in Boston to help my favorite genealogical society.  

Photos: Ancestors Looking For Their Families

As I do my genealogical research, I always look for any hints for what my ancestors looked like. Were they short or tall? What color were their eyes? How the heck did I get red hair when everyone in my family has sandy brown hair? We're lucky enough to have one family photo album from the 1800's and a few old photos here and there but I always ask myself? Where did all of our family’s photos go?

 

In order to answer that question, I've become slightly addicted to perusing every old photo at every antique store and show, scouring the back of EVERY photo to see if there is a name on it. The vendors must wonder what the crazy lady is doing sitting on the floor with a pile of photos. I also search EBay to find I.D.’d photos and albums. It makes me insane when I see families selling their own family albums but I'm a good girl and don't follow through on my thought of sending them a nasty email to tell them how lucky they are and telling them they're horrible people for selling their family history like that.

 

Occasionally,  I find someone else’s family photo that has a name and location on it and I buy it in hopes that somebody is left in that person's family that would love to know what they looked.  So, I will sometimes post these photo finds here and maybe a descendent will find them, contact me and the photos will be returned to their loved ones. Who knows? Maybe one day, someone will find my ancestors’ photos and I'll figure out where this red hair originated.

Alise, Minnie, Orville and Raymond Young of Matoon, IL. Children of Edwin and Rose Young.  Photo found in Glendale, CA.

World War I soldier, Raymond Young of Matoon, IL. Son of Edwin and Rose Young. Photo found in Glendale, CA.