I see where Joyce and Darlene are headed with her opinions. A project I once belonged to had a problem enlisting volunteers and decided to work from the top down -- volunteers will adopt entire states as opposed to individual counties, in an effort to get all the states adopted. Definitely that's a cluster idea. That idea, however, didn't work. I gave up long ago trying to get volunteers to work on Alaska. Though I still have borough/census area pages up, I decided to forego volunteers and do the work myself. It isn't for everyone, but when you talk about clustering... in my lowly opinion, working the state overall is simpler than working individual counties. I'm not alone in my belief here as there is another state whose manager declares names in the million and has done the work alone. So, it's six of one / half dozen of another. I will add one thing -- as successful as ALHN is, I believe ALHN is sort of on the fringe of that other, well-established project. The only way to defeat 'that other project' is to out-do them, pure and simple. Build ALHN so much that the traffic comes this way and not the other -- it's uploading fresher data and out-trafficking the peer project. I had a point to make here and in this missive somewhere; I hope I made it. Colleen -----Original Message----- >From: Darlene Anderson <darlene-anderson@hughes.net> >Sent: Nov 7, 2013 3:58 PM >To: alhn-board@rootsweb.com >Subject: Re: [ALHN-BOARD] thought > >I'm not sure if this would work because we don't have volunteers to do 1 county in a lot of states much less a volunteer for a cluster of counties. I think ALHN needs more work and more volunteers for this to be a viable option for us. Maybe if enough folks see that ALHN is changing we can increase the county site volunteers. This is my hope anyway. And from these volunteers, we can encourage them to take on more than 1 county to create the cluster. For example, in Middle Tennessee, I volunteered for Hickman and Maury and I could volunteer for Williamson and Dickson (not volunteering yet though) and this would be a cluster. > >I don't know that we need an additional person to manage the cluster. Maybe what we need to do first is write an article for the county cluster project explaining what it is. Have a county coordinator maintain the web sites and then ask for volunteers to help with transcribing documents, taking photographs, and so on. Maybe a county transcriber, county indexer (there are tons of books not indexed). We could pick up folks to volunteer for something other than doing web sites. > >Joyce, I think the idea might work. Just needs planning, ideas and so on. My 2 cents worth. > >Make it a Great Genealogy Day! >Darlene Anderson, Vice-President >American Local History Network >http://www.alhn.org/ >State Coordinator for South Carolina-ALHN >And Kentucky-ALHN! > > >-----Original Message----- >From: alhn-board-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:alhn-board-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joyce Gaston Reece >Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 5:16 PM >To: ALHN-BOARD R/W >Subject: [ALHN-BOARD] thought > >I���ve been bouncing around a thought for awhile and thought to see what you all thought. > >Rather than confine our state coordinators to seeking county sites we offer regional sites. That may or may not work for all state coordinators. But I know that here in southeast Tennessee it is a huge mistake to confine research to one county. IE, we have one community now in McMinn that was in three other counties first. The families in the area show in records for all 4 counties. Early county lines in east TN were constantly changing. We could offer clusters of counties???? Or at least plant the idea as an option?? > > >Joyce Gaston Reece,President >American Local History Network >www.alhn.org > Joyce Gaston Reece,President American Local History Network www.alhn.org