You are right on this issue, Tina. Being that I am the person who started The Tombstone Project and have been representing it on the Board for most of the Board's existence, maybe I should speak my mind on this. When I began the Project, now three years ago, little was being done to archive cemetery surveys. This bothered me a lot and the Project actually began as a Memorial Day tie in to try and get people to survey cemeteries and submit them to the archives while they were visiting. I ALWAYS considered the Archives to the proper place for storage of all records of this type for posterity's sake. It just made sense to me then and still does to me now. I don't believe that records belong on county web sites (unless they are also archived). The Archives is the central repository for all important historical and genealogical records for the USGenWeb Project. Well, the Tombstone Project was a huge success, so I decided to continue it as a permanent thing. All records that were sent to me were deposited in the Archives. I did, as a courtesy to researchers, link to surveys that were not archived, but I continued to encourage people to contribute their surveys to our repository. The Project did not begin as an off shoot of the Archives Project, but I more or less made it into one because of my beliefs. (I have the same opinions on Census Records, but that is another discussion). That is a bit of the history. The Tombstone Project is probably too large now to be handled by one volunteer in each state who is also the Archives coordinator. Maybe in some states it would work, but not in others. To be done right, it needs its own volunteer group making sure that files are uploaded, updated, etc. But, I do consider it to be an "Archives" Project from the standpoint that I believe ALL records should be in our central repository. Pam TVick65536@aol.com wrote: > > > 4. The possibility of combining the Tombstone Project up with the > Archives Project, as a subsidiary (which I already consider it to be). > > I, also consider the Tombstone Project a subsidiary of the USGenWeb Archives > Project. Placing it within the USGenWeb Archives would only raise the > question of representation on the board. > > Tina Vickery