>Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 22:38:13 -0800 >To: Transcriptionists >From: "Donna@MBS" <mbs@inland.net> >Subject: pre-1905 update > >Hi all; >Time for the weekly update on how the project is progressing. This is a weekly progress report. For those of you that have not heard of the project, we are currently putting the pre-1905 death records for all counties in California online for FREE access. If you would like more information, feel free to contact me. > >Now for the progress of the project: > >The last pages of Los Angeles County are being distributed for transcription on Monday and Tuesday. That means that all 6 books consisting of over 40,000 deaths is in the process of being transcribed. There are over 40 transcriptionists currently working on just this county, but what a feather in our cap when we finally get it all done. We know how little is available for this county due to it's size and the quality (or lack of) the records. As each book is completed, it will be placed on line. > >Steve and Laura have started setting up the web page although it is not online yet. They are working on the front page and will be listing all donors and volunteers to honor them and show our appreciation for all they are doing. There will also be an index which will tie into the individual counties as well as information regarding the year of formation of the county and from which other county it was formed. If it is an original county or a defunct county, it will state that as well. > >Riverside County has now been completely transcribed. We are going over the last changes and the prep for the web page. This is just a matter of day. > >San Diego County is almost done with transcription and will be on the website in short order. > >San Bernardino County Book one only has two more batches to be completed and then preped for the website. Book two ony has four more batches to be completed. > >Los Angeles County has the first three batches completed and several more to go so it will be a while before it gets online. > > >Steven Miller has been working on the Mariposa county records for some time and expects to finish his 1850-1940 records by Easter. He is willing to donate the pre-1905 portion to our cause. Thank you Steven. > >Sharon Dulcich is in the process of attempting to take digital pics of Kern County records to be transcribed. These are the ones which will be distributed on disks to the transcribers to transcribe. She is working with and getting much cooperation from the recorders office in that county. I am sure that this will take a little time, but it is in the works. Thank you Sharon for your good works. > >Elvina Fernandez, while working on a San Diego batch, is also accumulating transcribers from the Tulare County genealogical society to handle the copies that I am acquiring for Tulare County. We will be donating our pages to their genealogical society when they are completed with this project. Thank you Elvina for setting that up. > >George Rushton is working on the death records for the City of Oakland. Thank you George for working on this and we hope to see this online in the future. > >Carol Stewart has gotten access to Butte county and is currently transcribing those records. This county is "her baby" until she screams for help. > >Cathy Gowdy from the Marin County Gen. Soc. is checking on whether or not the recorder's office in Marin County will allow the copying of their indexes. We are waiting to hear from her. > >Our #2, Laura Melton is currently working on Siskiyou County records. Seems there are about 658 records of deaths 1905 and before and they will only allow her access to 10 of these per week. This will be a long process to get them online, but she is persistent and will do her 10 per week until she gets them all completed and online for the project. > >Beverly Stone is working on accessing records for Sacramento and El Dorado Counties for transcription. We should be hearing from her regarding her progress in that area soon. > >Jacqui Marcela is working on acquiring the records for Placer County and we appreciate her efforts in this area. > >We have ordered the records for Humboldt, Nevada, Marin, Amador, Colusa and Tulare Counties and should be receiving them fairly soon. > >We will be soon ordering records for the following counties since we have discovered that they will be made available to us as well. The ordering is pending an improvement in our financial situation. Those counties are: >Calaveras County 1858-1905 >Del Norte County 1873-1903 >Glenn County 1891-1895 >Madera County 1892-1903 >Madera County 1902-1905 >Lake County 1867-1905 >Lassen County 1874-1905 >Mendocino County 1861-1905 >Monterey County 1887-1905 > >We are currently still drastically in need of financial help on the project. Anything that you can help with would be GREATLY appreciated. This is our current holdup on getting the files for the eight counties that we have approval for. Please help in this area if you can by sending either funds to me at the address below or postage (we go through that like candy too). We are only using the funds for copies and postage, but county records are expensive to acquire, even though we are working special deals where appropriate and available. > >Transcriptionists are always welcome with a project this large. We have some transcriptionists that have completed batches and are getting more due to the importance of this project. YOU MUST HAVE EXCEL, MS WORKS OR MS OFFICE TO WORK ON THIS PROJECT. We currently have about 60+ transcribers on this project which means we will be able to get this info online much faster. The more the merrier I say. > >Now for the list that we like to see get smaller. We are currently pending info on availability of records in the following counties. If you can help with this, please feel free to contact us. > >Alameda Alpine Amador >Contra Costa Fresno Inyo >Kings Merced Modoc >Napa Orange Plumas >San Benito San Francisco San Joaquin >San Luis Obispo San Mateo Santa Barbara >Santa Clara Santa Cruz Shasta >Sierra Solano Sonoma >Stanislaus Sutter Tehama >Trinity Tuolumne Ventura >Yolo Yuba > >We will not be doing Imperial county as it did not become a county until 1907 and no records are available before that date. That area was included in San Diego County before 1907. > >Thank you >Donna Bradley >Project Coordinator >P. O. Box 391368 >Anza, CA 92539-1368