The difficulty of finding strays is realising that the person is a stray in the first place. And then secondly which of all the strays indexes out there should be consulted. An effective solution to strays must be highly find-able. That means either a solution that ensures that all the people's names can be found using a search engine like Google or putting the information in a place that genealogists might be in the habit of routinely searching (e.g. WorldConnect). For example, we have a database of headstone photos for SE Queensland. Sure, you can come to our site and do searches, but you are probably only going to do this if you think your ancestor is likely to have died in SE Queensland. If you are looking for someone you would have expected to have died in New Zealand (say), you would not think to visit our WWW site (you probably wouldn't even know about i). However, every photo caption on our site is accessible to Google. If you do a Google search for Alexander Keir Brown (to pick an example -- no idea if he's a stray), then Google points you straight at the relevant page on our WWW site. So, I would only go down the route of Yahoo databases if they can be made searchable. Note, what you don't want is for Google to see 1 page with all your strays' names on it. Or else when you search for Alexander Keir Brown, you get returned a page with Alexander Smith, Michael Keir, and Mary Brown. You really want one name (or one record as appropriate, e.g. one headstone) on one page to make the searching more effective. Something like WorldConnect is another solution. Since you upload a GEDCOM to it, you can develop your database in whatever family history software you already use. No need for anything extra. The other question I have is how do you decide someone is a stray in the first place? Having photographed and indexed over 200 cemeteries, frankly there often isn't any good way to know if a headstone might relate to a stray. Back to Alexander Keir Brown, his headstone simply gives his date of birth and date of death. Is he a stray? Honestly I think it would take a lot of research to determine if someone is a stray in the first place. One of the reasons that we started photographing whole cemeteries of headstones is because we discovered that it was actually a whole lot more efficient than photographing individual headstones on request. So really there is probably more value in people indexing/transcribing whatever set of records is available to them and make that very find-able rather than bother about worrying if the individual folk are strays or not. If everyone did that, all the strays would eventually turn up! Kerry

Kerry Raymond wrote: > The difficulty of finding strays is realising that the person is a stray in > the first place. And then secondly which of all the strays indexes out there > should be consulted. An effective solution to strays must be highly > find-able. > > That means either a solution that ensures that all the people's names can be > found using a search engine like Google or putting the information in a > place that genealogists might be in the habit of routinely searching (e.g. > WorldConnect). > > For example, we have a database of headstone photos for SE Queensland. Sure, > you can come to our site and do searches, but you are probably only going to > do this if you think your ancestor is likely to have died in SE Queensland. > If you are looking for someone you would have expected to have died in New > Zealand (say), you would not think to visit our WWW site (you probably > wouldn't even know about i). However, every photo caption on our site is > accessible to Google. If you do a Google search for Alexander Keir Brown (to > pick an example -- no idea if he's a stray), then Google points you straight > at the relevant page on our WWW site. So, I would only go down the route of > Yahoo databases if they can be made searchable. > > Note, what you don't want is for Google to see 1 page with all your strays' > names on it. Or else when you search for Alexander Keir Brown, you get > returned a page with Alexander Smith, Michael Keir, and Mary Brown. You > really want one name (or one record as appropriate, e.g. one headstone) on > one page to make the searching more effective. > > Something like WorldConnect is another solution. Since you upload a GEDCOM > to it, you can develop your database in whatever family history software you > already use. No need for anything extra. > > The other question I have is how do you decide someone is a stray in the > first place? Having photographed and indexed over 200 cemeteries, frankly > there often isn't any good way to know if a headstone might relate to a > stray. Back to Alexander Keir Brown, his headstone simply gives his date of > birth and date of death. Is he a stray? Honestly I think it would take a lot > of research to determine if someone is a stray in the first place. One of > the reasons that we started photographing whole cemeteries of headstones is > because we discovered that it was actually a whole lot more efficient than > photographing individual headstones on request. So really there is probably > more value in people indexing/transcribing whatever set of records is > available to them and make that very find-able rather than bother about > worrying if the individual folk are strays or not. If everyone did that, all > the strays would eventually turn up! > > Kerry My rule is, if he's where you'd expect to find him/her, she/he's not a stray. The man from Kansas who married a woman from Virginia at her brother's home in Maryland, or the man found dead beside his valise on the porch of the hotel, and so on. When I find those, I tend to go put a post on the appropriate surname board at ancestry.com -- free, and easily findable, and because those boards are for the most part part of the USGenWeb/WorldGenWeb you can look at them without subscribing. Free at both ends, I don't have to keep a database, and the motivated will find it. If all you've got is a cemetery stone, you have to assume he's not a stray. If you've got the obituary that says the man's from Inner Mongolia and buried here -- he's a stray. (g) Cheryl