Jan wrote on Saturday, December 30, 2000 1:39 PM | With the new year fast approaching, perhaps it's time to consider a new | idea. It appears from many past posts over this year that a number of us | have access to various reference materials. Given the common interest we | share, it stands to reason that possibly there is a great deal of duplication | of the reference material amongst us. What I would like to propose is that | we gather a list of available reference materials and that we individually | make commitments to help those who do not have the materials available to | them. For example, I have the following at my disposal: | | The Huguenots of London (Robin Gwynn) | Huguenot Ancestry (Noel Currer-Briggs & Royston Gambier) | The Quiet Conquest - The Huguenots 1685 to 1985 (Catalogue by Museum of | London and the Huguenot Society of London) | Immigrant Histories: Huguenot Settlers in North America and Europe, 1600's - | 1900's | (CD#600 Family Tree Maker's Family Archives) | Various pamphlets acquired in Canterbury | | While I have often searched some or all of this material for "names" that are | submitted by list members, I have not been able to do it consistently. I am | now prepared to do a search of my available reference materials once a week | for all names that appear in the posts from the former week. It occurs to me | that if others are willing to make such a commitment that perhaps any scraps | of information we can provide will help some of our fellow listers. | | What I propose is that each of us who is willing and able to make a similar | commitment post a list of our available materials. We could then nail down | the duplications and sort out who will take responsibility for searching | which piece of reference material. Where there are duplications, perhaps we | could take turns on alternate weeks. For each of us willing to do the | searches, we could post all entries/finds once a week for all names | researched for the former week. | | This is just an idea and perhaps it's not a good one, but I thought I would | toss it out and gather your thoughts. It occurs to me that several people | such as Andrea (of course!) and Roy have been spending a great deal of time | helping so many of us and it would be helpful to all if more of us chipped in | on a more regular basis. I, for one, quite often search my materials to see | if I have anything available, and I'm certain that I'm not alone in that | practise. The problem is that I don't know if others are duplicating my | effort and I haven't been posting if I don't find any references. | | Just a thought for the new year... | | Regards to all and a very happy new year, | Jan Zwarick I entirely agree with the above and I think you will find that Andrea is already giving thought to such an idea. What also needs to be given consideration is the terms under which such advice is given. What is needed is encouragement to enable individuals to do undertake their own research and not for others to do it for them. In my view requests that warrant research by others must show that they have genuinely tried to solve the problem. What I am loathe to do is to spend considerable time trawling through records based on a very vague request. I also think that all questions and answers should come through the list for the benefit of others. In this way they are archived and available for future researchers. My suggestion was that such a list, as is suggested by Jan, should be part of an information sheet published by Andrea at regular intervals as this would enable the list to be continually updated as people either acquire further information or join/leave the list. I am quite happy to provide a list of the information I have available should this suggestion be taken up. Roy Day.