Jim, I truely wish I was able to contribute more to the IN-South-Central Rootsweb list about each of the counties in the area. What appears quickly in your e-mail mailbox is actually fairly time consuming and expensive. First is the process of locating information. Do I have to go somewhere (the closest place is about 60 minutes from me at the Indiana State Lirary or to the county as much as three hours away). Then I have to locate the material on microfilm (assuming that the county has a functional microfilm reader, some don't). On a good day I can copy about 50 pages from microfilm in a three-hour period and the cost is from .10-.25 cents per page. Each page is sourced, then I have to manually type each relevant item into a Word document. Some items are transcribed from the computer. With the exception of Monroe County, everything is indexed so I don't duplicate what has already been done. And then there are those items that are abstracted. That takes even longer. The easy part?? I cut and paste each item from the Word document to an e-mail and send it on its way to the list. The other thing going on behind the scene is database entry. Some of the counties in the south central district have very little genealogy online and very inactive genealogy societies. Orange County would be a good example. So I'm trying to create some databases for each of the counties that I can make available for free at the Indiana Genalogical Society website. I just finished a database for Orange County. It is an index to grooms from 1902 to 1908 (362 names) that provides a page and line number. The names were hand transcribed from microfilm at the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne then typed into a database. Unfortunately, the legibility of the MF is so poor that extracting the name of the brides does not seem like a wise investment of time. And ideally, I'd like to proof my database against the original record in Paoli, but that involves a 90-minute trip. So I've delayed placing the database online. I've just started on a database of land owners as noted in the 1920 plat map for Crawford County. The legibility on that document is so poor that I decided to compare the names on the plat map with the names of land owners noted on the 1920 census record. There were obvious errors on the census record that I felt an obligation to correct. And rather than going back and forth from the census record to the plat map, I decided to hand transcribe the names of all land owners from the census records. Then I had to look through the whole list in order to compare a name from the census with a name from the plat map. So I decided to go ahead and enter the land owners from the census record into a database that would sort the names into alphabetical order. In the end, having both sets of records (the owners as noted on census records and those from the plat map) will be a richer source than the plat map alone, but it just takes time. Thankfully, I'm retired. But I like to work and sometimes I think about going back to work at a real job where I could make money. Then I realize I just don't have time for a real job! And anyway I'm happier doing genealogy. On those days that I'm home, I probably spend 6-8 hours at the computer. It would be my guess that every subscriber to this list has some documents relevant to their research. Maybe a will, an obit, some cemetery research. By sharing the information, the list becomes so much richer. Today I'm leaving for four days. The last time I was gone I set up my e-mail to send items to the list in my absence. Unfortunately, soon after I left I lost my electricity, my computer shut down, and the e-mail did not go out. So this time I'm sending myself all those items that need to be sent, then when I get to where I'm going, I'll open my mail and send those five items to the counties on a rotating basis. And update the sheet where I keep a record of the number of items sent to a given county on a given date and, additionally, note my starting place in the Word document for the next time I send items from that document. Now I'll climb down from my soapbox and quit whining. Randi PS: If I could only subscribe to one paid website, it would be Ancestry. It's that good and it keeps getting better. I don't regret one penny that I spend on my subscription. On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:36:33 -0400 (EDT), Jim Hill wrote: > Agree 100%. Ancestry has more, and more reliable information than any > site I know of. But the best part is their search-engine. Second to > none. And while I'm here, Randi, thanks very much for your daily > postings. Selfishly, I'd like to see more Washington County news, and > the majority of posters are correct, including the bad and ugly with > the good presents a truer picture of 150 years ago. > Thanks again, > Jim Hill >

Randi, At 05:31 AM 6/22/2012, you wrote: >Jim, > >I truely wish I was able to contribute more to the IN-South-Central >Rootsweb list about each of the counties in the area... As the Lawrence county webmaster, I just wanted to thank you for your contributions. The newspaper articles you send us each week are eagerly awaited AND are added, soon after their arrival, to our web site's newspaper collection at: http://www.ingenweb.org/inlawrence/paper.htm Please stay healthy! Chuck Carey