I found out yesterday that if you are able to go to the County Clerk's Office in person with the info from the TIGS website marriage index, you will leave in just a few minutes with copies of your documents. Truly amazing, and for only $5.00 I got back another whole generation on both sides. This will be a nice surprise for my friend's mom who is turning 90 next week. She will now know the names of all her grandparents, all from Poland. Other info includes occupations, age at time of marriage, witnesses names, Church and minister performing the ceremony. I'm putting together a nice little family tree for her, and including these documents. Donna ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill & Cathy McGrath" <seamus@nycap.rr.com> To: <NY-TROY-IRISH-GENSOC-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 1:09 PM Subject: [NY-TROY-IRISH-GENSOC] Marriage Index Project & Volunteers > > A. List members may be interested in how the work is done on the > Rensselaer County Marriage Index Project and who does > the work. The following items may be of interest and may trigger more > volunteers to help on this major project. > > 1. First of all, TIGS uses their own laptop computer and scanner. The > IBM laptop was purchased with TIGS dues money and the scanner was > donated by Jeanne Keefe, the TIGS webmaster. Local TIGS members use this > equipment to scan the Marriage Index Books in the basement of the County > Clerk's Building on Third Street in Troy. > > 2. The combined index for Volume 6 and 7, with 4,000 marriages and 8,000 > names is currently being worked on. Two sessions of scanning the Grooms > names resulted in 231 pdf files which were sent to volunteers for > transcribing. Transcribing and proof reading of these 231 files is 99% > complete. On May 1, 2008 the first pages were sent to volunteers for > transcribing. > > 3. The TIGS Project Coordinator sends the pdf files and the Excel sheet > to individual transcribers. As each page is returned an additional page > is then sent to the worker. All returned pages are then sent to a proof > reader to double check the data entry. When all the Grooms files are > finished they will be sorted in marriage number order and analyzed to > identify missing marriage numbers or duplicate numbers. > > 4. The next step in the process is to scan the 4,000 Brides names and > create pdf files to send to the volunteers. This work will be started in > the next few days. > > 5. Work on data entry of the Grooms names has involved 21 volunteers from > all over the country. Here is a state by state breakdown of the > volunteers: > > New York State - 13 > Albany -1 > Clifton Park - 3 > Poughkeepsie - 1 > Saratoga Springs - 1 > Troy - 3 > Wynantskill - 2 > Williamson - 1 > Syracuse - 1 > > Massachusetts - 3 > Pennsylvania - 2 > Iowa - 1 > Virginia -1 > Tennessee - 1 > > 6. As you may know, the following volumes of the Marriage Index with > their 32,000 names are currently on-line on the Troy Irish Genealogy > website www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/ > > Vol. 1 5,000 marriages with 10,000 Names January 1908-April > 1913 > Vol. 2 5,000 marriages with 10,000 Names April 1913-July > 1918 > Vol. 3 2,000 marriages with 4,000 Names May 1918-April > 1920 > Vol. 4 & 5 4,000 marriages with 8,000 Names April 1920-January > 1924 > > 7. Photocopies of documents on file OR of the record in the marriage > book for these 16,000 marriages, are available from the County Clerk's > Office for a fee of $5.00. Separate request forms for EACH Volume with > the necessary instructions can be printed from the TIGS website. > > B. Additional volunteers can always be used to work on the Marriage Index > Project. The quicker the data entry process, the faster each index can be > put on-line on the TIGS website. Volunteers can help as follows: > > 1. Become a volunteer transcriber. All you need on your computer is > Adobe, which can be downloaded free and Excel. Data entry items are > minimal; last name, first name, page number, marriage number and date of > marriage. As all the work is handled through email, volunteers can be > located anywhere in the world. > > 2. The following need for volunteers can only be done by capital area > residents as the work has to be done at the County Clerk's Office in Troy. > As previously noted, the index for Volume 8 does not show the marriage > number and the date of the marriage. So, before we can scan these pages, a > look-up of the page number in the Marriage Book itself must be made to > obtain the marriage number and the date of the marriage for each name on > the index. Photocopies of all the pages in the Vol. 8 index have already > been made and now we need volunteers to post the marriage number and the > marriage date to the photocopied index pages. We will also face this > problem when we get to Volume 9 and Volume 10, the last two books of this > record series. > > If anyone is interested in volunteering to help with EITHER of the above > items, they can email me off list at seamus@nycap.rr.com . > > Regards, > > Bill McGrath > TIGS Project Coordinator > Clifton Park, NY > > > ===NY-IRISH-GENSOC Mailing List=== > Did you pay your 2008 Dues? > Troy Irish Genealogy Society > http://www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NY-TROY-IRISH-GENSOC-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >