------------------------------------------------------------------ FORWARDED MESSAGE - Orig: 8-Oct-98 6:32 Subject: Census on-line, please read ------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi folks, Before I unsubscribe I wanted to remind you all that USGenWeb has a great project going to get the whole census on-line. Wouldn't that be great? You can help. (I am not connected with USGenWeb, just an enthusiastic census-transcriber.) Is there a particular county/year where your family is in a big tangle? Typing out the whole county or even one township really gets you to thinking about the relationships between the people who live there. You find relatives that have been lurking under a mis-spelled name or living in somebody else's house - you find the parents of your mystery wives and cousins etc... Also, many of us get more information and then have to go back to the SAME reel over and over - if you've put it in the computer, it's at your command. More importantly, for those who have often benefited by the generosity of others on the Web, this is a way to give something back. I notice there are some people on the web who are always helping others, and some who are always asking for help. If you are one of the latter, putting some hours in for the permanent good of the whole net community will get you back in balance! I am transcribing 1850 Morrow County because I discovered this reel was left out of the book index for Ohio 1850 (at least, the one at our local archive). That is, not one person in Morrow County is in the census index for that year! I believe this is also true for the Ohio 1850 cd (if you have it, check - are there any entries for Morrow County?) I'm also coordinating volunteers to do 1870 Morrow County - which has never been indexed by anybody. Would you like to help? Even one township would help... When this project is done, we can give a paper copy of an all-name index for 1870 to the Ohio Gen Society and the Morrow County Gen Society and anybody else - something that never existed before - that feels like a big motivation! Anyway, in order to help you need: (1) access to a census reel (or one of the S-K books with photocopies of the census for a given county/year). You can rent this from a family history center or your local public library for about $3.50. (2) a laptop computer (unless you have a microfilm reader at home, or a paper copy of the census) It's slow going but fun. And what a sense of accomplishment! If you want to see the ones I've done as an example (Morrow County Ohio 1850) click: ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/oh/morrow/census/1850/ If you want to see the USGenWeb site which discusses the project - or you're ready to jump in and help - check http://www.usgenweb.org/census/index.htm One more thing: somebody who works at my local Family History Center got very excited about this when I mentioned it - she realized she spends many slow hours there and is in a perfect position to plod along transcribing a reel. If you go to FHC you might mention the project to any computer savvy volunteers there who might be interested. Anybody can email me about this if they want more information. Cheers, Jane Peppler <jpeppler@acpub.duke.edu> -- Mappamundi: "More-or-less traditional music of the Northern Hemisphere and the Current Millenium" http://www.mappamundi.com/ !^NavFont02F0AEE0007NGHHQF0AC78 Maggie's World of Courthouse Dust & Genealogy Fever http://www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/mindex.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* God Put Me On Earth to Accomplish a Certain Number of Things. Right Now I am so far behind, I will never die. --- Unknown *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*