From Robert Bremer... > Over the years there has been a growing emphasis on transcriptions as the > only thing we are about. I can't imagine anyone wanting to take on counties > with large cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore knowing > that transcriptions were considered the only objective when it's unlikely > that a coordinator could actually get through a transcription of any > particular record set in those large cities. Knowing what information > exists and how to get it is most of the problem in genealogy, and I don't > think the coordinators that have gone out of their way to provide that > information should be considered as having "shell" sites for lack of > extensive transcriptions. I agree with this. Transcriptions are NOT the "be all-end all" for people who are truly doing research. And to Robert's comment about people CC'ing larger cities, I CC Orleans Parish, LA--which is primarily New Orleans. We are fortunate that the archives has a great deal of transcription (which I link to), but I think the value provided by that site is showing all of the resource locations that are available. I live in NJ, but have family in Baton Rouge--so I get to visit New Orleans on occasion. I think there are a number of CCs who truly believe that transcriptions are "it". I'm ASC in NJ where we've recently set standards for the counties that require specific document/resource locations to be listed for every county--among them the county courthouse. I can't fathom this information NOT being on ANY county site in the country and yet it's missing from a good chunk of them. If there is any direction needed in USGW, it's things like this: providing guidance on what we need to ensure our users get to make USGW a truly value-added free-of-charge resource for researchers. Many county sites differ in the types of information they provide. Some combination of these is optimal. I know in NJ, I am on point to help any CC who can't find a location/address for a resource location. But there are the bare-bones basics of genealogy research that do not show up on many county sites. For instance--location and availability of birth, marriage and death certificates (see Somerset Co., NJ-->Vitals). How is this not available on EVERY site or a link from every site to some state level of this information? This is CRITICAL information for EVERY researcher... I think we flip-flop back and forth between "leave volunteers alone and be grateful for whatever they do" and an unrealistic level of bureaucracy. There must be a happy medium. --Heather Jones DeGeorge -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search http://corp.mail.com/careers