Genealogy is perhaps in a small group of avocations in which so many people are willing to spend so much time on work that will benefit others. These volunteers don’t ask for much, and serve silently and faithfully in communities around the globe making data more accessible to all of us. I would like to express my appreciation to genealogical volunteers everywhere and hope that readers of this column will take the time to thank the next volunteer they meet, whether in person or on the Web.

As a result of last week’s column, I’ll hopefully soon be meeting a new volunteer at the Plymouth Historical Museum. One e-mail was from someone who would like to help transcribe our data; another e-mail was from someone who used to live in my area and would have volunteered at the museum if she had remained here. But there were others who were thrilled with some of the ideas presented and were anxious to get to work in their own areas making their records more accessible. I’d like to share three of the responses received. The first was not signed:

About a year ago I purchased and donated a genealogy software program to the Weston Historical Society in Weston, CT. Our genealogy files previously had consisted of one file drawer, with about four dozen surname folders containing some very limited genealogy information—mostly the result of other research, such as house histories (many land transfers involve inheritance, so some knowledge of the families was necessary.) Since family relationships involve the linking of people with different surnames (rather than separation), I felt that the surname folder system was totally inadequate. I became interested in genealogy and genealogical computing mainly as an attempt to address this problem. We now have a "master" FTW file which currently holds over 8,000 individuals (and still growing), mostly related to each other in some way, and all related to current or former Weston families. This file includes all sorts of information from various sources, and although much of it is not verified with birth, marriage, and death records, it is still a very useful tool for locating "pointers" (such as a wife's probable maiden name, or the location a family may have moved from or to), which can then be followed up with a search for proper documentation. Much of the information in this "master" file has come from researchers who contacted us looking for information for their family trees, who in turn offered information to us that we did not previously have. In addition, we have been able to put some researchers in touch with relatives they didn't even know, who were also researching the same lines. As a final step, the "master" file was uploaded to the Internet as a GEDCOM (available from several different locations) and we plan to update the Internet versions periodically. While we acknowledge (and stress) the importance of proper documentation in establishing any individual family tree, there is no question that a good genealogy software computer program can be a very useful tool for sorting and organizing the kind of genealogical information that a small historical society such as ours may gather. And the best part is that it makes all of that information available to (and easily accessible by) the public, both near and far.

The next e-mail is from Avis McDonald, President of the Gore Branch of New Zealand Genealogists:

In 1992 our Genealogy branch transcribed 19,504 births (1876–1920) from the local Gore, Southland, New Zealand, courthouse on PC File, which was a DOS program. When it was obvious these unique records were going to be moved to the capital Wellington, we went back and entered all the parents and their ages at the time of the birth. We also transcribed the 6,926 deaths up to 1935, but by then we could use Microsoft Works, which was much better. We also transcribed the Registry office marriages (1,032) and marriage licences (12,832).

I scanned in the 19,000 birth details, and I am now using Excel to enter the parents. How I wish it had been available when we were trying to add the parents! We could have sorted the 19,000 names on the book and number, and achieved far more in the short time we had.

The final e-mail is from Charles Hansen:

I have helped index the obituaries from the local newspaper and indexed church records, but the index I did that seemed to get the most interest was the index of the 1887 Spokane (Washington) Auditor’s census. I asked the bulletin editor if she wanted it, and now it is being published in the gene society bulletin. I did not transcribe all the fields, because I think people should view the original data as much as possible—my interpretation of the old handwriting may not always be correct.

Thanks to everyone who wrote. It’s fun and motivating to see all of the projects out there. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing your time!

Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, CGL, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing, editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’ newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, co-creator of the new family health history program GeneWeaver, and a frequent contributor to Ancestry. She can be reached via e-mail at gceditor@ancestry.com.