Did You Know…?
…that October is National Family History Month here in the United States?
I have set two very specific goals in honor of NFHM. (I have a lot of family in the military. We were into acronyms long before texting made them popular.)
First, I have a 6th great-grandfather who immigrated to America in the early 1730s. He’s what we call a “gateway” ancestor. Currently, I have identified 9,103 descendants of this man. I want to find another 897 this month, to make it an even 10,000.
Second, I will key and arbitrate 1500 records this month. Because helping make records available so others can discover their family history is just as fulfilling as discovering my own.
Do you set family history goals? How about keying goals?
…that last week was something of a Postcard-palooza?
You may not have noticed but the LIVE list on our World Archives dashboard is getting longer every week. Last week we moved another five projects onto that list – all of them postcards. Anyone in the world can now search the Canadian, German/Austrian, Italian, Swedish, or UK/Ireland postcard collections for free thanks to our community efforts to get them indexed.
I did a quick search on Coblenz and found several images of this city my great-grandfather served in during World War I, and my great-great-grandfather worked in before coming to America.
What places would you like to see images of and how are they connected to your family history?
…that one of us might be coming to a city near you?
We are still traveling quite a bit, at least here in the States. You should check our calendar and see if we are coming to a city near you. We’d love to have you join us for a conference or an Ancestry Day. And we would certainly love to meet you in person.
Where would you like us to visit?
…that we really, really appreciate each and every one of you?
Whether you key ten records a week or ten thousand records a week, we appreciate the time and effort that each and every one of you contribute. That one record you take the time to key may be THE record that helps someone break through a decades long brick wall in their family history.
I continue to be impressed with how much this community accomplishes and how quickly. Here are a few year-to-date statistics as we march into the final quarter of 2010.
- 59,877 – Total registered contributors
- 22,834,494 – Total records keyed and arbitrated
- 38 – Total completed projects released live to the site free for everyone to search
Keep up the great work – and let’s have a terrific October!
Until next time – Happy Keying!
Hi Crista
I enjoy reading the weekly updates. I like the newsletters with tips and suggestions and stories.
I appreciate the encouragement given in these updates to the volunteers.
However … and this is a big HOWEVER I am very disappointed at the lack of support given to the volunteers in one area – answers to emails – ie queries to WAP Support.
You are probably not aware – but with one recent project – the London Crisp’s Marriages – the project images were finished before keyers (including me) received any answers to queries sent to WAP Support. My emails were never acknowledged; I suspect others had the same (lack of) response.
The same thing is happening now with the Apprentices’ Indentures Project. If you read the boards you will sense our frustration.
I was pleased to see that a new board was created for New Projects – and billed as a place where we could get help for this new projects.
But this was a one-hit wonder; the ‘help’ literally lasted one day – and now … silence.
PLEASE, PLEASE get someone to answer our queries so that we too can meet our goals and enjoy ourselves as much as you and your team members.
Colleen