What can I do to Preserve Genealogical Records in my Local Community?

Submitted by: HOST GFS Heather@aol.com

 

The first thing that comes to my mind is there are many abandon Cemeteries which you probably have seen that have not been taken care of. One thing you can do to help keep these cemeteries from being lost forever is to go to your local Genealogical/Historical society and find out if they know a particular cemetery exists. That's what I am planning to do about one I saw yesterday here in GA. I would have missed it but I saw it from the corner of my eye while driving down the street. It is in a very wooded area, very old, and has not been taken care of in a very long time. I found graves in there dating back to pre civil WAR time. Three individuals had died in the Civil WAR and one individual died shortly after the WAR of 1812. I plan on going back to this Cemetery and transcribe all the graves that I can read and give it to the Historical Society, plus ask if they had any plans in preserving it, and what needs to be done to do so. I would be willing to spent a few hours a month to help clean it up. I also plan on sending the data to the Cemetery Project on line with the USGEN WEB where they collect data from Cemeteries all over the world. You can find out more information about this and what you can do to help at: http://www.usgenweb.org.

Some other things you can do in your local Community is volunteer at Genealogy libraries/Musems, such as... Genealogical and Historical Societies, Family History Centers, National and State Archives and public libraries. You may also want to share your Genealogy information with these different places, especially if you had ancestors from your local area. You can also send your information to these different libraries in other places of the US, where your ancestors came from. Many libraries will be very delighted to have your information. For they have files on different families. Some have files just for photo's, etc.

Lastly you can start by preserving your own data. Get all those old photo's out of boxes, label each an every picture, and organize them in a photo Album. If you don't know who folks are, ask all your different family members and relatives. A few years ago my mother gave me over 300 old photo's that belonged to my grandparents, I sat down with her, numbered each picture and tape recorded her as she told me, who was who in these photo's. Organize all your notes, documents, etc., into files. One thing that some folks do is have a binder for each main family of all the data they have, and have a separate binder for all the photos for that family. Some combined the two. Everyone has there own way of organizing there data.

If you don't have a Genealogical Program I strongly suggest that you get one to help you store your information on Computer. You will want to also scan all your old photo's and put them on a disk. Another way to preserve your photo's once you have them labeled, but them in Acid free see through plastic sheets, they will last so much longer when protected. Another thing you can do is put your Gedcom on the Internet for folks to view. There are different ways of going about it. You can create your own website, and provide links to it, say the different County websites on the USGENWEB of where your ancestor was from. Email the coordinators of the County websites and ask them to link your site to theirs. Get your information out there! But remember before doing so, make sure it is as accuarate as possible. For anyone in the world can see it. To find the USGEN WEB go to: http://www.usgenweb.org, click on the state you want then the county you want. There is a web site for just about every County in the USA.

You can also put your Gedcom online through Ancestry.com. Many folks go there every day to see if there ancestor is listed. If you have your data on line there folks can email you! There website is: http://www.ancestry.com

The more you make your information available the more your ancestors will come alive, meaning you will learn more about them the more you are in contact with others, for they may have data you don't and visa versa, and you will learn more of who they are and what they went through.

So go to your local libraries and find out what you can do to participate in keeping the History in your area alive

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