Thursday, February 21, 2008

When things seem Idle

I'm sure that from the visitor's side of the web page, it often seems that things are standing still. After having a conversation today with someone about this very thing, I thought that it might be a good idea to put this post on the blog.

The volunteers are constantly doing something to add to the Pit Stop archives or to promote the web site. Most times I have a very hard time keeping up with the things they have for me to add. I, like many of you, took the loss of Cookie very hard. Some days I couldn't even look at one thing genealogy related, it just didn't happen. Fortunately, I think that we are past that and ready to move forward again. I am sure that moving forward is just what Cookie would have wanted.

When it looks like the Pit Stop has no activity, be sure to look at the other areas that we contribute to. These are not limited to, but include:

www.ohiogravestones.org
(Connie is putting Columbiana County gravestone photos up for us, and I have been working to get section 5 and the military markers of Riverview up online.)

www.findagrave.com
(We are working on Mill Creek Hill and Locust Hill at the moment, both adding interments and uploading gravestone photos.)

We are also digitizing Obituaries from local papers for the years 1996 to present as well as older obituaries that we have gathered for folks.

We are also working very hard to combine all types of records into a database that will be much like the cemetery database, but will list the source documents that are available and that were used to build the database. This database will utilize funeral home records, gravestone photos, birth records, death records, marriage records and obituaries and will be a good while in making its way online.

Keep checking to see what is new and upcoming! I would also encourage you to contribute to the Ohio Gravestones Project or Find A Grave. The wonderful thing about those sites is that you can contribute one record or a million, and there really is no commitment other than that contribution.

Thanks from all of us for your support and all that you do!

Jan