Be A Genealogy Contributor
by Janet Tabares

Did you ever wish that a resource was available on the Internet? Chances are that there are folks that are wishing the same thing - about resources that you have access to that they do not!

Be A Genealogy Contributor. - Help that researcher far away that will probably never get the chance to visit your area.

Why should I be a Genealogy Contributor you ask? Because right now, someone may be considering working on posting information that you may need. Would you like that person to decide it's not worth the effort?

I live in the Houston, Texas area. All of my US research, however, is in the New England and Northern Midwest areas. I check the Pennsylvania Genweb sites on a regular basis, to see if anything new that I can use has been posted. It is unlikely at this point in time, that I'll ever be able to do any research on my own in these areas, so I'll have to rely on the goodness of other researchers hearts to post the information that they find on the web where I too, can view it.

Currently, I am working on a project posting photos of tombstones from an old cemetery on my web site. I have told the local Genweb site that I'm working on this, and they should post a link to my site so that those who are looking for the information can view it for themselves. You can view this by clicking this link Hodges Bend Cemetery.

If you have a digital camera, take the time to photograph things that you'd like to see if you where researching in your area. Some examples of things to photograph are old schools, cemeteries, old stores, old houses, and churches.

Another way you can contribute is to purchase genealogy microfilm for your local library. That way, you can view the resources you need and someone else can have access to them as well. I've done this at my local Genealogy Library.

Some Genealogical Societies will put an "In Memory of _____" tags on film you purchase. This is a great way to remember those that you are researching.

Offer to do lookups. Check the US Genweb State/County pages to see if that county has a lookup group.

Together we can help each other find the resources that we need to complete our family trees - well, to the best of our abilities that is!