Home | Research | Visitor's Center | Cemeteries | Surnames | Towns | Queries
Bamberg County SCGenWeb

Volunteer Information

The USGenWeb Project is a not-for-profit organization of volunteers, dedicated to free access to genealogy on the Internet.  Each state and almost every county of each state has its own web site.  In addition, the USGenWeb has special projects, such as the Tombstone Project, the Archives Project, and the Census Project. 

How You Can Make a Contribution
The success of this Project depends on people helping people.

1.  As a Look Up Volunteer.   If you have Bamberg County research materials, such as histories, census records, cemetery books, etc., you could offer to do "look-ups" for fellow researchers.  We have a look-up page already established and we sure can use more willing volunteers for this area!

2.  "Adopt" a Town or Topic.    Our goal is to expand the available online history of Bamberg County.
You can either develop a web page of your own, which would be linked from the main site, or you can compile the information as you'd like it presented, and copy and pasted it on an e-mail to me.  You would be credited as the contributor or "coordinator" of that particular project.

Here are some ideas for special projects, but you may have an idea of your own:

                                         Town / Community History
                                                    African American History/Genealogy
                                                    Native American History/Genealogy
                                                    Other Ethnic or Religious Group
                                                    Church/School History or roster
                                                    Industry or Business
                                                    Historic Site
                                                    Other Ideas???

3.  History or Family Association Web Page.  If you have your own genealogy web page, especially one with historical information or a single surname site, please be sure to let me know!   History pages and Family Associations or Single Name sites will also be listed on the Research page as well as in the Surname Registry.
If you find a Bamberg County site that should be listed, please let me know!

4.  Take Photographs.  If you live in the area or will be visiting soon, please consider taking photographs for upload to the Bamberg County site (you may want to check to see what's already been done).   If you have a digital camera, please edit the images so that they are a reasonable size for e-mail (under 65K).0-60K, one image per e-mail message, but if you know how to get the images under 60K, that is perfect for uploading to the web site. 

If you are taking pictures with a regular 35 mm camera, Wolf Camera's advice for the best color saturation is Kodak Royal Gold film.  Many camera stores and film developers can upload the photographs to their Kodak PhotoNet site (I still get prints and negatives).   Kodak PhotoNet gives the option to e-mail the access information to others, so it is very easy for me to go to the site and save the images from there.   Or, if you want to mail them, I'll scan them.  Just e-mail me and I'll give you my mailing address. 

5.  Transcribe Cemetery Records.   Help us get free information on the Internet by transcribing cemetery records.  This can be from actual tombstone transcriptions or from church records.  Be sure to call the church in advance.   If you visit in person, be sure to take a couple of photographs!  See Cemeteries to see which ones have been done.

6.  Transcribe newspaper articles, portions of books, diaries, letters, or town records.   If you have possession of anything like this, or if you'd be willing to visit the public research library or LDS center, anything of general interest would be most welcome!   Generally, if material was published prior to 1924 it is in the public domain (you still must quote your source).  If it was published after 1924, you must have written consent from the copyright holder (usually the author or the author's estate, but sometimes a historical society or town).  If it is an original document that you own, such as a diary, you generally have the right to publish it, but please be sensitive to family privacy issues.

7.  Post your deeds, wills, obituaries, etc., on the Bamberg County site. If you have slave information on any of these documents, please send me a note and I'll copy them to a separate page for African American research.  You can send them to me as  MS Word documents or just cut and paste to an e-mail. 

8.  Post your GEDCOM to RootsWeb's World Connect .   If you have your family tree in any
genealogy software program, you should be able to convert it to a GEDCOM and upload it to the internet.    Be careful to record your sources and please don't ever publish information on living persons- it is a serious breach of privacy and security.    I only know Family Tree Maker software, but maybe this will help you convert your family tree into a gedcom file.  Open your family file.  Click on "file" "copy/export".   A window should open, showing your family file(s).  Highlight the file you want to copy to a gedcom.  In FTW, there is a smaller window at the bottom that gives you the option of how you want to save the file.  Use the drop down menu and save as GEDCOM (*.GED).  Your gedcom file will show as a little tree.  Go to WorldConnect and create a user name and password for yourself.  You'll select the options you want to use.  When choosing the source of the gedcom file, browse to your saved gedcom file and click on it.  If you have trouble with your particular genealogy software, a posting to the mailing list should elicit a volunteer to talk you through the process.
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/

9.  Old Photographs of Places, Towns, or Groups.    Do you have a scanner?   If you have access to any old photographs or postcards depicting town or county scenes, or church/school/family groups, please consider scanning and contributing the images.   

You do NOT have to know HTML to transcribe documents!  If you would like to transcribe vital records, cemetery transcriptions, old diaries or letters, or old histories of Bamberg County, as long as it is not under copyright, GO FOR IT! The easiest way for me to convert to an html document is if you transcribe it to a plain text document and attach it to an e-mail, or just type it in an e-mail message.  If you have access to WPA cemetery records (a government subsidized project and therefore in Public Domain), any book or document predating 1924, or any material for which you hold copyright, please consider making a permanent contribution to the Bamberg County SCGenWeb.  Your fellow researchers will greatly appreciate it and so will I!  Thanks !
Pat Sabin.

If you have any transcribed deeds or other records relating to your family on your personal web page, we would like to link to them from this page. Contact Pat to supply a link for this page or submit a transcription of an actual document.  You may also want to contact the SCGenWeb State Coordinator, Victoria Proctor to copy your transcribed deed, bible record, etc. to the SCGenWeb Archives.
 


 
 

TOP OF PAGE