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. 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 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
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). Please let me know before emailing images, especially if they are a large file size. If you prefer to mail them on a CD, 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). This is true even of newspaper and company newsletter articles. 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 & Link to the Surnames Page . 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. Your family tree
can be linked from our Surnames page. 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 old church/school/family groups (providing that they do not show any living people), please consider scanning and contributing the images. In considering what items will be appropriate, please remember that the primary goal is to provide information or enhance the genealogy researcher's experience on this site. 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 (not Excel) 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 ! 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.
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