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Colleton County SCGenWeb
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 Colleton 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 Colleton 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
                                                 School or Church 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 Colleton County site that should be listed, please let me know!

4.  Take Digital Photographs.  If you live in the area or will be visiting soon, please consider taking photographs for upload to the Colleton County site (you may want to check to see what's already been done).   If you have a digital camera, be sure to take them on the lowest resolution, and even then, you'll need to reduce the size of the image to e-mail it.  Less than 120K per image (one image attached to each e-mail) is a fairly reasonable download, although sometimes Outlook Express disagrees!  If you know how to edit the image size to under 60K, that is the perfect size to upload to the web site.  Please be sure to contact me in advance to let me know that you are sending an attachment.  

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!  NOTE ON CEMETERY PHOTOS:   IF YOU ARE TRANSCRIBING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, PLEASE SEND THE TRANSCRIPTION IN A PLAIN TEXT DOCUMENT, OR COPY AND PASTE TO AN E-MAIL MESSAGE.  PLEASE DO NOT SEND AN EXCEL SPREAD SHEET.  PLEASE DO NOT SEND MORE THAN 3-4 ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPHS PER CEMETERY, PERHAPS  A COUPLE OF LANDSCAPE SHOTS, OR ONE OR TWO OLDER GRAVES, OR THE CEMETERY ENTRANCE.  PLEASE DO NOT EMBED PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE DOCUMENT YOU SEND.  EACH PHOTOGRAPH SHOULD BE SEND AS A SEPARATE .JPG FILE, PREFERABLY UNDER 60K IN SIZE.   

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., to the Colleton 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 regular text files, or just copy 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, please consider scanning and contributing the images. Please let me know ahead of time if you are going to be sending an attachment!

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 Colleton 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 Colleton County SCGenWeb.  Your fellow researchers will greatly appreciate it and so will I!  Thanks !
Pat Sabin , Colleton County SCGenWeb coordinator.

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 Sabin to supply a link for this page or the SCGenWeb State Coordinator, Victoria Proctor to submit a transcribed deed, bible record, etc. to the SCGenWeb Archives.