Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness

I'm a volunteer for RAOGK - Random acts of genealogical kindness (http://www.raogk.org). There are lots of people, especially in the States, who are interested in researching their family's past. They come up blank, though, when they hit a German-language family bible or other materials. And since very few people in the States speak a "foreign" language and when they do, they speak Spanish, they can't read their treasures. So I volunteer to decipher Sutterlin handwriting and translate it into English.



I have people photocopy the bibles or whatever and mail them to me, I translate when I have time. It's rather interesting getting a feeling for all these immigrants. My own family emigrated from Hessen and from Baden-Baden to the States in the early 1800's. It was exciting for me to actually find some ancestors listed on church books on microfilm. The Lutheran Church in Hessen has a remarkable church book archives, anyone can use it for a small fee.



RAOGK could use some more volunteers in Germany - if you read Sutterlin, consider signing up!

The traditional first blog

Gosh, now I have my very own blog. What should I be including in here traditionally? In the future there will be lots of rants and raves, but tonight: what should I give the world?



How did I live without RSS? I just installed Awasu (www.awasu.com), set up my favorite spots (amazing, all the places with RSS feeds), and it is not all in one place! Now I just have to get all the online bill people to set up RSS feeds so I can collect my online bills in one fell swoop.