August 2008 Newsletter

Friends of PA-Roots Newsletter

August 2008

PA-Roots – Bringing our Past into the Future!

You will find on our websites some of the best free genealogy research resources available on the internet for Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region.

We are so glad that you’re a subscriber of our mailing list and want to be kept informed about what is happening at PA-Roots.  What an incredibly busy past 12 months it’s been for PA-Roots.  We are excited to let you know about what has been occurring and also to invite you to get involved.

 DataBoards – The PA-Roots DataBoards continue to be very active.  There have been over 50,000 new postings over the past year.  There are now over 457,000 individual postings.  We had 1,442 new users sign up in the past year for a free account on the DataBoards.

 Our top 10 busiest DataBoards are:

DataBoard
   

# of Records

Death Records – Lancaster County
   

28,133

Cemetery Records – Bucks County
   

26,689

Obituaries – Eastern Pennsylvania
   

15,597

Marriage Records – Bucks County
   

15,104

Birth Records – Bucks County
   

14,141

Cemetery Records – Bedford County
   

12,845

Death Records – Bucks County
   

12,093

Obituaries – Greene County
   

10,422

Death Records – Bedford County
   

10,067

Birth Records – Philadelphia County
   

  9,554

 Our top 10 posters are:

Contributor
   

# of postings

Terry
   

115,546

Carol
   

  56,296

Martha
   

  42,503

Peggy
   

  33,820

Joan
   

  22,910

Audrey
   

    8,726

Laura
   

    8,196

Nan
   

    8,093

Sheryl
   

    6,894

Abby
   

    5,321

If you’re new to PA-Roots you might be wondering why we talk about the DataBoards.  You might be thinking, “What will I find on the DataBoards?”  The DataBoards are broken down into the following categories of data for each county:

 Biographies
Birth Records
Cemetery Records
Court Records
Deeds
Marriage Records
Military Records
Newspaper Articles
Obituaries
Queries
Wills

A recent interesting addition to the Death Record boards for Pennsylvania are those who were executed for their conviction of a crime.  So far I haven’t found any of my relatives in the list!

Website Updates – PA-Roots continues hosting a great number of Pennsylvania County websites as well as websites for research in the Mid-Atlantic region.  Recent additions include:

Beaver County – this website went on-line in March of this year and a great community of researchers is being formed.  We are currently working on cemetery records and identifying existing cemeteries in the county and making transcriptions of the tombstones available.

Clinton County – this is our newest addition.  We are currently working on transcribing “Historical and Biographical Work, of Past and Present of Clinton County” by J. Milton Furey and published in 1892.  We are in communication with the Clinton County Genealogy Society seeking to work collaboratively to assist researchers in this county.

 Jefferson County – it has been a busy summer for Jefferson County with the addition of approximately 2,000 individual tombstone photos with a couple thousand more to follow.

 We are now hosting county websites for Berks, Fulton, Montgomery and Venango counties in Pennsylvania and Ashland and Coschocton counties in Ohio.

 Do you have a desire to develop a county website?  Do you have some significant resources for a county?  If so let us know – we’ll help you get started!

 Subscribers Club – PA-Roots would not be successful without the countless individuals who are regular contributors of data to PA-Roots.  We’ve talked about ways in which we could thank them in a more tangible way.  So we’ve developed the Subscribers Club.  PA-Roots is funded by the banner advertisements that are on the main pages and also on the DataBoards.  Subscriber Club members will have the banner ads turned off so they won’t see them on the DataBoards.

Would you like to join the Subscribers Club?  Here are the requirements?

 1-      Contribute at least 300 postings during a 12 month period of time OR

2-      Make a significant donation of data to be posted on PA-Roots (examples are complete cemetery transcriptions, a book that can be transcribed, etc..) OR

3-      Make a financial donation to support the ongoing work of PA-Roots ($20 is the suggested donation).

 As a member of the Subscribers Club we’ll turn those annoying adds off for you!  If you’re interested in joining the club please let us know.

 Volunteers Needed – We’re always looking for new volunteers to help with both short-term and long-term projects.  If you’ve got some extra time that you’d be willing to give to making data freely available to other researchers please contact us.

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