52 Weeks To Better Genealogy - Challenge #44 - Giving Back

This Genealogy challenge fostered by Amy Coffin http://wetree.blogspot.com/ . 

Trademark Genea-Bloggers

Genea-Bloggers on FaceBook issued the Week 44 challenge: Research ways to give back to the genealogy community, to examine some different ways genealogists can donate their time and effort in kind. 
I being a habitual volunteer have come across some new diverse ways to volunteer besides the usual methods of Random Acts of Kindness,volunteering at a library,  taking pictures of tombstones, or Indexing for various online websites such as Footnote, Ancestry, and FamilySearch.  I do them all.  Not to toot my horn, just saying, I work with them.  It is so exciting to see others faces glow as they find new information that wasn't available to them before.  I love it!
The newer methods I have become involved with actually evolved in my life through the Genea-Bloggers. (If you are interested in making your own Genealogy blog to connect with like minded or same surname searching people click here and you will see a well oiled machine to assist you.)  I love blogging.  I love sharing.  A few of the bloggers started making FaceBook sharing and Twitter sharing available on their blogs.  I was already on Facebook to watch over and share with my grandchildren, so I began to search for the networking blogs they were talking about.  I joined that community and now through the networking and share connect on other blogs, I have been able to begin bringing my marginal genealogy friends closer to the research community and help them in their quest.
I then joined Twitter.  I at first floundered wondering what on earth is this social media thing.  Then when I added the element of TweetDeck to Twitter. A whole new world of information opened up for me. I could set filters for genealogy, family history, history, and people who were in the know or promoting their websites or information would come flowing in.  The next natural step was for me to visit the site that had been tweeted about and see if it was something my friends would benefit by or if one of my Genea-Blogger friends would benefit being promoted.  They gave so much to me it was only natural to give back to them.  This is a wonderful tool to aid in bringing more resources to light for the marginal web surfer.
The new FamilySearch Wiki and WikiTree are great new areas for volunteering.  You can build your own page about a family based on the how and why of your research.  You can add to information that is already there.
Within in the FamilySearch Wiki there are social forums, Area forums, just a wonderful format for sharing.
I love giving and I give to see joy in others faces.  Life is AWESOME!

My Favorite Volunteer Project.... Family Search Indexing

Family Search Indexing is absolutely the greatest project in my way of thinking, nothing opinionated here.   

I love helping others find their ancestors, especially those that are hard to find.  I find that helping index the records that are now being offered for free on Family Search Labs is opening doors for many who were not able to find the information before.  They have a blog that keep you upto date on the newest work being done.

I was researching on FamilySearch.org and they were asking for volunteers.  It did not matter if you were a member of their church or not.  They were looking for people who were willing to put in as many hours as they desired to complete projects they had to make information available to others over the internet.  I started out doing 2 hours a day for 6 months, but I now only do about 2 hours a week because I work at a Family History Center as a Family History Consultant and in the community now to assist others in their searches. I have indexed about 10,000 records so far.  I hope to add to that this year.  

They still need as many as will volunteer to continue to index.  There is still a huge number of records to be processed. There are so many interesting records to offer your skill to; you can even help with some that are in different language if you have the skill.   I find it has been helpful to understand the indexing process.  I caught how a mistake was made in an index on Ancestry.com because I knew the process of the forms used in the indexing methods.

Volunteering is just part of me, because volunteering and service are synonymous.  The best part of life is giving service.  I love it and I hope I am always able to give it!