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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