{"id":350,"date":"2013-03-27T09:13:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T14:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/family-history-through-the-alphabet-kindness\/"},"modified":"2013-07-02T23:14:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T04:14:05","slug":"family-history-through-the-alphabet-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/family-history-through-the-alphabet-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Family History Through the Alphabet \u2013 Kindness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Family-History-Through-the-Alphabet\"<\/p>\n

For 26 weeks I will take you on a family history journey through the alphabet, one letter at a time.\u00a0 I have decided that each post will be educational in nature, focusing on topics related to resources, methodology, tools, etc.\u00a0 Although the challenge is complete, there are still some people who are finishing up and Alona, the host, is encouraging others to participate anyway.\u00a0 Additional information on the challenge, can be found at Take the \u2018Family History Through the Alphabet\u2019 Challenge<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

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\"k\"K is for Kindness.\u00a0 Several years ago, a wonderful service was created by Bridgett Schneider called Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK).\u00a0 RAOGK was a website that allowed for people to volunteer their genealogy services (mostly in the realm of lookups or cemetery photos) and for researchers to request these services for free (with the exception of reimbursed expenses, such as copy fees).\u00a0 With Bridgett\u2019s passing in November 2011, RAOGK shut down.\u00a0 As of late, no one has heard whether her husband, Doc, will reactivate the site or not.<\/p>\n

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I participated in RAOGK as a volunteer for a few years, mainly doing obituary lookups in my local area.\u00a0 I also used RAOGK to request a few obituaries for my own research.\u00a0 As a volunteer, I found most people who requested my services were genuinely thankful for the help.\u00a0 I never requested reimbursements simply because I did everything digitally and my library had the capability to save digital images from microfilm.\u00a0 On the rare occasion that the computer\/microfilm reader was down, I paid the copy fee out-of-pocket, scanned the printout, and emailed it to the person.<\/p>\n

From the requester side of things, it was hit or miss.\u00a0 Some volunteers were quick to respond, even if they couldn\u2019t get my request filled right away, at least the contacted me to let me know they\u2019d received the request and when to expect it.\u00a0 One person wanted me to reimburse him the $0.40 for the copies of two obits.\u00a0 Seriously?\u00a0 Nowhere in his service description did he note that he required reimbursements, so I emailed him back with that grievance and stated that I was also a volunteer and considered copy costs of that amount negligible.\u00a0 So he was kind enough to waive the reimbursement and promptly sent my obits.\u00a0 In one instance, I never received a response at all; no acknowledgement, no fulfillment, and no response to two of my follow-ups.\u00a0 Oh well, there\u2019s at least one in every bunch, right?<\/p>\n

At the time of Bridgett\u2019s passing, I was in need of updating my services on RAOGK because I had recently moved and was now too far to conduct research in the area I was listed under.\u00a0 But because the site was down, I was unable to do this.\u00a0 Hoping that RAOGK would be relaunched, I patiently waited.\u00a0 Whether it will ever come back is unknown, so in the meantime, I have been thinking about joining a few alternatives that have since been created.<\/p>\n

There are three websites that I know of (not including Facebook groups) that I have briefly looked at.<\/p>\n