Another Way to Give Back

I'm a big fan of giving back to your community, whether its your local community or the global community. I recently came across a new site where genealogists can give back. Families for Forgotten Heroes was started in April 2011. It works similar to Unclaimed Persons, where genealogists work to find the next of kin for unclaimed individuals. The key difference is that Families for Forgotten Heroes focuses on finding next of kin for unclaimed veterans.

Volunteers are given known information on the veteran and set free to research. Once the volunteers have amassed enough data to find a family member, the requesting agency is notified so they can contact the family. For individuals who the volunteers are unable to find family for, the site maintains a database in the hope that a family member or someone who knew the veteran will find them.

In addition to helping bring our unclaimed heroes home to their families, the site also raises money for Homeless Veterans Programs and the Missing in American Project, which seeks out unclaimed veteran cremains and makes sure they get a proper military burial.

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Give Back and Get Something in Return

If you've been following Free Genealogy Resources for a while, you know I'm a big fan of volunteer efforts.  It's these projects that make it possible for many of us to be able to pursue our roots without breaking the budget.

Recently, Ancestry.com partnered with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to launch the World Memory Project. Volunteers have begun the process of transcribing the millions of historical documents that the museum currently has in their holdings. These documents offer information on both victims and survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution during World War II.

As work on the project continues, the information will become available for free on the Ancestry site. In addition to helping make available more free genealogy resources, working on the project will also offer you an opportunity to gain more experience in deciphering old handwriting.

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I Did My 10. Have You?

If you haven't given back to the genealogy community yet or are looking for a new way to do so, you should volunteer for the Restore the Ancestors Project. For those not familiar with the project, it is a collaboration between Footnote.com, the South Carolina Department of Archives & History, FamilySearch and Lowcountry Africana.

Project volunteers view digitized images of estate inventories and bills of sale. When they come across names, dates or locations, they annotate them. By annotating them, they can then be searched. The digitized images and volunteer annotations will then be combined to form a collection that can be used by all for free.

Recently, I finished my first 10 pages and I will be returning soon to do more. It was slow going at first as some of the writing is difficult to read. The more pages I did, the easier it became and it occurred to me that in giving back, I'm also gaining valuable skills in return. By immersing myself into these documents, I'm becoming better at deciphering old documents, a valuable skill for any genealogist.

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