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| Jackson
County, Florida GenWeb Project |
How
It All Started
 By
Betty James Smith
County Coordinator
Jackson County GenWeb
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| EDITOR'S NOTE:
Betty James Smith, County Coordinator for the Jackson County
Florida GenWeb Project, wrote the following article. The story
is about starting the web site, which was recently named "Uncle
Hiram's Site of the Month" on a national basis by StateGenSites.com
(http://www.stategensites.com).
The Jackson County web site, which has hundreds of volunteers,
is located at http://members.aol.com/BettyMaeS/index.html.
Links to the various pages of the Jackson County GenWeb Project
are located throughout the Marianna Village of MariannaNow.com.
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When the FLGenWeb Project first started I
kept going to the Jackson Co Fl link. This went on for months
and no one would take the county. I thought about taking the
county and then I would back out. Finally I decided to take
Jackson Co FL. I also decided that I would do the best I could
do. I learned how to make a web page and got it up and running
on the Internet.
The first project I worked on by myself was the county map.
I indexed all the cemeteries and ponds and lakes and every
thing on the county map. I knew I had to have help. I went
looking for help on the Internet. There I found Cindy Gay
Sloan on AOL in the Roots section. She was doing research
in Jackson Co FL and agreed to help. Cindy also was good on
computers and taught me lots about web pages. Then Shelia
Martin, President TGS came to help and brought Myrt Mayne,
Vice-President TGS with her. Then Mary Gay volunteered to
help. This was the first volunteers, and has bloomed into
hundreds of volunteers.
Our first project was Jackson Co FL Marriages 1848 - 1900.
That we finished in a month, eight thousand marriages. If
you have ever sat at a machine and copied hundreds of pages
and spent many days in the library you know the time and effort
put into these projects. This is when I found out how expensive
these projects were. At $.25 a page to print from micro-film
and then $.10 to make a back up copy, my checkbook was suffering
badly. I wanted all material put on the web site. I decided
I needed to recover some of the money and we sold some marriage
books to help fund the cost of the web site. We didn't sell
many books because of my decision to put all information on
the web. After a while a special person asked if he could
help us with our money problems and he financed some of our
projects and help buy a film-film machine. He wants to remain
in the background. I quit trying to sell books.
My first meeting with Cindy Sloan was a great success. Cindy
came well prepared and had some great ideas and we liked each
other. She has become as a daughter. When I asked her to take
the Jackson Co FL web page and redo it for me, she immediately
agreed. She made the water mark background and the top and
the bottom of the main web page. I asked for the state to
be green and Jackson Co to be red in the map. When she sent
the page I asked her if I could have a beating heart coming
out of Jackson Co and the next day I had my beating heart.
Which everyone loves as much as I do. Folks everything in
between is my way and my mistakes. Thank goodness for volunteers
who have the courage to offer constructive advice. The first
meeting with Shelia Martin and Myrt Mayne was at the State
Archives on a Saturday. Here again I meet with people I immediately
liked. Ms Sheila Martin knows her way around the State Archives.
Shelia and Myrt took me by the hand a let me to material I
would never have found on my own. On the way home that weekend
Cindy worked on the cemetery project that was just forming
in my head. I drove home with the overhead light on as Cindy
worked. We both we very excited about projects to come. By
the time I got home I had decided that Cindy Sloan was to
be the Cemetery Chairman. We had our first cemetery meeting
at Jim's Steakhouse in Marianna. Shelia, Myrt , Cindy and
I spent the weekend in one big beautiful room at the Hinson
House bed and breakfast in Marianna. The cemetery project
started off with a big bang. Mary Gay borrowed a copier and
we sold some marriage books. The census projects, marriage
projects and cemetery projects were consuming my time. I sat
in library's to many hours to count printing out material,
making backup copies and mailing material to volunteers.
The little things that pop up every day, the questions from
volunteers to answer and the phone calls to confirm or to
talk about a project took a toll on my time. I started giving
more work to the volunteers and asking them to format excel
pages. All of them have helped me so much. I wish we could
add up all the hours put in by all of us. When the Jackson
Co FL List was formed, I knew I did not have time keep it
up, I asked Cindy to handle the List Project and she accepted.
I always asked if anyone has a project we should do to let
me know or if they had one that they wanted to work on, let
me know. I would make the web pages for them. By now I was
good at making web pages. Many volunteers took me up on my
offer and this has really made Jackson Co FL GenWeb the great
site it is today.
Today I spend about forty hours a week on the web sites, give
or take a few. I love to type up material and wish I had more
time. I work a swing shift at a phosphate mine. I also would
like more time to spend on my own family research that has
for the most part been on the back burner for three years
now.
If anyone has a project or a idea please e-mail me. No project
is to small or to large. When I find a printer that will print
out the 1900 Jackson Co FL census in readable form we will
work start on that project. The Volunteers are the backbone
of the project. Without them I am nothing. They number in
the hundreds.
Sincerely,
Betty James Smith
e-mail: BettyMaeS@aol.com
County Coordinator ,
Jackson Co FL Jackson County,
Florida web page URL http://members.aol.com/BettyMaeS/index.html
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| Family
& Geneology - Panhandle |
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Bay
County GenWeb Project
Calhoun County Cemeteries
Calhoun County GenWeb
Calhoun
County Treasurer's Book
Early Marriages of Jackson County, Florida
Florida State Hospital, Chattahoochee
Gadsden Co Cemeteries
Gulf Co Genealogical Society
Holmes County GenWeb
Jackson Co. Cemeteries and Churches
Jackson County USGenWeb Archives
Jackson County, Florida GenWeb Project
Jackson County, Florida, Churches; 1942
Liberty
County Gen Web
Washington County GenWeb
West Florida Genealogy Society
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Franklin County GenWeb |
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National
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Everton's Genealogical Helper
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Grandparenting.org
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