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Journal Jottings, November 2016

by Diane L. Richard, NCGS Journal Editor, journaleditor@ncgenealogy.org

How Did Your North Carolinian Ancestors Serve During WWI?

In 2017 we will be celebrating the 100-year anniversary of World War I. Was your ancestor in the military or National Guard in WWI? Were they Red Cross members? Did they purchase war bonds or savings stamps? Did they provide food? Did their church engage in an activity in support of the war? This NCPedia article, “WWI: Support from the Home Front” (http://ncpedia.org/wwi-support-home-front), talks about many of the ways that North Carolinians supported the war effort.

We have already planned to share some WWI Red Cross records in the NCGS Journal starting in January 2017. If you know of another non-military North Carolina WWI record set, please do let us know! With many military records available via Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Fold3, etc., non-military records are less accessible to researchers and we’d like to take this opportunity to give them some visibility. Send suggestions, submissions, etc., to journaleditor@ncgenealogy.org.

Volume 42, Number 4, of the Journal is Coming

We are pleased to announce that Volume 42, Number 4, of the NCGS Journal is probably available digitally and will soon be arriving in your mailbox. (This column is written a few weeks before it is published in the NCGS News, so this statement is written with fingers crossed!). As always, thanks to everyone who provided articles and transcription support to make this a jam-packed issue cutting across time and space in our quest to learn more about North Carolinian ancestors and resources that might assist our family history research, regardless of location.

Webinar — Accurate Transcription for Historical Records

We successfully re-recorded the webinar on transcribing! Yippee. It became available 29 October 2016 and anyone can access it, not just NCGS members.

This webinar will provide virtual training for you to transcribe materials that are used in genealogical research, to produce publishable articles, and to provide content to the NCGS Journal.

The key element for transcribing documents is accuracy. This means writing what you see in the actual document without interjecting personal inferences.

The companion NCGS Journal Style Guide (which will also encompass transcribing tips, tricks, and tools) is not yet finished and will become available before year’s end.

Indexing Help

One of the most time-consuming tasks in creating a journal is creating the every-name and place index that you find at the end of the Journal.

Essentially, someone manually goes through the journal and marks (using a combination of keyboard keys to bring up a dialogue box where data is entered) every single name and place mentioned in the text. Once done, we then command Word to create the index.

Indexing is well suited to working on during the commercial breaks as you watch your favorite television shows or as a break from just about anything since you can work on it for a minute or two or even longer. It’s also a very easy task to pick up and put down since you don’t need to remember where you left off—you can just look at the document and plainly see where to continue.

Ideal candidates will be those using Word and who can commit to this as a regular “gig” since there will be a bit of a learning curve for the first issue. The actual work would take place the month before journal publication. So, for the February 2017 edition, the indexing would take place in January 2017. If indexing the NCGS Journal sounds like a volunteer activity that would fit into your schedule, or if you have further questions, please send an e-mail to the journal editor at journaleditor@ncgenealogy.org.

REMINDER: Help Acquire Material for the Journal

Remember, if you regularly visit or are just planning one trip to a particular archive, whether in North Carolina or elsewhere, please consider copying/photographing/scanning documents with a North Carolina connection. I’d happily cover the costs (copying, parking, etc.) to acquire material from the repositories that I don’t visit to add to the pool of material to be transcribed for the Journal. Not sure what to get? Let me know where you are headed and I’ll provide you with a “wish list.”

Are you planning a visit to UNC (Wilson Library) or ECU (Joyner Library)? Let me know. I already have “wish lists” created.

Reminder: Transcribers Needed

Though there is a cadre of dedicated transcribers who have been doing a wonderful job, more are always needed! There are existing projects not yet completed as well as the new projects mentioned above which have not yet been started! If you are interested, please e-mail me at journaleditor@ncgenealogy.org and I’ll let you know what projects are currently available.

Remember, you do NOT have to be an NCGS member to help with transcribing material for the NCGS Journal.

Thanks again to all who have helped and to those who will volunteer in the future. It does take a village to create a journal.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a great start to 2017! We’ll catch up next in the New Year.

Go Journal Team!