Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness, whose acronym is RAOGK, was a group of volunteer researchers who did lookups, took photos, examined public records, and found headstones, among other things, from 1999 until its demise in Nov 2011.
It was founded by Bridgett and Doc Schneider just as I became interested in genealogy after attending a large Lemmon Clan reunion in 1999 near Fort Bragg, birthplace of my father and his nine siblings. While assembling the history of the family I received a good deal of help from RAOGK volunteers.
To repay their kindness I did lookups at the Santa Cruz, CA, Library for 6.5 years and, since there was microfilm of the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury (or their predecessors) I did lookups for San Francisco for about a year and Santa Clara County three different times for a total of perhaps two years.
For a brief history of RAOGK see the first link below.
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The second link below is to the new RAOGK, which is being resurrected by Don Nichols. With the old model you sent an e-mail to RAOGK headquarters and they forwarded it to us volunteers. However, by requiring one to register to use the new RAOGK Don hopes to discourage spam-meisters from capturing our e-mail addresses for their nefarious purposes.
If you were previously a volunteer I encourage you to do as I have and volunteer again for the new RAOGK so that you can "repay" other genealogy researchers for all of the help you have received in your research.
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And if you're in a large urban area where there is a large overhang of unsatisfied lookup requests, it might be prudent to convince some other like-minded friends to volunteer with you. For instance, Orange County in Southern California rarely had an RAOGK volunteer. One day I noticed that there was a new volunteer. When I asked her in an e-mail if she was new, she told me she had been swamped by 27 requests the 1st day she was listed. Two or three volunteers might have been able to handle the initial tidal wave, after which there would presumably be fewer requests.
And when I asked a new volunteer in Santa Clara County in the Bay Area if he'd continue doing lookups for at least six months, he assured me that he would. However, he quit two weeks later, complaining that his retirement was being ruined by having to do so many lookups every day.
As indicated above I did Santa Clara County [aka "Silicon Valley"] lookups three different times utilizing microfilm of the San Jose Mercury News in the library of an adjacent county.
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2015 Travel Plans. And now that the weather is beginning to warm up here at San Angelo in West Central Texas I plan to start traveling again -- heading down to the Gulf Coast, east to the west coast of Florida, down to Naples, and then across the state to Miami. If the weather is good, I'll make the trip down to Key West. [I saw most of the perimeter of the Florida on a three-day pass from Ft. Gordon near Augusta, GA, during the Christmas holidys in 1961.] Thereafter, I'll slowly make my way north through the Southeast, making sure I visit Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap, among other places of scenic or historic interest.
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Links:
- RAOGK Initial history of the organization
- The Resurrected RAOGK
Routes:
T 7 Apr Actual Route: Baytown W/M - Winnie - Beaumont Br Lib - Walmart
W 8 Apr Actual Route: Beaumont W/M - Lowe's - Vidor - Orange, TX, Lib - Sulphur, LA, W/M
Th 9 Apr Actual Route: Sulphur, W/M - Iowa McDs - Lafayette Visitor Ctr - Walmart
F 10 Apr Actual Route: Lafayette W/M - Visitor Ctr - Sams's Club - Visitor Ctr - Walmart
Sa 11 Apr Actual Route: Lafayette W/M - Lafayette Visitor Ctr - Walmart
Su 12 Apr Actual Route: Lafayette W/M - lafayette Visitor Ctr - Baton Rouge - Hammond Lowe's - Walmart
M 13 Apr Actual Route: Hammond W/M - Lowe's - McComb, MS - Columbia W/M
T 14 Apr Actual Route: Columbia W/M - Lib - Columbia W/M
W 15 Apr Actual Route: Columbia W/M - Hattiesburg Lowe's - Laurel Lowe's - Laurel W/M
Th 16 Apr Route: Laurel W/M - McD's - Laurel Lib - Laurel Lowe's - Laurel W/M
Finding Campgrounds:
- RV Campgrounds from TrailerLifeDirectory.com
- Family Camping Directories from Woodalls.com
- Free campsites website
- Info on finding BLM Campgrounds
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