The Resurrection of RAOGK & My 2015 Travel Plans

San Angelo, TX, Library
    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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[Return to the top of the page]
Links:

• RAOGK Initial history of the organization
• The Resurrected RAOGK

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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

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Finding Campgrounds:

• RV Campgrounds from TrailerLifeDirectory.com
• Family Camping Directories from Woodalls.com
• Free campsites website
• Info on finding BLM Campgrounds

N.B. I receive nothing from Trailer Life, Woodalls, or FreeCampsites.net for including links to their free campground lookups.

Requesting a Lookup

Pinto Lake, Watsonville, CA.

    As one who did lookups in Santa Cruz County for RAOGK [Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness] over 6.5 years as well as in Santa Clara and San Francisco Counties using the microfilmed newspapers in the Santa Cruz Central Library for c1-2 years each, I certainly qualify as an experienced researcher. But there are some things you should do or consider first before requesting that I do a lookup.

    See if there's an active RAOGK volunteer for the county where the decedent passed away; if so, that volunteer will likely be able to do your lookup long before I get to the county involved. See my short-term route posted below; eventually there will be a separate post titled "Short-Term Route." But either will give you some idea of when I might arrive in the appropriate county; initially my Short-Term Route will be combined with my Long-Term Route. In some cases it may take several years before I even arrive in the state where a decedent died.

    Some Other Caveats. With one exception (Orange County, CA) I'll almost certainly skip the large urban counties. One of the problems is the cost of staying in RV Parks in those urban areas. Another is that there is a large overhang of unfilled lookup requests waiting to swamp any volunteer who offers to do lookups in large urban counties where no lookups have been done for some time.

    I've often felt that 3 or more friends with an interest in genealogy or members of a Genelogical/Historical Society might be able to absorb the initial tidal wave of requests if they divide the requests evenly. [Usually the first person listed in the RAOGK Search Engine for a given county gets most of the requests.] The second step is that one person stops doing lookups after 4-6 months, by which time the lookup requests should have diminshed to the point where fewer volunteers can handle the requests. And a second person withdraws in 8-12 months, leaving one or more persons to continue doing lookups as long as they wish.

    Yes, it would be nice if there were more volunteers willing to do obit lookups, but the majority of the volunteers these days prefer to take gravestone/headstone photos of decedents. While such photos can sometimes provide some missing information, an obituary provides much more info and and often paints a much fuller picture of that person.

    Another source of lookups used to be public libraries. But in many cases, especially here in California, libraries with budget problems (particularly the larger urban libraries) have had either to either stop doing lookups altogether or charge a fee to cover the time spent. (In most cases the librarian lookups are axed even if there had been charges to cover expenses.)

    Occasionally you may find a county GenWeb site where there are volunteers who will do obit lookups, but there're as rare as hen's teeth.
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    My Short-Term Route is posted below and will appear at the bottom of each post once I begin traveling again next week. If you wish to request a lookup, send that request to my Yahoo address (rglemmonjr@yahoo.com .) Include the following:

• decedent's name (include a middle initial if the name is a common one)
• his/her DOD (DateOfDeath)
• the POD (PlaceOfDeath)

    When I visit the library which has microfilm of a newspaper which ran an obit of the decedent, I'll transcribe it and mail it to you. I won't be able to send hard copies since that would require reimbursement -- and my mailing address will likely change several times during the next 7-8 years.
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Short-Term Route:
    T 18 Jan: Santa Cruz - Castroville Cem - Soledad Misson & Cem - San Miguel - King City;
    W 19 Jan: King City - Jolon - San Antonio Mission - Lucia - Nacimiento CG;
    Th 20 Jan: Nacimiento CG - San Simeon - Morro Bay - El Chorro Regional Park;
    F 21 Jan: El Chorro - San Luis Obispo - Pismo Beach - Lompoc;
    Sa 22 Jan: Lompoc - Solvang - Cachuma Lake Recreation Area.