Sunday, April 22, 2012

Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Resurfaces

Bridgette Schneider
(1946-2011)
Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) was a Web site where people volunteered to help others with genealogy questions, look up records local to them, take photos of tombstones, etc.  Bridgette Schneider, the woman who created RAOGK, passed away and the site stopped working.  The new RAOGK is at

http://raogk.wikia.com/wiki/Random_Acts_of_Genealogical_Kindness_Wiki

Many people worked together to recreate this very helpful service.  They were able to transfer over all the volunteers' names and locations and what they were willing to do, but they lost the contact details.  As the former volunteers find out about the new site and revolunteer, more of the entries will have links to contact them.  If you were a volunteer, info about signing up again is on the main page.

All users must now create accounts to use the site.  Because the new site is a wiki, discussions and chats are available.
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8 comments:

  1. Does this site have the approval of Doc? I thought he was going to get RAOGK back up and running and won't this be in competition with his site?

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  2. I do not know. I didn't see anything on the wiki site indicating his participation, but I didn't investigate the site thoroughly.

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  3. Doc is back and you will be hearing from him, we are all staying with his site.

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  5. Doc and I have been in constant contact - he has informed me today that the original RAOGK site will be returning and we have discussed the wiki site - it is only a temp measure and once the original RAOGK site is back up we are led to believe that it will be removed. Also in the interim we set up several facebook sites to help till RAOGK is back up and running full steam.

    Doc has had a lot to deal with, with the tragic loss of Bridgett and the volunteer Admin Staff have been supporting him and the facebook sites to keep RAOGK fluid and running the best we can.

    There will be an announcement letting people know when the site is back up and fully functional.

    We have had many people offering to set up 'sister site', even to take over RAOGK but Doc made a promise to Bridgett that the RAOGK site will be returned to the net and remain a vital tool for genealogists throughout the world.

    We thank everyone for their support and understanding during this very difficult time.

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  6. It is a measure of how important RAOGK is to the genealogy community that everyone has been willing to help with all these interim sites. We all look forward to having the original RAOGK return.

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  7. In the meantime how can I find a volunteer in Georgia? The Facebook site is not helpful at all. Wiki leads me to Facebook. :(

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    1. I agree that the way the Facebook site is set up makes it difficult to find a volunteer in a particular area. I checked the Georgia USGenWeb page, http://www.thegaproject.org/, and learned they don't have a query/volunteer page. Given that, my best suggestion is to check the Rootsweb Georgia site:

      http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.georgia/mb.ashx

      Look under the county (or counties) you're interested in and see if you can find a friendly person who is able to help you.

      Good luck with your search. It's obvious that the genealogical community still misses RAOGK a lot.

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