THE LAST 500 FEET
By importuser at 8/30/2007 9:53 AMPosted by:carsnfrd
NEW TOPIC!!!
I'll start a new discussion topic on this, just as soon as someone tells me where it should go (Tourism? Government? Retail? Not sure!)...
I give full credit for this idea to Tom Seaver, this is NOT my idea (that's probably why it's so GOOD! )
Tom and I were talking about the emmense Mormon geneology database that the church maintains in Salt Lake City. If you've ever tried to research your family tree, you've probably run into this database, as it is not restricted to Mormons, but includes a LOT of information about millions and millions of people. The Mormon faith encourages them to research and understand their ancestry, so they take it very seriously. Well, as we chatted about this, Tom pointed out that there was one very important piece of data missing from this database. It contains all the people-to-people relationships, birth dates, dates of death, marriages, etc.
But it does NOT contain the LAND aspect of one's history. For that, many families who had relatives in Nauvoo in the 1840's come back to good old Carthage, and scour the records in the Courthouse! Ding ding! VISITORS!!
Tom thinks that if we dig into the research process, we might be able to come up with maps of the county circa 1840's and then have a process explaining exactly what needs to be done to track down one's ancestral grounds. Volunteers could (should!) be on hand, as the normal courthouse staff can't be bogged down in this during peak summer times. Folks could do the research, and the volunteers, then, could show them where that land is currently, and could highlight a map showing them how to get to it. There would have to be procedures, and as much red tape as necessary would have to be torn down. The idea is to make this research easy, then advertise through the church that we're doing it (Tom might be able to help with this), and get THEM to send people to the courthouse to go through the process. I'll just bet that one or two of those thousands will need a bite to eat or will shop while in town!
It's a big job, but we need to get thoughts together, and coordinate with the county (courthouse tours have been on "the list" for a long time, too, and this may be a chance to get enough traffic to start that up again as well).
Thoughts?
