I am not involved in genealogy but on behalf of my grandmother, THANK YOU! Cannot tell the number of trip my parents have taken to Alabama so she could "dig up" relatives, LOL! nothing like getting a roll of film back and the first 22 pictures are of graves and the last two were of grandkids or birds (to finish the roll).

With gas prices the way they are, I know people really appreciate your acts of kindness.

That's great! I posted the link (and of course I signed up) but I haven't had an "assignment" yet.

Let us know how it goes!

Yes, I volunteered for a California County a couple of weeks ago & have already completed two "assignments". One for a gentleman in British Columbia & one for a lady in Oklahoma. Both involved getting copies of old obituaries & local newspaper articles about their relatives.

I also heard from two other people, but they wanted copies of old death certificates which I told them they would have to get them themselves from the appropriate government agencies.

It's quite interesting to do this "detective" work.

I think that sounds like a fun/interesting thing to do. I'd like to find my grandfathers obit. He died in Los Angeles, Calif. in 1948 I believe. I'd like to know how many other distant relatives I have. Where does a person go to ask for this act of kindness?
Leslie

Here's the link, Leslie. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness

I would like to sign up to be a volunteer, but I'm not interested in finding information for myself...I don't see on that site how to sign up to be a volunteer....

Maybee, I should have posted the main screen. You can find information here on how to volunteer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Main Screen

That's right up your alley, YaYa, I know you like to browse cemetaries! And it's good of you to volunteer, that's really nice.

It's not hard (usually) to find a volunteer willing to take photos of gravestones at cemeteries surprisingly, though I don't do that myself. That seems to be the most popular volunteer activity.

Having done extensive genealogy workups on a couple of Wikipedia subjects whose published backgrounds just didn't sound credible, I decided to volunteer in the areas I would have personally found very useful during that time.

The local sources---which I've offered at Random Acts of Kindness---are old phonebooks going back to 1940, city directories from 1880 to 1944, probates, divorces, etc. (on microfilm) from the County Courthouse going back to maybe 1910, and San Francisco Bay Area newspapers going back to the 1880ties for obituaries.

Fortunately for these activities, I live in the city of the county seat, so between our public library, the courthouse, the nearby LDS/Mormon Family History Center, and the commercial on-line genealogy sites such as ancestry.com & newspaper archives.com available to me, I can do---& do do---a fair bit of "ancestor sleuthing". Not everyone would be in that position.

So if you sign up as a volunteer, consider all the areas of assistance that might geographically be available to you. It can be a more interesting, not to mention challenging, project.

It's neat that you know how to do that kind of sleuthing, KF. I'm sure your services are appreciated. I only volunteered to take gravestone photos because that's where my skills lie. I'd be lost in the courthouse! Also, I was so moved to find photos of my great-great grandparents' 1850s gravestones online, and grateful to the photographer, whoever he or she was.

I'll bet the assignments pick up in fall, although I didn't volunteer for the coldest months because of difficulty driving in winter weather.

Certainly not saying that tombstone photos are not extremely valuable (truth to tell I haven't owned a camera in 30 years), I just wanted to get prospective volunteers to think about other areas that they might be in a unique position to assist.

When I was doing one of my Wikipedia background searches, what clinched the fact that the "popular information" on the subject in question was, in fact, incorrect was a genealogy volunteer in a tiny city in Arizona who went out & took a photo of subject's tombstone for me, which photo has now been put online...thereby finally ending the raging controversy.

A picture is worth....

Cool YaYa! I signed up as a volunteer to take pictures at a couple of local cemetaries back when the link was first listed. I haven't had any requests yet.

I got my first assignment today!

There's a lot of information on the Net about the best way to photograph a gravestone. The link below is a site with comprehensive tips.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Photograph a Gravestone