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Don & Mary Saban 1/30/00 We first got involved in the NEGenWeb Project in May 1999 by taking Sheridan County, which is where I (Mary) have family ties. We took Cherry County because it needed to be adopted, and at least was adjacent to Sheridan County. Then this last Fall, Rock County came up for adoption which is where I (again Mary) have many family ties. Don't know how many living relatives are left in Bassett, Nebraska, but I would bet I am related to a good percentage of those below ground there. Now, let's not leave Don out of Nebraska history. He has two family lines who helped settle Merrick and Nance County. We are members of the Nebraska State Genealogy Society, and we are a Rootsweb Donor. We have also gotten involved in the WYGenWeb Project by taking on Big Horn County where the Saban family helped settle in the 1890's - coming from Nance County, Nebraska. Don is a native Wyomingite. And I (Mary) have recently become the acting Assistant State Coordinator for the WYGenWeb project. We have not yet joined the state genealogy society here in Wyoming, but we are active here in Fremont County. We are volunteer librarians at the FHC. And we are members of the Riverton Internet Genealogy Group. I (Mary) was born in Colorado, moving to Wyoming 25 years ago. My Thompson family in Colorado is a Colorado Pioneer Family. Unfortunately, we are not yet retired. We own a tire store in Riverton, but try real hard to get away every so often to do our genealogy research and "cemetery hopping" as my children call it. I also found the NEGenWeb sites while surfing around, trying to do family genealogy. I first landed in Sarpy where my mother-in-law was born and raised then over to Douglas where my father-in-law came from. Somehow I came across the mailing list for the CC's not realizing that was what it was. Signed on about the time there was a question about a misspelled word on one of the pages. Well, this thread kept going so I thought I'd take a look as see if I could spot it. Thought I did and e-mail Connie with my observation. She very quickly came back and asked if I would like to volunteer to take over Gosper. And believe me it was almost that quick. I had to go and find a map of Nebraska in order to even know where Gosper was. To make a longer story slightly shorter, I have been volunteering in the Boy Scout program for more than 25 years (my son has been out of scouting for 13 yrs but Mom and Dad are still in) and with a rockhound club (as editor of their newsletter for 15 years and assorted other positions) for over 30 years. I never learn to "just say NO" so here I am. I have no connection either personally or family wise with any of my counties (my husband does have a "cousin" with the last name of Deuel). Didn't know a thing about HTML or FTPing when I started but now I have the four counties, family page and club page. It's amazing the things you can learn even when you don't know you want to learn them. It's hard to find things to put on the pages when you have no connection with the county. I've tried subscribing to the newspapers to try to "get to know" the residents. Helps some but the best thing is having a living, breathing contact in the county. Hello Mary and again, Welcome. Someday maybe I will learn to "just say no," but until then here I am. I don't know the date I became involved, but it was in the middle to later part of 96 (thank goodness for dates on files I don't live in Nebraska either, and so I can't do much research in libraries except when on vacation. More is getting on-line every day and that is great. I appreciate all the things being accomplished and especially the efforts that Connie puts it. I think I could retire and do this full time and not keep up with her! And........1/29/99 I went through a computer crash and lost most of my old mail, but found where Brian gave me a password for Cuming county in november of 97. I initially adopted Pierce and Otoe when only a couple of the counties were adopted. Doc was heading things up and he was one busy fellow and received a lot of razzing about his dog (who was an honorary coordinator I think). Any how, when Larry was trying to get all the counties adopted, I adopted two more, Cuming and Madison. I can only say that I adopted Pierce and Otoe before november of 97. Since that time, I have had to give up Otoe and Cuming, but still have Pierce and Madison. My history with Rootsweb is far too brief to be of any importance. [Tain't so, Donna!] Fred called me about Wayne Co.information several times almost a year ago. I finally got my computer in Sept '98 and came on line in Nov. I didn't learn to delete these messages as soon as I should so spend a lot of time rereading and deleting to get the volume down. Have enjoyed the stories and the dicussions. I'm not for sure extactly when or extactly where that I read about the call for county coordinators to the new USGenWEb Project - but I think it might of been in late 1996 on a Nebraska List Serve. I had just recently moved with my family from Holdrege to Hastings, Nebraska and I was doing my usual genealogy searching. I had been making my own web pages for about a year and enjoyed it very much. I saw the post for county volunteers to host a web page and that my "home" county of Franklin was still up for adoption. I also saw that Harlan County was still up for adoption. Since I had a lot of interest - and relatives - in these two counties I volunteered to be the new and first county coordinator for them. I got a basic page up and going for them shortly after that. After a couple of months or so, I noticed Phelps County was still up for adoption. I emailed the state coordinator and told them I could posibly help out with it too. I already had a web page up for the Holdrege Area Genealogy Society based out of Holdrege, Phelps County, Nebraska. I am the editor of their quarterly newsleter, "Phelps Helps". I put all of the "Phelps Helps" up on the web, so I just linked them into to GenWeb Project. Since that time my three county pages have continued to evolve. I receive, and try to answer 2-5 queries a week for Franklin and Harlan Counties. The Phelps County queries are referred to the Holdrege Area Genealogy Society's President to answer. They have a lot more resources than I do. I have big plans for adding information to the web pages. The only thing I lack is time to do the typing. I have town histories, US Land Track records, School Census, township maps, cemetery listings and several other historical and genealogical things I'd like to add to both the Harlan and the Franklin county pages. I'm constantly working on my own genealogy too, and hosting these county pages has helped my own research a lot. I have all three county pages linked from my home page along with my own genealogy. I've had great pleasure helping people from all over find information on their ancestors. Several of my own distant cousins have even found me. I've even used the county web pages from other states to find help with my own research. I hope to be able to be a part of this project for a long time to come. The people are so great. I don't participate in a lot of the conversations, mainly due to my time constraints, but I do try to help out when I can and there is always someone there to help me when I need help too. This IS a great group of people! 1/29/99 I think we can say that anyone who came into the project in that first year, could be called a 'planter'. There are several of us still around that remember what was going on then, and how much work it was to just get our name out to the public. No one had ever heard of us, and you couldn't get a local person to work with you at all. That has gradually changed so that we are now contacted by those local people with offers to help. That's the biggest change I've seen. The volunteers themselves haven't changed in spirit. They are still the most helpful, fun-loving people around, and that's why we are called EagleLarks. You might be interested to know that Bill O. invited several Board members to read our statement about what an EagleLark is on the State page. One comment that came back, asked if they ever migrate. I think you'll find that several of us have migrated to other states and to the Board, and hopefully they are spreading that same EagleLark spirit there. Dale (Doc) Schneider first set up our NEGenWeb in 1996. (June, I think). He was one of the first to get involved in the USGenWeb Project, and volunteered web space for it. Barb Hruza and I made contact in the summer of 1996, mainly because she lives in Aurora, and I was born in Aurora and lived there until I was 12. She became involved with NEGenWeb and wanted to set up a site for Hamilton County, but had very little computer experience and didn't feel she could do it on her own. I was in the middle of typing in a book on Gov. Geary for the Kansas Collection and learning how to 'do' html with it, and didn't feel up to starting something new just yet. Once I was almost done with the book, Barb and I got started on setting up Hamilton County. As close as we can figure it out, this was in September of 1996. Of course, we had the usual blunders along the way as we were just setting out. There were very few people around to help out so we learned on our own, by trial and error. I learned how to work some with graphics along the way and came up with the goldenrod background, and some other graphics for Hamilton Co. Most of my errors are listed in that list of tips that you'll find from the Helps page. Barb has always been the CC, with me as the technical advisor, so she received the queries and forwarded them on to me to post, until she took it over last summer. She collected so many things for Hamilton County, that she kept me very busy working on getting them posted. (The NEGenWeb meadowlark graphic that you see on the State page was first designed for Hamilton county. With her permission, it has become the State unofficial logo. We do not have an 'official' logo, but that one comes very close.) Dale Schneider was the State Coordinator, and Larry Swaney was the Assistant Volunteer State Coordinator when I came on board. Larry was the one who began the tradition of having a roll call each week. There were so few of us, that we really needed to keep in touch with each other. Larry died in January of 1997, and we all voted to continue the roll call, as a way to remember him. John McCoy, (him again?), then became Assistant SC, and he and Barb began pushing to get all the counties adopted. Since the counties were going fast, I felt that I wanted to take on Dawson Co., as I lived there through my High school years. This was March 5, 1997. I had no one that I knew in the area any more, so it was difficult at first finding any kind of resources that could be posted. We all had that problem, unless we lived in the county. Plus, the internet was still so very new to so very many people. A lot of the local societies didn't trust us, but the Dawson County Historical Society and the Lexington Genealogy Society have been willing to work with me all along. Vicky Stephens volunteered to help last Fall, and is now my assistant CC. She has been able to track down cemetery lists, queries, etc., that I'm not able to do living so far away. John asked me to take on the task of redesigning the State pages a year ago, and with several people's input, and many tries, we got the new look up in June '97. I've made very few changes to it since, as I still get comments about how good it looks. If you think there needs to be some changes made, please let me know. In June, '97, John needed to give up being the assistant SC, and asked me to take it on. I told him that I would only do it, if I had help. We were at 100% adopted then, and it was becoming more than one person could take care of. On July 1, 1997, Bill Oliver became my assistant, with Ted & Carol Miller, and Jeanne Walsh as members of the committee. We've since added Ginger Cisewski, and Jeanne has retired from the committee. They have all been the best support along the way, as there were several topics that I felt I needed more help with. I could not have gotten through the last year without their help. Dsenter went down just before Halloween last fall. [1997] I was out of town, helping my daughter after my grandson was born, so Bill got the brunt of the first few days. When I was back home, he had things well in hand. By the time that crisis settled down, I was appointed the SC by our National Coordinator, and we had moved NEGenWeb to Rootsweb. We have grown a lot since then, and there aren't as many of you doing double, triple, or quadruple duty fostering counties, as there were last year. We have so many new CC's, that I'm finding it hard to keep track of all of you. It makes it even more important to have a committee to help the SC. Since I came on board last summer, Ted & Carole Miller began the County Unknown site, Ginger took on the Resource Center, Wendy became involved in the Archives, and we've made giant leaps in our relationships with the NSGS and the NSHS. I can't take much credit for those, just that we seemed to find the right people to work on the different areas. The reason that we are receiving so many thank-you's and compliments is because of all the hard work that all of our volunteers have put into making NEGenWeb so good. You each have your own expertise, whether it is designing and working with web pages, or just gathering material and helping people. What ever it is, you are all making a difference. (In this past year, the Resource Center has grown by leaps and bounds, and Wendy added on Chris as an assistant, and provided us with our very first baby EagleLark.) Bill Oliver began calling us Eagles, because we soar high. I then told him that we had some Meadowlarks too, who could sing a pretty sweet tune. That's why we have both on our Helps page. You are all Eagles and Meadowlarks, and I appreciate all the help that I get from each of you. You take the time to help others, and to think before you react to unfavorable criticism. (Unlike some people I could think of on other lists.) We have become a family in the time I've been with this group, and I can't wait to meet all of you in August at the Meet n' Greet. (That Meet n' Greet turned out to be one of the most memorable times for all of us, including those that attended the M&G online, instead of Aurora.) The eagles and meadowlarks became EagleLarks, courtesy of Liz Lee. I got myself into this "mess" by agreeing to furnish the newspaper abstracts to Carolyn W. Then she wanted to give up Nemaha, and I could not bear to see anyone else do it I have learned a lot, and consider this a really good way to keep my brain going! The emails from all the cc's have helped, I have become aware of links and issues. And the queries and searches have also been a fun part of this. Many of you have been really supportive and helpful when I had startup problems, etc. I appreciate that a lot. This is a good way to learn a lot of history too. Lately I have begun collecting the census rolls for both counties, so I can look for myself when I like. I live in Colorado and am away from most of the records there. And since I have the census records, I plan to be involved in the recording program fairly soon. So much to do! I started with the NEGenWeb in September 1996. Then when there was a push to adopt counties, I checked and found Logan and McPherson were orphans, so adopted them and set up the original pages by copying someone elses to begin with. Larry Sweeney was supportive and behind us all the way. When Doc's system went down, I wasn't one of the vocal ones, but did watch all the mail on the list and feelings about being down which lead to our changing machines onto Brian's. There have been hard feelings mentioned sometimes on the lists, but amazingly, little flaming and much support. It is the greatest list and group of helpful people. In 1997 we started talking on the list about getting together and Barb found a place and a date was set for August 1998. It was a success and a little weird to know these people, but not recognize the faces. That took a little while, but it was amazing that we all really knew each other already. It was such a success that we decided to do it again in a year, in August 1999. Howdy, everyone The personal histories of county coordinators and managers of the NeGenWeb projects have been very interesting. Here's mine: Since I was born and raised very near the Nebraska - Kansas state line, the 40th parallel of north latitude, I always claimed to be both Nebraskan and Kansan. My mother's pioneer ancestors had traveled by ox team to Kansas Territory; my dad's pioneers arrived in Nebraska Territory with harnessed horses pulling their wagon. Although our home was in Nebraska for several years, our mailing address was in Kansas. Together, Nebraska and Kansas children attended our local schools. My favorite teacher from Nebraska was Margie McClellan, and from Kansas was Elmer Hanson. When I was in high school, Margie married Elmer. They are to blame for whatever degree of competency you may notice in my writing. I resided in Kansas during high school, and played football, basketball, and baseball, and competed at track & field, in the Jayhusker League. My best friends' favorite college teams were the K-State Wildcats or the KU Jayhawks, while I always rooted for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. I hunted, fished, and labored on several farms on either side of the state line. We had nearly a perfect balance of Nebraskans and Kansans in our little community intermixing in business, churches, and social activities. I carried all these memories later when I lived in Georgia, New York, DC, Missouri, Illinois, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia. My own involvement in NeGenWeb began with an interest in coordinating Pawnee, which was my childhood home county. So I contacted Dale Schneider, state coordinator. I always had an interest in certain counties of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, New Jersey, Kansas, and Nebraska. While researching Kentucky, I first discovered the GenWeb project, and learned it was to be extending nationwide. Later, I thought Dale did a great service with GenWeb by enabling all of us and providing free space on dsenter (usroots). I had known Connie Snyder from her fine work on EKIS projects. Gary Martens has also been a valued part of EKIS. Barb Hruza, Pam Rietsch, and Patti Simpson are some of the folks I met previously on Roots-L. And since joining NeGenWeb, I've been fortunate to encounter John McCoy, Bill Oliver, Bill Wever, Wendy Anderson, Michelle Wiggins, Brenda Busing, the late Larry Swaney, Mike Ballou, Jeanne Walsh, Ted & Carole Miller, and lots more great people. I'd been working with Lynn Nelson, a truly unique gentleman, in managing the EKIS project and developing the Kansas Collection. Lynn had inspired Steve Chinn, who was doing a remarkable job with Kansas Heritage from Vanderbilt. We already had several volunteers enlisted for EKIS projects when KanColl began, and we discussed developing a similar program for Nebraska history. With Connie as EKIS associate manager, we began the Andreas project in late 1996; and Heritage Village began in 1997. My health faltered in 1997, but the decline had begun months earlier. My own productivity became minimal. Several of our NeGenWeb group suffered personal tragedies and have lost loved ones since we first came together, and four of my own cousins and a brother died last year. Through these ordeals, our NeGenWeb friends have demonstrated their caring thoughtfulness. Dsenter, home server for HV (and NeGenWeb, at the time), went through a three-week outage in autumn of '97 as it converted to usroots; and the organization changed to new management this year. My main computer had turned up its toes back in mid-December '97, and I was able to build a new one and connect online after four long months of frustration. On April 1, this year, all Heritage Village files were lost at usroots. It was an unfortunate experience; however, Jerry at usroots was very gracious in the matter. During that whole period there remained lots of catching up on both the routine and the unexpected. Recently I was able to entirely rebuild Heritage Village, and now have it operational at: http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/hvn.com. Now -- my new computer is cycling faster, the Pawnee page is doing well, NeGenWeb activities are flourishing, a remodeled Heritage Village is safely back online, KanColl is excelling, and my health is improving. Glory be to God, and I wish the very best to all my NeGenWeb friends. Dick T. I first ran across NEGenWeb in March of 1997, about a month after I first bought my computer and 'discovered' the internet. I volunteered to do lookups for Holt county at that time. (I had contacted Barb Hruza about becoming a volunteer.) I had been trying to find my own family info on the net, but was running into only sites that charged an 'arm and leg' for everything, and was very pleasantly surprised when I found the USGenWeb and that it was all free. As I am a 'helper', I started considering joining in some way. Shortly after I contacted Barb, I joined the mailing list and watched as others talked, just to get the feel of what was going on and to learn what was expected. About the beginning of June, John McCoy contacted me with the proposition of hosting Holt County. I told him that I had NO experience and didn't know anything about what I was doing, but if someone held my hand and helped me to walk, I would be very happy to at least try. (I became the Host of Holt June 17, 1997) He assured me that someone would hold my hand as long as I needed it, and he was so right! He held my hand to start with, then when he couldn't continue due to a job change, he got Ginger to help me. After I started working with Ginger, I became brave enough to start learning html. (By then I had had about a dozen computer crashes and had learned to cope with that, so didn't figure html could be any scarier) She held my hand and was very patient with me as I struggled to understand what I was doing. She finally pushed me out of the nest about Feb 1998. Shortly after, I became the host for Wheeler County, then in March I took on Greeley as a substitute host. Now I also have four counties in Colorado. As I live in Holt county, I have been able to do more with it than with the other counties. I have completed the Roster except for Illinois, which Jon and Kathy are doing. When that file comes in, the Roster will be finished. Janet continues to work on the Cemetery listings, even though circumstances have caused her to move away, so I have lost my lookup volunteer. I have started working on several projects for Holt, including 'Military Burials', 'Marriage Records Index', and a few more still in the planning stage. Greeley has had 492 visitors since Nov 17, 1997. Wheeler has had 321 visitors since Nov 14, 1997. Holt has had 1347 visitors since Nov 27, 1997. This week, Greeley had one query, and Holt had six surnames added. Wheeler had one query that I was able to help with. I would like to thank John McCoy (for all his help and getting me started with this), Barb for getting me interested in doing this, and to Ginger and Connie who have taught me all I have learned since I started, and ALL THE EAGLES and MEADOWLARKS for 'being there' when I needed them!! History.... In the summer of 1994 I started doing our family history as a subscriber to Prodigy. Along the way I received a tremendous amount of assistance by their subscribers. In turn, it was a natural process to return the favor...so to speak. Therefore, I started researching for others their Nebraska needs on the Prodigy BB. While I learned a lot about Nebraska most of the time it was boring. Probably 5 queries a month was the average...thoughout the state. There was some talk about the USGENWEB and the prospects for a very bright future. I decided to check it out for myself. When I found the guestbook ...probably March last year...I put a note there that I would be free for lookups in Nebraska. All that accomplished was some practice keyboarding. I contacted John McCoy and we discussed the NeGenWeb. I made it very clear to John that I did not know html. That was not an issue and lo and behold I had Cass county...I was born there and thought I could do some good. Ted , Carole and my son did the html for this county and got something in place. In a very short time Wendy Anderson sent me a note asking how she could be involved....Presto a real, live lookup/person co- coordinator. Immediately an improvement could be seen in Cass county. I am still involved with the page but just a very small bit. I have had the pleasure of meeting Wendy and her family including younger brother. Just seeing in person answers a lot of why things are getting done on the Negenweb they way they are. I fell sucker to Jeanne Walsh's plea to get additional counties adopted...Ted and Carole opted to do any and all html that I would need. Johnson ....My dad's family was there and Burt county...my wife's family was from there had a volunteer. I have answered many queries in the past and thoroughly enjoyed helping other coordinators with material for their web site and along the way...did a lookup or two when it was appropriate. I have been getting a lot of queries from AOL subscribers. I wonder what they are saying about the NeGenWeb on that service. Ted and Carole have made such as fuss over a little bit of success with my findingings on Unknown County. Little do they understand that on Prodigy that was a vast part of it...People just needed help badly. Several additions to our little coordinator group came along that I was acquainted with before they signed on. I hope that some of the goodwill I doled out along the way was responsible for they becoming involved. Oh, Yes, can't close with mentioning Maxine Sandquist of the Northeast Genealogical Society, Velma Cooper with the Burt couty Musuem, imputter, advisor for Burt county and contact person for the growing Burt county former residents list...former Burt county resident...now of California....Mr Hal Haswell...I met him on Prodigy and had the pleasure also of meeting him in person at the state library. I have a gentleman from Tecumseh, NE helping me with the Johnson county page. Mr. Chuck Morrissey, a lifelong resident and secretary for the Johnson county Historical Society is helping me answer queries for that county. With all this help, nothing outshines the efforts of Ted and Carole. We have a FAST COMPUTER and perhaps I will take another crack at html. It has some material in the program for a head start...but don't hold your breath. Much of what I did was Unknown county type of thing and looking at anything and everything. I researched for two books and was mentioned in the credits for one of the books as a Nebraska researcher. I was able to bring several cousins together over the time....one out in Dundy county and one in Oregon. One situation came about where two families had been looking for each other for forty years....It was found they lived about 200 miles apart. Through Prodigy we were able to trace back many, many years our families...more so than I ever though possible.....of which I am thankful for Prodigy. BUT things dried up and there seemed to be no interest in Nebraska genealogy...perhaps so or three a month at best. Rumors were floating around about this new thing called the USGENWEB which would be a passing fancy. People didn't have the time it would take...nor the interest..or would they spend their hard earned bucks. Interest was growing about the USGENWEB...personality problems were developing on Prodigy....AOL was making an impact on Prodigy...Prodigy messed around with internet access that didn't work very well...at least for me so I went looking for another carrier and the USGENWEB... I sent a couple of notes to John McCoy asking how somebody could help that didn't know computers. I grew up or tried to anyway in Cass county. Cass county was wanting for a coordinator so what the hey...I was offered help with html.....took it...P & P...Our good little mom Wendy Anderson sent me a note saying that she would like to help with Cass county......You folks all know where that went.... Then Johnson county started looing appealing so I took it. Johnson county is where the original Weavers/Wever landed in this state. Mr. Chuck Morrissey, retired now who has spent his entire life in Tecumseh has made an impact on Johnson county with many, many cemetery records and I find that he has many marriage reords available. Jeanne Walsh put out a note that really had an impact on getting a number of counties with coordinators...Most were doing one or two counties and Jeanne really did a number on us. Mrs. Bill W's grandparents came to Nebraska and landed in Burt county...Grandpa found as Red Cross contributor in 1918...All we had before was info in his obit that said he moved to Tekamah, MO. Burt county had a coordinator. Mr. Hal Haswell, a Tekamah lad, now retired in CA and I were acquainted on Prodigy and when I wrote him that I had decided to take over Burt county, I had someone that was ready to help anyway he could. His support along with P & P has been invaluable. I know have about 10 people assisting in some manner with Burt county.... I have told P & P to send me the Unknown county queries and I would see what I could learn aboiut people's research needs. This way a repayment for their assistance with my counties. The Census lookup thing came about and I sent my name and info in for that. It is keeping me busy and I had to reduce the time to bi-weekly from weekly. This is one section where people don't follow the rules....Unfortunately they can't because many don't have the family knowledge necesary to do this....Patience is really needed..something that sometimes wears thin. Belinda from PECULIAR took over Don's Cuming county and I have agreed to help her with lookups in return for her to do my html work. After the transition period is over P & P will simply be advisors for Belinda and I. I didn't mention the Meet and Greet for a particular reason. This is not something to stick in a paragraph and go on. This is something special...very special for the NeGenWeb. You folks really should make every attempt to attend this possible. The 2nd annual program which I have no doubt will be much improved over the 1st annual will never have an impact on us the way the 1st did. It laid out the groundwork and enforced the idea that it WAS possible for something like this to occur. Think about it....make the sacrifice....you will remember it always. From the Star City....Lincoln, NE Bill W, the "negenie@inetnebr" signing off.... Valley & Washington County here. I'm the original CC for both counties. I got started with the NEGenWeb back about September or October 1996 while I was living just outside of Lincoln. I had an account on The Mad Doctor's BBS at DSEnter and had been downloading messages via the BBS. After talking to Doc for a while, I decided to host Washington County since I had done some free research for a lady whose mother was born at Ft. Calhoun, Washington County. I had paid for photocopies of the NSHS holdings for Washington county and couldn't see letting the info go to waste. About a month later, I adopted Valley County since I had info for it too (Doc said that two counties wouldn't be much more work than one, so ...) I don't have any ancestors to research in NE that I know of, but I maintain Valley and Washington county because of all you Eagles. That's about it for me. Hello Eagles, Eaglets, Meadowlarks, and gang. Have enjoyed reading your stories and trying to keep track of how many times John McCoy's name has been mentioned. Even though he has tried to convince me otherwise I knew he was the instigator behind many fine people that become cc's of the NEGenWeb. Sometime in the fall of 1997 I came across Hamilton County in the NEGenWeb while searching for my great-grandmother McCoy and guess who I should find - you got it - my new found cousin John McCoy. John introduced me to - as he put it "his great friend Barb"- Barb who immediately went into action collecting the information we needed. She has also been a great friend to me. Over a short period of time of corresponding, I shared with John the family information he wanted and he shared his knowledge of HTML as I worked on my first personal webpage. I wrote John telling him my webpage was uploaded and asked him to take a look - the next message I got was him telling me how great it looked and what a wonderful job I had done and would I be interested in taking over the Butler County pages - I fell for his line hook line and sinker - he is really quite the salesman. He doesn't get the blame for my taking on the Nemaha County pages because I asked for them. Also I hope that all of you know I'm just harassing him. Haven't got to meet him yet but look forward to the day I get to give this cousin of mine a big hug. I have felt honored to have my own personal staff here on the NEGenWeb - Gary takes care of my computer problems and helps me to learn my programs; Sherri Brakenhoff gives me a pep talk when I get upset and want to quit; Jeanne Walsh, turned me on to MIDI's; Lynn gives me lots to laugh about on cold, gray winter days; Connie helps me out of the jams I get myself into with mail list owners; Melanie keeps me up on what happening in the old home town of Scottsbluff; Bill W keeps my desk piled with information so I never get bored; Denny Norvall refers volunteers who wish to add to the Nemaha pages (which he can stop doing at anytime now ); Chris and Bill O tax my comprehension by writing in some kind of lingo I can't understand; Carole and Ted give me updates and tell me all the good reasons that we no longer live in California; and Fred sends great messages about eating pizza and taking siestas. All in all I feel it a privilege to be part of such a great group. |