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Archiver > AL-AfricaAmer > 1998-09 > 0906687946


From: "northernwinds" <>
Subject: [AL-AfricaAmer-L] Re-sale of our Ancestors for Profit
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:45:46 -0400


Hello Group,
For months I have been request Wills that mentions Slaves.
I have recieved great reponse from a Great amount of Researchers.
Recently I recieved a letter from a person that I thought was offering her
help.
She told me about a book for sale listing Slaves.
I alone purchased said book for Twenty Five Dollar.
This person knews about Alabama African American Genealogy.
And knew we had our own site.
When I recieved the book Papers of the Pike County Historical and
Genealogical Society Troy,Alabama Volume 1&2 Abtracts from General Estate
Books1-12
1823-1880. Me and the crew decided to divide each section and record all the
Slaves and owners no other info (like the whole Will etc.)
I posted Three and Two day later I recieved this reponse.

Date sent: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 20:51:20 -0700
From: Dorothy Ann Folmar <>
To:
Subject: Pike Co. Publication

Sandra,
I know you recently purchased the last bulletin of the Pike Co.
Alabama Historical & Genealogical Society, abstracts of estate
settlements, & now some of these abstracts have appeared on African
American web sites. I have been authorized by the president of the
Historical & Genealogical Soceity of Pike County & the chairman of the
publications committee, of which I am also a member, to ask you to
remove all this information from your web sites. We have another of
these abstracts books ready for publication next month. Its copyright
will be registered with the U. S. Copyright Office. Although the
copyright of the book you purchased is not yet registered, it will be
soon. Again, we would like you to remove all our information from these
sites & refrain from putting any more of our material on the sites. We
sell our books to make money for the genealogical department of our
local library & for other worthy genealogical projects. We do NOT sell
books to people for them to publish or distribute the information
themselves. Please remove all our abstracts (which our members worked on
very hard for months) from your site at once. Thank you. If you do not
remove them AT ONCE, we will take other measures. Again, thank you.
[And believe me, we're sorry we sold you the book. We've never had a
problem like this before!]
-- Dorothy Ann Folmar Pike Co., AL
(Second Reponse)

To all on the list:
It would be wonderful if the Pike County Historical & Genealogical
Society could have its own web page & put all the information from all
its publications on the site for all to read & use freely -- but the
fact is that it is very hard work & expensive for the Society to produce
its publications &, as a member of the bulletins or publications
committee, I have to say that we can't continue producing if people are
going to do look-ups from our publications & give away the information.
We ask that look-ups from our publications cease & we ask that people
either order our publications, or pay dues ($13 per year due in January)
& become a member & receive the publications for each year for $13,
which includes postage, or pay me & my mother (she is chairman of the
publications committee as well as Treasurer of the Society) a few
dollars to do look-ups for you, the amount depending on how much time &
effort are required, which would go to the Society. The Society depends
entirely upon its publications for income to produce more publications &
to give a bit of money each year to the local Troy Public Library for
its genealogy department.
This is a difficult thing to say, as I know it is just human nature
(the best side of it) to want to help someone if you have information
they're seeking; & I fully realize the posting of data on the internet &
free access to it is a trend which will probably continue until most
Historical & Genealogical Societies are eventually put out of business.
Nevertheless, for the present, we ask that you cease doing look-ups from
our publications. We are presently producing one of our best works
ever, abstracts from General Estates books of the probate office (loaded
with genealogical info), covering the period about 1823 to 1880. We
published one of these books in April this year & will publish the 2nd
one next month, in October, & the last one either in April or, more
likely, in October of next year. An awesome amount of work is going into
this project, & it costs to have the books typed & to have the number of
books we need printed by our printing company in Montgomery. We sell
our publications to individuals & libraries all across the U. S.
Beginning with these books of abstracts, copyright of our publications
will be registered with the U. S. Copyright Office.
For more information, you may contact me at . Thank
you.
-- Dorothy Ann Folmar Pike Co., AL
In this Book it does list Slaves and Prices and who they were sold to.
Pike County has taken it upon themselves to resale our Ancestors for $25.00
Now if you seen the price of what slaves were sold for in this book one
would be angry that Pike County,Alabama is selling them for Twenty five
Dollars.
I am outraged at this is this a normal practices with Societies?
Sandra.

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