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From: "Elizabeth Shown Mills" <>
Subject: [APG] FW: Archives news - digitized documents
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:47:54 -0600


Marie Melchiori wrote:
>the Footnote.com digitalized records go above and beyond,
in many instances. The Bureau of Investigation files are indexed but only to

the name of the person being investigated. The witnesses are not included in

the NARA index. They will be on the Footnote.com site. In many instances as
many
questions were asked of the witnesses as the person being investigated.


The same can be said for the Southern Claims Commission files that are being
digitized from NARA. The index to SCC and related claims that Gary published
through GPC covers all 22,298 claims of the SCC claims, with crossreferences
to administrators, other counties of residence, etc. Until now, however,
there has been no way to identify the estimated quarter-million witnesses
who testified in these claims cases.

Footnote.com dwill make those buried names accessible. Of course, like all
such mass indexes prepared in this modern era, the indexers had their
difficulties reading the handwriting. Names of individuals and locations
were often creatively written in the originals and they can be creatively
interpreted in the databases. We may have to apply creativity to the search,
but having those databases is one fantastic boon.

Others have wondered whether the costs of the subscription would exceed
having someone onsite retrieve those records. Since 1972 Gary and I spent
over $7,000 ordering SCC files from NARA. We had files filmed, we had files
photocopied, and we had local researchers to pull files. In every case, we
knew the file name and number to start with, but it still cost a bundle.

To think that I can now sit at my computer and, for just $99 a year,
download as many of those documents as I want is absolutely flabbergasting.

Elizabeth



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
*Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*
*QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Resources, Evidence Style*
*Isle of Canes* <www.isleofcanes.com>
"A masterpiece! You'll never look at American History the same
way again"---*Historical Novels Review*

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