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Archiver > NYMONROE > 1999-12 > 0945984758


From: Dick Halsey <>
Subject: Christmas present
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 16:32:38 -0500


Merry Christmas to everyone on this list.

I am giving you a big present for Christmas. Since March I have been
scanning about 500 pages of tombstone inscriptions from Mt. Hope
Cemetery in Rochester that I typed back in 1986-7. I even had to
re-scan about 100 pages after my computer died in July and I lost a
bunch of data that wasn't backed up. I just finished uploading the
completed files. They contain somewhere around 23,000 people. You can go
directly to introduction page at:
http://home.eznet.net/~halsey/cem/mh-intro.htm You also can search
all the new pages from the main cemetery page at:
http://home.eznet.net/~halsey/cem.html These records are from the
older section of the cemetery. See the introduction page for more
details. Scanning didn't take very much time. It was the proof reading
that took so much time. There were 28,800 pages of text to read over and
find any scanning mistakes. The scanning program sometimes has a
difficult time telling the difference between an S and a 5. Also the
typewriter actually used the same character for l (L) and 1 (one).

The search on the cemetery page is definately a big hit. So far
there have been over 7200 searches since around October first.

I also changed a few other cemetery pages from text pages to web
pages. It makes them easier to index and also to have search engines
find them.

What's next? I'm not sure. Most of the cemeteries that aren't on the
net are very big. I can't see me ever trying to type census records. I'm
sure I'll find something else to do after I get caught up on my e-mail.

The Rochester Public Library has gotten a Grant to put old photos
on-line. It may be February before they are all on-line. Rumor is that
there will be at least 1000 old photos of the Rochester area.

New York State is in the final stages of letting other places have
copies of the Vital Record index. The stipulation is that the records
have to be kept locked up when not in use. Rochester Public Library is
most likely going to have the records, along with Onondaga Co. Library,
somewhere in the Buffalo area and probably a few more locations around
the state. This is something that genealogists have been begging for at
least 10 years. Look for the Vital Record inedexes to start showing up
after March. These indexes will not contain any records for New York
City. Those records have always been separate

I hope everyone has a Happy Holiday.
Dick

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