As I wrote the other day, I'm playing catch-up with my Honoring Our Ancestors grants program, so here are the awardees for October and November. I'd like to be completely caught up, but I've notified the awardees for both December and January and they haven't replied (here's a hint: when someone writes to give you money, it's a good idea to respond!). Well, maybe I can tell you about their great projects soon. In the meantime, congrats to North Dakota and Richard Longo, my first two-time awardee!
October 2006
The North Dakota State Genealogical Society, based in Bismarck, North Dakota, coordinates projects to promote the history of the families of North Dakota and preserve records. The society recently placed the North Dakota Death Index online by funding the website setup, and has also worked on indexing the 1885 Dakota Territory census, compiling county cemetery indexes, funeral home records, school records and early marriage records. The purpose of this grant will be to support the setup a website for a pre-1925 marriage index for the state. These records are kept in county courthouses and some have been lost due to negligence, damage or misplacement. It is hoped that this initiative will make people more aware of the value of these and all old documents, as well as encourage indexing and reorganization of these records to make them more accessible to the public.
November 2006
Richard D. Longo of Rochester, New Hampshire is the first two-time Honoring Our Ancestors grant recipient. Check out his earlier award in October 2001. His organization is 100% volunteer and includes Richard and three others. They are attempting to find, physically verify, and transcribe everything that is written on a headstone, footstone, monument or obelisk in Rochester, and insert it into a computer program that they have created. They also find missing headstones (e.g., bring them to the surface to transcribe the information) and GPS all burial grounds. Now they have been given authorization to repair any broken or damaged headstones that they deem important. This grant will be used for the very practical purchase of epoxy guns, nozzles, boxes of epoxy/drier cartridges, and bags of Sacrete (a sand and cement mixture).