Greetings, all!
     I have been thinking lately about a project that should be done for
Albemarle County, VA, and could probably be done for other counties in
Virginia (even other states).  This will be a little long, so if you're
not interested, please hit delete now, and save yourself some time.  :)
     I think that Rev. Edgar Woods' book "History of Albemarle County"
should be fed into a database (FTW, PAF, AQ, or similar), and posted on
Rootsweb for people to search.  I mean putting the people into the
database, and perhaps some of the text into the notes of those people.
This would be the minimum extent of the project, but I have grander
visions for what it could become.  I would like to see links to photos of
tombstones, links to drawings/photos of the people in the database, email
addresses for researchers in the notes, etc.  I have some example links
for you here, from my project for my home county (Nemaha Co., KS):

NMKS Photos homepage:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nemahaks/index.html

Clay Goodman (my grandfather) photo page:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nemahaks/ClayGoodman.html

Clay Goodman database page:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=rlg-ks-nemaha&id=I3703

Jim Goodman tombstone photo:
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~cemphoto/ks/nemaha/wettown/wetmore/wtmr0897.jpg

Maurice Manoah Pleasants (Albemarle County resident) tombstone:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/va/vastones/albemarle/pleasants/ALB00004.jpg

     This can be an easy project to start, but when you start adding
censuses, newspapers, tombstones, etc., it can take a lot of work on one
person's part, because everything has to go into one database to be
uploaded.  Does anyone know of a collaborative software that could be used
by many people over the Internet make this easier?

     Anyway, to get this started, one person would have to request a
database space from Rootsweb, and maintain the central database.  Lots of
people could create a database of the family they are interested in
(Goodman, for me, for example), and upload a GEDCOM to the central person,
who would just import all the databases into the central database.  That
would work fine for just the families in the book, but would break down
quickly as we start expanding outside the book, because of the need to
match/merge the gedcoms coming into the database.

     I am currently doing this type of a project for Nemaha Co., KS, and
this is the standard note I send to people who are interested in sending
info:

     "My project is to find everyone who has lived in Nemaha Co., KS at
any time, and make that info available to other researchers.  I have been
using open sources for my data (censuses, newspapers, tombstone data,
etc.).  I also accept data from other researchers, and include their name
and email address in the notes of each individual, naming them as Family
Researchers, so others can contact them directly."   I limit the info I
include in the database to people who actually lived in the county, plus
one generation born outside the county; otherwise the database would grow
into the millions.  After 5.25 years of work, I now have over 68,435
people entered, and expect that I will hit 200,000 before I finish.

     Albemarle County is much bigger, and much older, than Nemaha Co., KS,
and will have a _lot_ more people.  This could be a massive project, if
carried out fully.  If anyone is interested in jumping on this and
running, or if something like this is already in the works, let me know.
If anyone would be willing to do a family or two from the book, let me
know, and I will coordinate that (if someone doesn't want the job).  :)

Roger Goodman
Springfield, VA

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