IIGS™ Newsletter - July 1998
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IIGS™ Newsletter - July 1998
How does one describe the IIGS™ Birthday Bash? Wildly successful? Without a doubt. Marathon madness? That, too. Satisfying? You bet. Enlightening? Oh, yes!
As first birthday parties go, the 48-hour IIGS™ fling on May 14 and 15 ranks among the best.
"I think that the Birthday Bash was the single most important thing IIGS™ has done," announced Barbara Brown, who, along with Paula Wiegand and Lorine McGinnis Schulze, organized the Bash.
"Our Traffic Cops were responsible for reading all queries that arrived via e-mail, list and the online query form, and directing those queries to a volunteer responder," explained Lorine McGinnis Schulze in a message after the event was over.
A hardworking team of volunteer responders answered the 567 queries posted by genealogists in search of their ancestors during the Birthday Bash.
The 20 volunteer responders handled everything from simple queries that were easy to answer to the nearly impossible. While nearly half the queries were U.S.-related, the other half reflected the international nature of IIGS™.
The queries also reflected the diverse research experiences of genealogists themselves. For example, some queries were well thought out. In those cases, it was apparent the genealogist already had spent some time researching. Other queries were vague and gave their responders few clues on which to base their advice.
Some queries broke hearts because the writer had obviously exhausted every possible avenue and the brick wall they'd encountered likely would stand forever. In most cases, however, the volunteers were able to draw upon their expertise to give comprehensive answers to even the toughest of questions.
In one case, four people who were previously unknown to each other submitted queries relating to the same family. To be able to unite these researchers with their common cause was a real highlight for the volunteers!
Sadly, some people used bad e-mail addresses; attempts to respond to their queries failed.
The IIGS™ query marathon not only gained the organization new members and good will, but the satisfaction of helping other researchers. For the most part, those who queried received great responses which pointed them in new directions or simply the right direction.
What IIGS™ learned from the experience is how to do it even better the next time! And we learned that many researchers just need a few lessons in how to write a query and in how to research. Those may very well be avenues worth exploring for IIGS™.