[or-roots] libraries and things

[Leslie Chapman]

About the Doug Co Gen Soc Library, I believe they are only open one or two
days a week for fairly limited hours on a scheduled basis, if a person is
wanting to do research there, and yes they are very helpful, though I didn't
find anything i was looking for the one time I was there, I would recommend
checking their web site and calling ahead to make certain they are going to
be available. It seems to me like there is some leeway to arrange non
schedule hours if arranged in advance. the other thing I would point out is
that while the Gen Soc Library is in the courthouse where you will be
probably be able to find many valuable documents, The wonderful lady who
used to be in the dungeon serving the public so patiently is no longer
working there and you have to go to the clerks office. To put it tactfully
they are underfunded and short handed and you probably won't get as much
help as you might like. They will let search through the land records
yourself, but I think you have to use the computer database to locate
marriage, delayed birth, probat and the like and then they will make copies
of what you request.

When the dear lady whose name I am horribly embarrased to admit I can't
recall at the moment, but have mentioned in here before worked there she
would let you actually TOUCH those original documents. But I doubt if you
can do so now.

On another note I spent the last three days in Pendleton at a PLSO
conference and was appalled to find out that many of our eastern counties
have very poorly maintained survey records (and by extension most likely
other important records) that are in great danger of being destroyed either
deliberately or by attrition because they have no funds to preserve them.
The magnitude of the amounts of stuff in danger of being lost forever, or
digitized which is really the same as lost is so great that the only
solution I can think of is to appeal to Bill Gates, we taxpayers simply
can't afford to pay for what needs to be done.

My first session was given by Layne who was discussing the "right" way to
preserve documents, I wish afterwords that the next two session presenters
had been at her session cause they really would have been in despair about
what they didn't have to preserve these records.

Now you may wonder what that has to do with genealogy, but you would be
amazed at how much there is in these records, above and beyond identifying
land ownerships in real terms of where the land is, you often also have
letters and testimony involved in land dealings, and some types of early
surveys identified peoples dwelling and such as part of the survey. And then
there is the DLC stuff and so on.

I also learned a lot about other places to look for survey records I wasn't
aware of and more importantly several types of survey records I was not even
aware existed.

I thoroughly enjoyed Layne's presntation by the way.

Les C