A Momentous Agreement
On November 1st, Deputy General Mabee and I traveled to Boston to meet with representatives of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). There we signed a long-term agreement to preserve, scan, digitize, make available online, and store the General Society’s Archives. Members approved this agreement at the August meeting of the General Society in Washington D.C.
There were several options available to the Society, other groups who would preserve, scan, digitize, make available online and store the General Society’s Archives, and we had the option of doing it ourselves. But, utilizing the services of the New England Historic Genealogical Society makes sense for a variety of reasons:
Their commitment to being the lineage community’s primary resource for research dates to 1845
Already relying on their expertise are the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, General Society of Colonial Wars, and a host of other notable lineage societies.
The records will be presented to the public through NEHGS’s proprietary software that will make researching, viewing, copying, and using the materials and easy process.
But the primary reason I recommended NEHGS to host our 1812 records, as opposed to self-managing our project, is because each year there will be additional applications to scan. Technologies change. By utilizing the services of the professionals at NEHGS, all scanned and digitized records will be upgraded to new formats so that news scans and digitization will be seamlessly combined.
The society has not only made a smart choice but also, the right choice.
