The Pikes Peak NewsFinder

The Pikes Peak Genealogical Society has been indexing the Colorado Springs Death Registers, and presents their work in the Pikes Peak NewsFinder.

To check it out, I threw in my go-to surname: Pulley. What I found was quite exciting! Andrew J. Pulley, who died in 1903 at 35 years of age, is buried in Union Chapel Cemetery in DeKalb County, Missouri. Most of his life takes place during the void between the 1880 census and the 1900 census, and he died before Missouri maintained death certificates. There’s more interesting stuff about this guy, which I’ll probably write about later, but that is not what makes this find, as regards the Pikes Peak NewsFinder, so fabulous.

Here’s the kewl part: The index entry includes a link to obtain the document. I clicked on it to find out how much it would cost. Nothing. They’ll email it to you. They ask for your email address and your zip code. So now I’m thinking — this is too good to be true. I’ll get an email in a few days that tells me I’m outside their service area — I’m not in Colorado — and THEN I’ll find out what the charge is.

Nope. Yesterday, the link to the file arrived in my email.

As I review my posts on this blog, I keep thinking, “Good grief, woman! You’re so damn negative! Is NOTHING good going on right now?” Actually, I’m pretty cautious, but I really try NOT to focus on bad things. It just seems that after five years or so of not being able to work on my research as I’d like, I keep running into new “brick walls” that don’t involve finding my people, but do involve things not working like they should, or changes being made that mess up the way I’m used to doing things.

In the early days of my involvement with the USGenWeb projects, we were so swamped with submissions it was hard to keep up. Now, when we do hear from someone, it’s usually to complain that they can’t find what they’re looking for — although I did get a very nice email from a lady a few days ago which was very much appreciated! It seems that, with a few exceptions, like Vickie Piper and Monica Schirmer Eshelman, founder of the PACT Project, and Kelly Alvarado, President of the NWMGS, the focus is on finding stuff — not providing stuff for other people to find. I don’t think they think it through. The big genealogy companies have a staff — and purchasing power (which they use to buy the work of other volunteers, the Find A Grave fiasco being a good example of that!) — while the rest of us are just small fish in a big pond with too many projects in the works.

When I suggest they can help make these resources available for free, they’re too busy. I get that — but it also occurs to me that they think I’m sitting around with my feet up eating bon bons and waiting for someone else to do it. “If you think someone should do something about that, that someone should probably be YOU!”

I am so pleased to be able to write positively about the Pikes Peak NewsFinder and the wonderful people who have made it possible. On my first search, many questions about Andrew were answered — and suspicions confirmed. Awesome!