 Thank you for joining us. We're at Roots Tech day three. We have the subject today is a Q&A for the USBH 1880 census project. We have Judy Bramlage, Elaine Martin, and Amy Johnson Crow here at Roots Tech. And then we have Emma Macbeth is dialed in from Washington State. And we have Greg is joining us just briefly from his cruise. If anybody has any questions, please start your question with a capital Q so that I can catch it and moderate for you all. Elaine is just going to give a brief introduction about what the project is all about. Okay, so we're the US Black Heritage Project at WikiTree and we're a community of over 100 volunteers in the project and way more than that outside the project is other WikiTree volunteers working on everyone in the US with Black Heritage. And we are right now working on the 1880 census, we just started this project, and there are about 6.6 million people with Black Heritage documented in that census. And we've been making thousands of profiles per week and we're getting more volunteers every week, but from WikiTree and new WikiTree years to just join. And our goal is to complete the census and connect them. We picked the 1880 census, because it's the first one that has relationships listed like father so rather. So it's easy to see who's who in 1870 this was 1870 was the first year that recently emancipated slaves were listed. However, with no family connections listed in the census so 1880 was the place to go for us. We're still looking at the other census is to another documents and we're just trying to get all those families. And we have any questions yet. Hi Patty. So, I'll go ahead Emma. I was gonna say I can give some stats if we want to start with that or if we want to wait on that. Oh, that would be great. We love stats. We absolutely love stats in the US Black Heritage Project because it tells us where we started and where we're heading and how much we've accomplished. And we don't have the population stats set up yet, which will tell us exactly how many people have been completed in all the states as Elaine said we have 6.6 million people to enumerate which is a lot. So eventually we're going to have it set up to where we know the actual number of people that we've covered, but so far so we have 47 states that were enumerated in the 1880 census. And so far we have finished three that have been and we're checking, we're spot checking every profile is created to make sure that, you know, the work is up to wiki tree standards and so we have three states that are finished and checked, fully checked by our volunteers. We have one state that's finished and then another state that's finished in the middle of checking. So already in a month we've got four states out of the 47 finished, we have several states that are close to finish quite a few states that are close to finish. We also what we're doing is we're creating spreadsheets with the lists of all the people that need profiles so that our volunteers can come in and easily create profiles from the list. And as you can imagine, when you have 6.6 million people it's time intensive to create those spreadsheets and we've had so many amazing wiki tree volunteers who have been coming and helping us create those spreadsheets and we've had. We've had some interesting challenges data challenges and they've been overcoming those and we have most of, we have a good part of the spreadsheets created already I mean I think we're going to have that done. We didn't imagine we would have the spreadsheets created anytime soon and I feel like we're going to have them created thanks to all of our volunteers so we will have full lists of all the states all the people ready to go so that anybody who has a specific county that they want to work on in a specific state can just go to that spreadsheet that's linked and start working on it. We had our largest number of profiles in a month created this month. Since the beginning of our project is absolutely been overwhelming how many but I can't even I can't even count how many volunteers have helped us because it's impossible to count but it's hundreds of people from all over the world. We've been coming to help us and we've created 16,621 profiles. In February, which just blows my mind. And Elaine you said that you had a stat of how long that take us at our current rate which means we need more help. Yeah, at our current rate. Our current rate is about 6000 a week. And that's including some other non h 80 profiles as well but anyway, if we do 6000 a week, it will take 20 years to get to. I did in math a couple times so many check them out. I hope I'm wrong but yeah, but we're already we're getting more and more volunteers every week. And I think a lot of people are interested in working on their home counties or county they're particularly interested in. So once we have all the spreadsheet set up it'll be easier. So right now luckily people might ask for Dallas County and we don't have it they'll go to a different county and happily work on that as well. But it'll be even better to get more volunteers. Once we get the other spreadsheets up. But we still have a lot to work on that are open already ready to go. Just gonna say one more thing wasn't anyway. Oh, the family searches recognize that there's errors in the county names. Oh, okay. Yeah, there are a few errors in county names that family search notice and some of them are fixing and some we're fixing ourselves. Right. Something like that. Yeah, we're catching all of them I think. Right. And they're very thankful for that. Oh, great. That's good to hear. Also, we're going to be setting up a G to G post starting next week it'll be a monthly post and it'll be our updated stats so everybody can see. See that on a regular basis and we'll kind of update those several times throughout the month so people can kind of see that. A little bit more often of how much we're getting accomplished and people can also post on that G to G post when they finish a county so that we kind of celebrate that that that gets very exciting. Another state's been done another county's been done. We live for those moments. Amy, where are you working? Right now I'm working in Ohio and our team focus is Gallia County. All right, which is a county on the down on the Ohio River and had a very early black population. So it's been interesting really to see how all of these families are interrelated and migrating. Yeah, then later because I don't know about you but I create a profile and I can't just leave and I have to then go research the entire family. I'm slowing down the process. I'm sorry. No, it's great. More profile. It's all about they're from Virginia. They came from a couple of specific places in Virginia. Yeah, there were a couple of specific places in Virginia, where was has completely left me right now because my brain is much. But yeah, yeah, all virtually the Virginia. Yeah. And we are making lots and lots and our goal was to have more connection points across the entire country because some of our work gets kind of concentrated in little clumps in certain areas that we wanted to spread across the United States. And we're starting to see all sorts of new connections now thanks to these 1880 census profiles so we're already accomplishing what we wanted to accomplish. With the 1880 census projects very exciting when people keep posting I just connected a family I just connected a family. Are you working in Baldwin County, Alabama. That's awesome. And most of them come from South Carolina. Okay, because it's a turpentine industry. Right. Yes. Okay. Right. Definitely on the coast. Yeah. So we do have a few comments in the live chat I just wanted to share with our volunteers. It's from Alice she's just sharing she she's going to check to see if there's a county or area of Oregon being worked on. So if anyone knows just let her know. Oregon's almost done so we can we can finish that one up in no time. That's awesome. We have Terry Burks. Is it better to go to a state that is almost completed or just start anywhere. She's working on Calhoun, Mississippi, and we'll work on Adams County when it's up. Yeah, just dive in. Yeah. We don't get particular states interest you do what interests you most. And that's that's the beauty of this project. Do we still need help creating the list. Yes, we do Jackie. Jackie helped. Jackie helped knock out the state of Maine. There were several people who were just just went on to Maine and they they finished it in a month. It was very exciting to watch and we're now that's the state that's in the process being checked right now. Amazing. Yeah, it was very exciting to watch it get finished. And oh yes thank you Judy we are partnering with the Nebraska Days Challenge for the month of March. And we will be zooming in on Nebraska for that month and getting that and we think we can finish that in the month of March. And how many profiles, like 6000 Nebraska. No, I think it's 28. Let me double check Nebraska is 202385. We could totally do that in a month. Yeah, with everybody helping. Yeah, that's very exciting and a lot of my family's from Nebraska so I'm excited to chip in and help with that. So if somebody's watching and they're interested where should they go. Start on our G to G post where we announced the project. It should be linked on that page where you're at yep right there. And just because that has all the instructions of how to get started and just tells what state you're working on or if you need a county that's not created yet you can request that there and we'll make that a priority to get that ready. And I'm dropping that link into the live chat for y'all. And then there's a question from Jackie. How do I volunteer to do spreadsheets. Um, just to just leave an answer on the on that G to G post. Yeah, and then what you instructions. All right. And we have a couple of comments wonderful wiki tree or Emma. Thank you. Terry works. It has a question. Have you contacted logs to see if they can assist. I know that Tanae had been working with the national chapter and getting them involved. Yeah we're setting we're setting up their spreadsheet they're working on starting on Davis and county which is a monster county it's just huge but we're working on setting as much of that up as we can. We could do the same thing for Chicago chapter definitely. Oh yeah. Thank you, Terry. As many help as we get right. We can do it in like five or less like it just keeps snowballing and we get more volunteers and everyone's getting faster at doing it too. Yeah, yeah. Now if we now if we when we keep going to multiple generations well maybe not but everyone has their own style of working and that is fantastic. Yeah, all good for the tree. Yeah, great. Okay, let's see if we have more questions. I was going to see how many people have signed up on our post 226 people have answered our post on Gigi and that's not everybody helping that's just the ones who have said on post that they're helping. We have lots and lots of people outside of that we were blown away we were not prepared for the amount of help that we are getting and we had to scramble a little bit. People answering. Our post was pinned at the top for a little while and that up Gigi was it. Yeah, I don't think it is anymore but it was for a couple weeks and that's how we got a lot of volunteers starting into that's awesome. And it was posted in the newsletter to. Oh yeah that too. Um, Yeah, okay. Oh, we're having so much fun at Roots Tech it's my first time and it's all it's a genealogy wonderland candy land it's going to accident. Oh, yeah. And it's my time too. Yeah, it's wonderful. You get to meet people in person too that's so exciting. Yes, yeah that's what's really great. That's the best part. We've been talking and working together and to finally actually to meet everybody in person is wonderful. That's so cool. And me. Yeah, what Denise mentioned there, Chris has been a wonderful supporter of our projects and anytime I have something new that we're working on he just blast that out to people for us and let's everyone know. And then did a what do you call it news announcement press release. Yeah, that was for announcing that we now have the largest connected data free database of African Americans. Yeah, and then she also mentioned the age. Yeah, so that's all, all really awesome support. Yeah, actually, Elaine had somebody come and yeah we did our iPhone it was so easy. And then Betsy signed up a bunch of people like several people brought their laptops we've got yeah we've got people signing up right taking the cards light our wiki tree ID on it and questions and lots of folks. Yes, yeah, it's been wonderful. Alice had a question about an 1880 tag to follow and I thought about that but I think continuing to use the black heritage tag is the simplest way to go. Follow that tag for our posts. And I'll put that in the chat. Yeah, so I can. There we go that that's the tag to follow in G to G. Then you'll be able to see all our, all our good stuff that's going on. Okay, and then we have another question from Great, great gems. Sorry if I asked it, but the Tennessee counties that I want to work on don't have spreadsheets. Should I post a request in G to G. Yes, on the USBH census post that she has up right there on the screen. If you'll post there what counties you need we'll get those set up as quickly as we can. The larger counties are going to take longer because I mean some of those counties have tens of thousands of people. So it takes a lot longer to extract that information. But we'll at least try to get a few tabs up. You know a few thousand people ready to go ready to get started on. Okay, and it has another question and comment. So in the spreadsheet I see one for Jacksonville Jackson County, Oregon on the spreadsheet. I guess she's just asking if she can start working there maybe. Oh yeah, you, you can work anywhere. Absolutely. I'm trying to think of how our organ is set up. I, because it's one of the smaller states. So I don't know that we have it in order of location. I think it's an alphabetical order. Yes. Correct. So it's a little harder to find your favorite location when it's, you know, there's only 422 people from Oregon. So we just kind of have it all listed together. All right. So do we have a lot to do in Oregon? We need to get going on that state. Okay, does anybody have any other questions or anybody want to share anything else? We need volunteers fell down in Ohio. Shameless plug. Shameless plug. That also speaks to, I think one of the reasons that the 1880 project has gotten so popular is that I think a lot of times people are a little intimidated about helping with the USPH project, because they feel intimidated about doing, well, and doing black race, you know, during black genealogy. Because, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're working. If you're working on, you know, if you think that all of usbh is related to slavery research. And you don't know how to do that. Well, you think, well, I can't really help but the 1880 project is such a great way because basically, if you can, well, you have to be on wiki tree. If you can get online, and you can read the 1880 census. If you're done, that's all you need. And if you're using source. Oh, the wiki tree source. It makes it trivial. All you do is pull up the source or extension. And then you have it all format for you. And you just paste it in. And you've got your whole profile. Yeah, it's a game changer. It's, I mean, it's, it's, you're going through and you're, it's so fast to do them. Yeah. That's a really good point about it being a little past the slavery era. Yeah, it's easier to approach. Yeah, it's a very accessible project. Yeah, yeah. A great starting point. You're definitely, you have the source already. All you have to do is use Sorcerer to create the profile. Yeah. Easy. We're going to get to work on their favorite location, which is, is kind of the fun part. Yeah. And if you just add to keep a little window open of, of a. Of the text file, it has all the. And the USBH categories that you need, plus American, African American. And you just copy those in. Yeah. So that you. There are a lot of ways to. It's easy. It's easy. You can create your own easy, easy method. Yeah. Yeah. It's simple. Yeah, Jackie. You're right. Sometimes it's, sometimes you have to create an unknown. It's no, it's no fun to have to do that. But eventually someone will find, find the record. Hopefully it gives them a starting point. And there's some of us who specifically work on the unknown last name. So, you know, we have a category. I just put the category in the chat that we use for when we use unknown as the last name. And that way people can. Come in and just work on finding last names. Yeah. And some with, with the 1880, a lot of the children might have, the children will end up having a social security record. And then you can track the mother's maiden name pretty easily. Yeah. Because that's the right time. Sometimes it doesn't work, but a lot of times it does. All right. Thank you for having us on. Yeah. I went back to his careers. Apparently the wifi was bad. Yeah. I just want to say I'm extremely grateful for all the help we've been getting. Just the outpouring of help and love. And. Wow. We are blown. We. We could tree continues to blow us away every time we ask for help. And we set a goal. People can't just swarm in and help us. And we meet our goals early. You know, our goal is to help people. We can't just swarm in and help us. And we meet our goals early. You know, our goal was our initial goal was to complete one county from every state. And I think we've already met that goal the first month. Wow. Yeah. So we're going to have to reconsider how to up our goal for the year because, you know, we're way ahead of schedule. Awesome. Well, thank you, everybody for tuning in. And the regular Saturday roundup will be resuming next, next Saturday. So just be on the lookout for that in G2G. And with that, I guess we'll go ahead and sign off. Everybody have a great day.