Please read the FAQs in this section before you decide to become a RAOGK volunteer. After reading and accepting our policies and procedures explained herein, click on the link provided to sign up as a volunteer. Please BOOKMARK this page for future reference. Thank you for your interest in becoming a part of our wonderful organization.
What is expected of a volunteer?
Ideally, you should reside in the area for which you volunteer, since this is a site where volunteers do the legwork for others.
You are expected to reply to a new request between 48 hours and 2 weeks of receipt. This response lets them know that you have received the request and whether you can honor it or not. Your reply should also advise the requester if there will be any reimbursement of costs that may occur and a general idea of that total. You need to give them a time frame within which you feel you can accomplish their request. If you cannot honor the request you need to let them know this as well, so they can move on to another volunteer.
We have a log of all the requests that are made through our site. There are staff members that go through these requests on a daily basis. Their job is to cull out duplicate requests that are sent to more than one volunteer in the same area. In order to give these staff members time to find and notify the requesters, along with the volunteers involved, we would like for you to wait 48 hours before acknowledging receipt of any request you receive.
You will be subscribed to a mandatory mailing list. RAOGK-ANNOUNCE is our only means of communicating all at once with all of the volunteers. This newsletter is sent once a month and contains news of site improvements, changes in policy or any other information that you may need to be made aware of. Back issues of the RAOGK-ANNOUNCE can be seen in the archives.
You will be automatically removed with the first bounce coming back that your e-mail bounces as "unknown user" or "is not accepting mail from this sender." The ability to receive messages from this site is mandatory. If you are using any kind of spam filters, whether on your own computer or through your internet provider, you need to specify any mail coming from @raogk.org needs to be accepted. If you are an AOL user, you need to be able to receive mail from @raogk.org and from users other than AOL users.
What can I do as a volunteer?The purpose of this site is to help others obtain copies of documents, pictures of tombstones, etc., that can not be obtained easily by those who do not live in the area of their ancestors.
Documents could be death records, marriage records, land records, wills, baptismal records from churches, cemetery information in the form of photos of tombstones, military records, obituaries and the list goes on. Of course, all those documents mentioned may or may not be available for copying depending on the location.
As of July 2005, we will no longer accept Acts of Kindness that pertain to "One-Named Studies." The purpose of this site is to help others obtain copies of documents, pictures of tombstones, and other types of secondary/primary sources as proof of lineage. Lookups from a book for every reference to a specific surname can be beneficial, but the ability to do so would be more productive if posted to one of the many genealogical forums (message boards) on the Internet.
Am I allowed reimbursement for expenses incurred?You may charge reimbursement only for postage, film, video tapes, cost of making copies, and possibly parking fees. No charges may be made for your time.
The purpose of this site is to be able to obtain copies of documents or any other information (pictures of tombstones, etc.), that can not be obtained easily if you do not live in the area. Due to copyright issues we discourage lookups from books, however there are RAOGK volunteers who do so. If you have a library of books that you would be willing to do lookups in, may we suggest volunteering for the "Books We Own" project, http://www.rootsweb.com/~bwo/ or visit The USGenWeb Project State and County sites where you may offer your services. County Coordinators of The USGenWeb Project are always looking volunteers.
I'm a professional genealogist. May I still sign up as a RAOGK volunteer?Professional genealogists are most welcome to participate as RAOGK volunteers. If you choose to serve as a RAOGK volunteer, be careful to keep professional and volunteer activities separate. You must not use your volunteer position to advertise or recruit clients.
How soon will my name appear on the page?Your name should appear within three to five days.
To check your listing, go to the page that lists the States and Countries, select the state or country you volunteered for, and then the county or territory/region.
If you do not see your name listed within one week please let us know. Please read the directions on the contact page carefully before contacting us.
How often should I do these services?We recommend only ONCE per month but you may choose to do it as often as you like. We believe that a volunteer can spare one day a month to aid another researcher.
What if I get numerous requests?We suggest that you keep a waiting list. We have advised requesters they may be put on a waiting list and to please be patient. Please inform those that are on a waiting list of this fact.
If you find yourself swamped, you may go on "Temporary Status" for a period of time so you can catch up on fulfilling your requests without receiving any new ones. Temporary status will remove you from being viewable on the website, but maintain your information in our database. Temporary status can be used if you go on vacation, become ill or having computer problems.
Temporary status should only be for no less than two weeks and for no longer than three (3) months. To go on temporary status you will need to go to our Change of Status form and select the link for Temporary Status.
I received a request that isn't very specific. What do I do now?Reply to the requestor and ask them to give you more information about their ancestor and to state exactly what they want you to lookup. If you still receive an unreasonable request contact the staff. Let them know what location the request pertains to and state the problem. The staff member who handles your area will advise you in the matter.
The requester is asking for in-depth research. What do I do?Some volunteers choose to honor them. If you do not choose to, simply reply to the requestor and remind them of the RAOGK guidelines.
From the FAQ's for Requester's (http://www.raogk.org/faq-requesters.htm)
They may request one or two items concerning one or two ancestors.
They can not ask a volunteer to do anything outside of their specified location or to do anything for which they have not volunteered.
Volunteers are only obligated to do one look-up per month. If they make more than one request of any one volunteer per month, that volunteer may request a fee. It's up to the volunteer to decide what to charge for this.
No, we do not keep a record of how many lookups you have received and completed.
What are duplicate requests and how are they handled?We have a log of all the requests that are made through our site. There are staff members that go through these requests on a daily basis. Their job is to cull out duplicate requests that are sent to more than one volunteer in the same area. In order to give these staff members time to find and notify the requesters, along with the volunteers involved, we would like for you to wait 48 hours before acknowledging receipt of any request you receive.
When a duplicate request is detected, a message is sent out to the requester with the volunteers involved being copied on the message. If you receive one of these duplicate messages, it will contain a message for the requester to select which volunteer they want to do the lookup and to write the others not to bother.
After I send the requested information what should I do?When you have completed the act of kindness, ask the recipient to return to the site so they can perform an act of kindness at least once in return. This isn't mandatory, but a nice gesture.
How do I edit my information that is listed?Go to the change of information page, select the proper form and fill in the pertinent information.
Is there a way I can let people know I am part of this project?Once you have been listed as a volunteer, you may select from 3 options to add to your signature line:
NOTE: Please only link to the main page of RAOGK.
Volunteer for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness at
http://www.raogk.org/
Volunteer for RAOGK at
http://www.raogk.org/
Since our income comes partially from sales made at our two online stores:
Volunteer for RAOGK at
http://www.raogk.org/
Check out our new Online Stores
http://www.raogk.org/store or
http://www.genealogyforyou.com/shop
Once you are a volunteer, you can join our mailing list to visit with others who have known the joy of helping others through this project. This list is used as a tool to aid you in helping others, to give hints and tips of how you have gone about fulfilling requests, and to ask any questions you may have. To join the list go to http://lists.raogk.org/mailman/listinfo/raogk-l. Once subscribed, please read and keep your welcome message, as it will tell you how to change your method of receiving these messages and also how to unsubscribe from them.
If I have a question not covered by these FAQ's, to whom do I write?Please double check to make sure your question has not been answered as it may be covered in an answer to another question.
If your question still has not been answered, please go to our contact us page for information.
How and Where do I sign up?When you get to one of the forms for signing up below, please enter your name as you would like for it to appear on the site. Please enter your e-mail address correctly, double check (we all make typos). If you have an alternate address please enter that as well. This alternate address is for staff use only in case your posted e-mail address is having problems.
For volunteering in the USA, pick your state from the drop down menu, make sure it is highlighted. If you are on a MAC using OS X, you will have to contact us with your submission for the time being. Then specify the County you will be doing your research.
For volunteering outside of the USA, you will have to specify country, then region or territory, then area of your research.
The next item to check off or fill in is very important, it is your act of kindness (AOK). You need to be as specific as possible as to what you can do, only you know your limitations. You also must remember that a few people will not know much about the area you are located. Many people do not realize that a county/region can be hundreds of miles across so if you can only research in a certain area of the county or region you must specify this in your act of kindness.
We ask you to be specific, but we also ask you to keep it as short as possible, around 250 characters, or around 50 words.
After volunteering if you find that you are receiving requests you cannot fulfill, or too many requests, your act of kindness may be too general in scope. You can change your act of kindness anytime by going to our change form.
To volunteer in the USA fill in the form here.
To volunteer outside of the USA your form is here
