CURRENT VOLUNTEER NUMBERS Welcome aboard all new volunteers; we are really glad to have you. We currently have 4463 volunteers across the globe. During the month of April we welcomed 134 new volunteers. fifty-four volunteers were removed due to the newsletter bouncing back to us (user unknown, mailbox full February and March, and hosts unknown); staff removed 17 for being non-responsive or having bad e-mail addresses; 78 members decided to leave the project voluntarily. The staff doesn't ask too much from the volunteers; just keep us posted on any changes you may have by going to http://www.raogk.org/change.html instead of writing to us directly. Also, as always, please be sure to acknowledge receipt of a request, whether you can fulfill the request or not. This newsletter is sent out for two reasons, the only way to keep in touch with ALL the volunteers letting everyone know what might be new on the site, etc. The second reason, it is a way of finding out whose address is no longer valid (as you can tell from the numbers above, this could be quite a few). Probably we could add a third reason. When folks sign up for the site, and receive no requests they tend to forget they are volunteers for RAOGK. This newsletter serves as a reminder of your volunteerism as well. KUDOs The following volunteers were found on the Thank You (http://www.raogk.org/guestbook/) page for the month of April: Dianne (San Diego), Connie O'Neill, "Jade", Clair Villano, Joanne Salas, Craig A. Hahn, Rita Fox, Annica Johnsson, Judy McKinney, James P. Barnaby, Kate Reeves, Robert J. Stauffer Jr., Charlie Hathaway, Renee Werth, Bonnie Goddard, Elaine Kidd O'Leary, Joan Graves, Ken Peters, Jack Eaton, Alison Enick, Jackie Rudnick, Patricia Irving, Joyce Rauschenberger, Rita Fox, David Stewart, Charlie Peasha, Debbie (NV), Jay Lamb, Shirley Daugherty, Sara Cushing, Tony Pignola, Ellie (NJ), Diane Delbridge, Jelayne Tena, Lucy (unknown location), Peggy Metz, Colin Mills, Shelly Wetzel, Mike Peterson, Kristy Stevens, J.G. Russell, Dana (NY), Eleanor Strain, Laurie Cotulla, Monica Smith, Margaret McCollough, Jim Strezoff, Jan Reineking, Janet Yeager, Laura Hoke, Peter Zeitler, I would like to take this time to also personally thank all the amazing volunteers who are subscribed to the RAOGK-L mailing list. At the very end of March I challenged those folks to find a family on the 1880 census. Something that I had been trying to do for months to no avail, and was hoping that more eyes and resourcefulness would find them. I really only had few clues regarding this family as a whole and had not done much extended research on them earlier as they are not in my direct line, and I truly dreaded trying to do research on the surname Jones (especially with what little I did have on them. As it turns out, the family may have been found on the 1880 census, still questions as to the family that *may* be them are actually them (I can see everyone shaking their head as if to say "Yep, been there, done that"). But not only that, I've found out information on most of the children down to about the late 1980's. Something I would never have done without RAOGK volunteers on and off the RAOGK-L list. All of you are just amazing. It is always nice to see your name in print. I am sure that all of you are doing a fantastic job and many of our requesters do not know about this way of thanking you as well. It looks like the names submitted were more than that of March, keep up the good work! Congratulations to all. WE GET MAIL Not included in the number crunching mentioned in the first paragraph of this newsletter are numerous folks changing their addresses and their acts of kindness. The staff received around 470 messages generated from the forms on the site. RAOGK MAILING LISTS Besides this mandatory mailing list, there are now 2 voluntary lists provided for RAOGK volunteers. RAOGK-L is for the volunteers of this project to seek and give hints on how to help some of their requesters. To subscribe to this list send a message to raogk-l- request@raogk.org, putting subscribe in the subject line. RAOGK-CHAT was created since many folks on the RAOGK-L list have been there for quite awhile and the posts were getting more on the chatty side than the seeking/giving of genealogy hints and tips. This list you will find posts from favorite recipes to the latest find in our genealogy research. It is a friendly group of folks. To join this list send a message to raogk-chat-request@raogk.org with the subject line containing the word subscribe. SPRING/SUMMER TIME BLUES We are home-based in Lincoln, Nebraska which is located in the area known as "Tornado Alley." During the spring and summer, we do get severe thunderstorms and there is a possiblity that our electricity may go out. So if you ever try to get to the RAOGK site and cannot, you may want to check the weather channel to see if we are or have experienced severe storms. You may also want to check the Kansas City, KS area, as that is the location of our 'uplink' to the internet, if they go down so do we. DID YOU KNOW? At the bottom of each newsletter there are links to areas of the site that you may want to have bookmarked.