About Us

Welcome to GenerousGenealogists.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.”

Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676)

It is in the spirit of this Sir Isaac Newton quotation that we, GenerousGenealogists, build this site, our activities, and our mission. The ideas from which we sprang are not unique or new, they include:

• the golden rule or at least our variation of it- “help others as you would be helped“
• Paying Forward- the expression “pay it forward“  describes the notion of requesting that beneficiaries of a good deed repay people other than their benefactor(s). According to Wikipedia, the phrase may have been coined by Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight
• the open source [software] community, as evidenced by Our Social Contract, which is derived from that of Debian [Linux]; as well as
• the mission and intent of the original RAOGK (Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) group founded and managed between 1999 and 2011 by Bridgett and Dale Schneider. (Note: We are not trying to replicate RAOGK;  our design is different, more current, and our scope is much broader…)

Stated most simply, we are a community of volunteers who agree to provide free genealogy research and assistance, as an act of kindness, to “those in need.”  But, that simple statement does not define us totally.  We are a vibrant, vital and growing community teaching and helping each other in the best methods and traditions of the genealogists of today, yesterday and hopefully tomorrow.

We are constantly striving for excellence, empathy and understanding of each other, our pasts, our families and who we are. We are here to help you break through your brickwalls, discuss tools & techniques, provide coaching and learn from each other.

GenerousGenealogists volunteers agree to donate their time for free; recipients of our assistance agree to pay/ reimburse our volunteers for any/all expenses incurred in the fulfillment of “their” requests (including: copies, printing fees, postage, film or video tape, parking fees, mileage, etc.).

The assistance, research and networking we provide are made available freely and without respect or intent of financial gain. All any of our volunteers will ever request of you is expense reimbursement and a Thank You.

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