Progress in Indexing Place Names in the "Vick Family Newsletter"

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I have been indexing the place names in the Vick Family Newsletter. All of the volumes (except one) have name indexes of the people, so a place name index would allow us to cross-reference people to places (or places to people). Eventually I hope to put all of the index references (people and places, newsletters and book) in Microsoft Access to make the cross-referencing much more efficient.

So far I have indexed the first ten volumes. Having one index of all the volumes would be ideal, but I am going to have to do it in two parts if I am also going to start publishing the index in the newsletter this year. Part I will be an index through volume XV. As it turns out the Joseph Vick Family of America sold soft copies of volumes I through XV bound in two parts. So, an index of those volumes would be particularly handy for anyone who has the bound copies. Part II will then complete the newsletter volumes. After I finish part II, I will merge the two parts into one index which can then be placed on a CD with all of the newsletters. Pam Vick and her sister have scanned all of the newsletters, and she believes they will be searchable. The index will provide another layer of search because it will contain the city, county, and state for places that can be associated with them. The index, therefore, will allow you to find all of the places in a county, for example, that are mentioned in any of the newsletters even if the county name isn’t included in the article’s text (provided the newsletter had enough detail to identify the county or that the location was in a county).

Well, I had better get to indexing. I am holding up the newsletter.