Sunday, May 23, 2010

Inventorying the Materials of the Late Di Ann Vick

After traveling for a couple of weeks I have started preparing an inventory of the materials Di Ann Vick designated go to the Joseph Vick Family of America. It is like preparing an inventory of a giant treasure chest. The process will take weeks. As I look at the materials I want to read everything, but I also know that would turn the inventory process into one lasting many months.

The inventory will be included in parts in upcoming issues of the Vick Family Newsletter. Hopefully, the inventory will both give those who sent Di Ann material some reassurance that what they sent has not been lost and spark some interest among Vick researchers. While I have only looked at a small portion of the materials I have found items relating not only to the Joseph Vick of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia line but also to English, Canadian, and German Vick lines.

As I work on the inventory I realize that eventually the material that is not copyrighted should be scanned and placed on the Joseph Vick Family of America website so that all researchers can have access to it. I also realize that all of the material I collect on behalf of the association should be placed in a location accessible to all researchers. I suspect many family associations have lost a lot of material when their newsletter editors have not passed on what they have collected to succeeding editors or other representatives of their associations.

After inventorying the materials I intend to create a database of the information so that it will be easy to search by name or place. That process could take a year or more. This database will include the indexes already prepared for past issues of the Vick Family Newsletter and any additional information I collect.