The Colorado Tombstone Photograph Project (COStones) is a special project of the Colorado USGenWeb Archives. The COStones project coordinator/editor and the volunteer assistant editors are members of the Colorado USGenWeb Archives Project team and work under the general supervision of the Colorado USGenWeb Archives File Manager. These are unpaid volunteer postitions and the volunteer is expected to provide the necessary computer and software.
The COStones project was started in October 1999 with the donation of photographs of many of the headstones in the Highlands Cemetery at New Castle, Colorado. The stated goal of the project is to have a published readable photograph of every headstone in Colorado along with a text file providing a transcription.
The outline of the volunteer editor's job is simple: Collect, Edit, Upload and Index photographs taken by our many volunteer photographers. Our editors must have software to produce and update the HTML/XHTML index pages, to do image editing/reformatting and to do FTP uploading and downloading. High speed internet access is highly recommended.
Each of our three previous coordinators/editors have found the project to be a full-time position for one person requiring a daily investment of a few to several hours. I would hope we can find other volunteers able to assist by taking on processing the photos of a single prolific contributor, donations for a single cemetery, a single county or for a small section of Colorado to spread the burden. When we have those volunteers, the COStones Project Coordinator's job will shift from actually accomplishing all the work toward coordinating the efforts of the individual volunteer editors.
The USGenWeb is a registered non-profit organization created to organize the efforts of our unpaid volunteer coordinators, transcribers, photographers and editors. Server space for our files is generously donated by Rootsweb.com, a part of MyFamily.com inc. Our volunteers provide their own computers and editing/publishing software.
The USGenWeb Archives Project was created to as a place to store donated genealogical document transcriptions for free access by anyone using the internet.
If you are interested in volunteering or desire further information about the project or the job description contact Lee Zion, email lzion@plains.net, Subject: COStones Volunteers. THIS IS NOT TO SUBMIT YOUR TOMBSTONE PHOTOS.
Return to the Colorado Tombstone Photo Project index.