RAOGK is a global volunteer organization that helps researchers who live away from the area that they are researching. Volunteers help with things like courthouse lookups, birth-death-and marriage records and such.

There are over 900 volunteers in 28 countries who do amazing work. There are set guidelines so that you can really help the research volunteers to help you.

I have personally benefited from the generosity of time and efforts from an RAOGK kindness. A few years ago, I requested and received a photocopy of the 1880 marriage record of my third great-grandparents, Rev. John H. Turner and Josephine “Jones.”

Jones is in quotes because Josephine’s use of that surname is a still an elusive mystery.

Taking a page from this important service, I embark on my own acts of genealogical kindness-which are indeed totally random.

Whenever I see a genealogical item online that is up for sale, such as at an auction site, if there are any identifiable facts that can be “skiptraced” to a family member who’s researching on a site like Ancestry, I will contact them to let them know.

There are other ways to perform these random acts of genealogical kindness. Whenever the conversation veers to ancestry, one can do a quick online search to see if there’s anything that you can share right then and there. This not only helps to encourage others, it helps to pique their interest.

There’s always more to learn-more to search.

With that in mind, there is always an avenue to really help someone with your own tailored act of genealogical kindness, or even just plain kindness, in general.

You never know where it can lead…

The Genealogy Situation Room