John Sampson Hacking Family Bulletins

BULLETIN DIGITIZING PROJECT:

The letter below is included in all of the Digital Text Versions of The John Sampson Hacking Family Bulletin. Some of the wording may give you the impression that the job has been completed, but there is much still to do. If you would like to help in any way in the process, including some improvements in our plan of action, you are welcome to join us as you are able.

Notes of Explanation for Digital Text Version

Every time I have read the wonderful stories of my family in the pages of these bulletins, I have been impressed with the integrity, strength and courage of my ancestors. I have come to love them deeply: weeping for them at times and rolling with laughter at other times. The pages are packed full of valuable treasure to share with generations to come. Unfortunately, many of their descendants are not even aware that these riches exist, even many who have been devoted to researching our family history for years. Limited numbers of copies of the originals are being lost and forgotten as the older generations go to meet their maker and the pages age and become refuge.

Another problem is trying to remember “where is that story found.” With no index or contents page, the hunt becomes very frustrating for the family history hound. Thus, the idea to create various forms of digitized records and the family bulletins, which can be shared, searched, and preserved easily. The pages have been scanned to create image and PDF files of the original record. Then the text was copied to run through an OCR to create text files, which could be edited and reformatted to make searches quicker and easier to document sources. Indexes, contents pages, hyperlinks, and appendices were added to help connect other documentation, photos, maps, and additional or updated information. To help visualize where everyone fits in the family tree, a unique index was created using a descendancy chart to organize it. Other types of indexes will follow as the bulletin files are updated. If you are viewing this file using a computer, you may use the Edit/Search function to locate information.

The text file is not an exact replica of the original bulletins. Some spelling and mechanics were edited to clarify or correct the record. Tables were used to organize subscription lists and financial statements. Some of the text was moved to a different section to represent family relationships in a few of the bulletins. Page numbering is different, although the general order of pages is the same.

Please feel free to request the correction of errors by contacting the transcriber with an explanation of the change and the documentation to support it. Comments, updates, and suggested resources to add to future editions are welcome also.

Digitized Versions of the bulletins will be made available on this site as they are completed with both a PDF of the images of the original and a Word document of the transcribed versions (some may include pictures pasted onto the pages). There will also be draft versions with portions of bulletins that are in progress. Indexes and other enhancements have not yet been completed and will be included in updates. Corrections and additional information is encouraged. We are still looking for additional bulletins that may have been published after #9-1974. If you know of or have any of those we may be missing, we would really appreciate your sharing them with us.