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Contact the author for additional information
This web site is constantly growing with the help of others. Others
are encouraged to send in additional information and this author will
in turn share his research with others. This author has shared
his research primarily through publications (paper-based books, this
Internet web site and a CD-ROM to be published in the near future).
This author also encourages exchange of paper files (source documentation)
and electronic files (GEDCOM and PDF files).
Exchange of Documentation
This author freely shares his genealogical information with other researchers
through paper-based publications, access to this web site, the upcoming
CD-ROM publication, the ability to download PDF files from this
web site and this author's record of exchanging his source files (paper
files) with others. It is hoped that others feel the same way and share
their information with this author and the vast majority have been very
generous in doing so. This author is making his entire database
available on the Internet within practical economic limits.
It is unfortunate that large quantities of high quality images are not
currently feasible on the Internet (both in cost of maintaining such
a web site and the performance of accessing such images on the
Internet).
This author encourages relatives or other researchers to send copies
of their entire GEDCOM file and other text files (either as email
attachments or through the regular mail for larger
files). Currently, electronic copies of the author's
files are available for download from this Internet site
via Adobe Acrobat files (highly recommended) or HTML files
(not recommended as they are more difficult to download and are lower
quality publications). This author used to mail out both printed
copies of his manuscripts (several hundred pages per month) and
electronic copies (20 or 30 diskettes per month), but these family histories
have now grown to such a size, that either exchange is no longer economically
possible on a large scale. The latest text only version of the "Shelton,
Wininger and Pace Families" book now requires 11.3 MB plus another
4.7 MB for the Adobe Acrobat Reader program (a total of a dozen
diskettes). Additionally, the variations of operating systems,
installation procedures, system requirements and other factors makes
it difficult to exchange these files. At work, the "Shelton,
Wininger and Pace Families" Adobe Acrobat files can be downloaded
in less than four minutes or forty minutes with fast 56 kps
modem at many homes. The publication of the CD-ROM at reasonable
price will allow exchange of files via the mail in the near future
and efforts are being directed toward this goal.
This author encourages an exchange of source material in
paper form. Just send 10, 20 or 50 pages of material and
receive a similar amount from my files (be sure to indicate the
type of files that you prefer). Please be patient for your
return files as I now receive several packages per month and several
e-mails per week, with each packet averaging several hundred new
relatives. Each package must be read, researched, compiled
and then a return package must be assembled that makes sense.
Position on Sharing Research
Several cousins have requested unrestricted usage of my research for their possible genealogical publications. These requests have forced this author to think about the tradeoff between everyone's right to information concerning their own ancestry and this author's legal rights under copyright laws. After giving a lot of thought to this subject, I have come up with four reasons that I do not allow this unrestricted kind of "sharing." The first reason would be my loss of any control of the publication of my 25 years of research. I want any publication concerning our family history to be the highest of quality and include the interests of many. What if someone just copied the best that they could and they introduced 400 errors in their compilation or did not care about any photographs because of the high costs. I would want clean up these errors or contribute funds to add photographs. The second major concern would that any request for "unrestricted" usage of research is really a pretty unfair request to make. For others to expect to any right to my thousands of hours of labor of love (or with my obsession to document 58,000 cousins) is not very respectful to me as an individual. To think that I would not want to be very involved in the decisions made in any publication indicates that the requestor has not thought through how involved and how much I obviously care about how our family history is recorded.
The third major reason (another form of control) is that I would lose any ability to coordinate various publication projects. I would hate to see three publications of the same line being printed at the same time. With three different authors, the quality would vary and it is almost impossible to break even on printing costs these days. Three competing publications would have very little chance of breaking even and eventually many of these publications would end up in a landfill (where some my older books may end up). I would hate to see someone print a book with a substantial amount of expensive resource material and not be aware that my upcoming CD-ROM which would be much better approach to distribute the maximum amount of source material. The fourth major reason is that any publication could compete with a major investment funds that I have made to print my family history books. Fortunately, only one of my nine family histories falls into this category, "Brooks Family History" where this author printed too many copies of a book that was not comprehensive enough to warrant the number of books printed. I would much prefer that Part 2 be published to avoid me taking 400 perfectly good books to the dump for disposal.
It is certain that the previous two paragraphs will probably disappoint many "cousins" that read this author's viewpoints but this author really does want to share his research and has a sincere desire to see that more of his research is made available to others and preserved for future generations. This author has a web site that is actively growing and CD-ROM publication that is making slow and steady progress (though way behind schedule). However, most requests that come from our common cousins are those concerning when a paper version of the publication will become available. Keeping up with new cousins that need to be added, maintaining the web site and compiling a CD-ROM publication is all the genealogical projects that this author can currently take on. Also having a full-time job, having a wife who tolerates my genealogical projects and two young sons that enjoy soccer, scouts, band, etc. has left no time for the near term publication of any paper based versions of the family history that this author has compiled to date.
This author encourages any cousin who might be interested in assisting in the publishing of a paper based version of the nine family histories included at this web site, please contact the author and present any publication project that you would like to participate in. There are two areas of assistance: 1) storage and distribution of the printed books and 2) costs associated with printing of the family history. This author has access to excellent printing resources and has most publications in a state that would not take substantial effort to create camera ready copy for the printers. Without this assistance, cousins will have to wait at least five years before any paper based publication will be published (definitely after the CD-ROM publication and a major overhaul of my web site).
Fair Use of Information
It is understood that any information sent will be added to my
publications and that you are free to add information to your
database (or publication) from my family histories
within reasonable limits of fair use. Please
do not send any information that can not be shared
or that contains too much personal information for
public scrutiny. My personal interpretation
of "fair use" under our copyright laws is pretty
liberal and equates to less than ten percent of
your database (or publication) can be derived from
any one source including my family histories. If
your Internet site or GEDCOM file (a form of publication)
contains more than ten percent from any copyrighted
source, you are probably in violation of copyright laws and
could be sued by others (rarely done though).
Copyright laws actually state ten percent of the perceived
value of your publication, which would mean that older
generations or unique research could be considered
the primary value of a family history and therefore
be more careful with others on this issue. I have
never heard of any individuals who have sued others but
do know of several instances of genealogical publishing
companies that have successfully sued others or
threatened to and have stopped other publications.
Anyone contributing information to this site is encouraged
to add the older generations from my web site (consider
this a limited copyright release from me) and to add
information that I have on your direct line to any
publication efforts that you may have. I do
request (or plea) that you site your sources as I do in all of my
publications. If you have the original source material
(from me or located on your own), do not feel that you have to
site my publications as a source (even though I would appreciate
the gesture). If you have a very large database and are
fairly close to publishing your research, drop me note and I would
be very open to another joint publication effort
(paper based, Internet based or CD-ROM based). My
last paper-based publication (Olliff Family History)
was a joint effort by several "cousins" which made
the project much more enjoyable and much less of burden
of time, storage, distribution and funding.
Time Required for Updates
The publications contained at this web site are preliminary versions
of the author's family histories. There will be some sections
that are work in progress and not all information received by
the author will be included at any point in time. Hopefully,
most information received will be available on both
Internet and on the upcoming CD-ROM publication planned
for 2001. Deadline for CD-ROM was December
31, 2000 but exceptions may be possible. The Internet versions
are currently three to eighteen months behind from the date
of submission (specially for major additions to these
publications).
All publications at this web site will be updated every three
to twelve months with newer versions of each publication. Please
have patience with your information being added this web site,
as maintaining nine family history books is quite time consuming
in between a full time job and a growing family. The Adobe
Acrobat and HTML versions may be several months different,
so you should always check to see if the Acrobat version is
the newer version for recent updates. HTML files take
several hours to generate at this time and changes in
format for each new release require a significant amount
of time. Any information sent via GEDCOM file or
paper files will be eventually added to this
web site and the actual GEDCOM files will some day be published on
either the Internet and / or a CD-ROM. I currently
have over 650,000 individuals in my GEDCOM file collection which I
have received primarily from my relatives and a future project
is to some how share this wealth of information with everyone.
This author is primarily concentrating on electronic versions of
his family histories for publication on CD-ROM and the Internet.
It is this author's ultimate goal to publish paper-based
versions as well, but near-term goals only include
enhancements in the Internet web site and the CD-ROM
publication. The cost and time required for
paper-based publications continues to increase to the point where
paper-based publications will be difficult to accomplish without
the help of others and may require funds than can never
be recovered. In the past, the author's goal
was to break even on printing costs after several years
which appears now to be impossible at today's costs to
print a book and this author's ability to gather large
quantities of information without contacting dozens of
relatives. If you have a strong interest in joining forces
with this author in a joint effort to publish a paper-based version
of these family histories, drop me an e-mail with your ideas.
This author has in depth knowledge of the technology and economics
involved in producing a wide range of genealogical publications.
Addresses and Phone Numbers
For additional information or to exchange genealogical files,
contact the author, Robert Brooks Casey, in one of three
following ways:
E-mail (new) ___________
______________________ E-mail Address changed to image to reduce my spam email
Snail mail______________ Robert B. Casey, 4705 Eby Lane, Austin, TX 78731-4507
Phone (home)__________ (512) 371-0579 (nights and weekends only)