Hurry and get on the launch!

The JEWISHGEN ONLINE WORLDWIDE BURIAL REGISTRY is projecting its
searchable database to be online in mid to late July 2001. You are
encouraged to submit your burial data now to this exciting program.

The JOWBR will be in a searchable database on JewishGen and the data
will also be incorporated into the relevant "All Country" databases.
Available photographs of the tombstones can also be submitted with
the data. The appearance of the database will be similar to that of
the Bristol cemeteries database at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/bristol.htm.

We know that many of you who have contacted us are busy this Spring
collecting data and many of you are traveling to your ancestral homes
this summer to survey the local cemeteries. Your data may not,
therefore, be available for the initial launch. But we are asking
those of you who have already collected your data to submit it to us
no later than June 15 for the initial launch. We will be doing
quarterly updates thereafter, with submission dates in 2001 being
September 15 for inclusion in the Fall Update and December 15 for the
Winter Update. So those of you who are collecting data this Summer
will still be able to get your work into the JOWBR in 2001. This
project will be ongoing for many years and we are expecting to do
quarterly updates for a long time.

It will be helpful if you input your data into our template, which
can be found at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/, being
especially careful to follow instructions for the date fields. The
instructions are at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/JOWBRinstructions.htm.
Also, a reminder that donor agreements be submitted with the data.
Mail donor agreements to Harriet Brown, Administrative Coordinator,
and data as email attachments to Ernie Fine, Technical Coordinator.

Without the help of Harriet Brown, Ernie Fine, Warren Blatt, and
Michael Tobias, none of this would be possible. My heartfelt thanks
to them and to the countless others who have collected and are
collecting burial data and donating the results of their hard work to
JewishGen where it will be freely accessible to all researchers.

Joyce Field
JewishGen Vice President, Research
jfield@...