Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Wiki
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Welcome to the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Wiki

The original Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) website was the brainchild of Bridgett Schneider. Shortly before her death in 2011, she had a computer disaster and the site has been down since. Before the RAOGK site went dark, the global organization consisted of over 4,000 volunteers in every U.S. state and many international locations. The RAOGK wiki is dedicated to Bridgett's memory, to continue her efforts, and to provide a service that researchers and volunteers dearly loved and miss.

The way RAOGK worked was that volunteers agreed to do at least one free genealogy research task per month in their local area as an Act of Kindness. The RAOGK volunteers agreed not to charge for their research time; however, researchers were required to reimburse the volunteer for expenses incurred in fulfilling the research request (e.g., copies, printing fees, postage, film or video tape, parking fees, gasoline, etc.).

  • On state pages, volunteers would indicate what services they would perform -- e.g., courthouse/public records lookups, library research, tombstone research, etc. -- and what expenses (never their time) they expected reimbursement for.
  • Similarly, researchers would locate a volunteer by going to a state page and selecting a researcher from a list of counties and based on the volunteer's description of services they would perform.
Bridgette Schneider

Bridgette Schneider (1946-2011)

Photo at: Findagrave (posted by Anja van Steel) and Nebraska Roots & Ramblings

Historical Background Info

For now, see the Wikipedia article about RAOGK.


Shortly before Bridgett's death, she posted that she'd had computer issues and the site would be down "quite awhile." Upon Bridgett's death, several of the RAOGK admins created Facebook groups to continue RAOGK's work while the site is down.

Volunteers post documents with the research services they offer:

The Facebook groups have a threaded discussion. Researchers can post their research need and members can respond with research help or suggestions.

Note from the RAOGK wiki creator:

The RAOGK wiki is a workaround for the official RAOGK site being down. Bridgett and Doc Schneider were the founders of the RAOGK website and like other genealogists, I am deeply indebted to their efforts as I benefited immensely from the work of their volunteers. When I created the wiki, it was out of my utmost respect for Bridgett and Doc's work. The wiki was my way to give back – my personal RAOGK for the RAOGK community – by providing a workaround for FB posts like Amy Mueller Stiles (and similar ones on the USA groups) on April 27: "...wall requests are ok on FB but it's like pulling teeth to get the info of what they are looking for sometimes. Direct email contact is best." My hope and intent with the wiki is that it fills a gap for genealogists while the official site is down ... a place for researchers and volunteers to connect (with the familiar ease of use) until the official site is operational again. (I wrote Doc on Mar 7 about the wiki, etc. and again on April 27. On April 17, the [lead] RAOGK admin gave "conditional approval" for the wiki.)
In a Facebook post (27 Apr 2012), Doc indicated he was starting to restore the RAOGK site.

Research Request Guidelines

Before requesting research help from a volunteer, please read the Research Request Guidelines page.

Getting Started with the RAOGK wiki

Welcome to the RAOGK wiki, where you can contribute!! Yes, you can actually edit your entry/information on the wiki page. You can bold, italicize, change the content of your description of services. Any member can fix typos, punctuation, etc. Any member can also add pages to the wiki -- e.g., you may have a cemetery transcription to share and create a page specifically for that information.

Create a RAOGK account/username. It's free, and is a one-time action. You have greater anonymity and it's easier for other contributors to ask you questions and help you.

  • If you are new to wikis, visit the Community portal for an outline of main parts of the site and links to pages about editing.

        Note: If you can type emails/Word documents and use formatting buttons to bold, italic, underscore, do bullets/numbers, etc ... you're already a whiz at wiki editing!                  It's so easy!! It's as easy as 1-2-3.

  1. Login
  2. Edit
  3. Publish

A wiki allows collaboration between members:

  • Discuss any aspect of the site and ask questions either at the Forum or on an article's "Talk" page. (The Talk page button is at the top of each page.)
  • Communicate with individual members and/or volunteers by leaving a message on their Message Wall.
  • Participate in chat sessions.
  • Be sure to sign and date your contributions there, so that readers know "who to talk to" and whether your message is probably still of current interest.
  • Click theFollow button below for pages that interest you. Then, any time the page changes, you'll get an email alert.

To do most of the above, you need to be a RAOGK wiki member:

  1. First, create a RAOGK wiki account and
  2. Sign in to the RAOGK wiki.

    When you login for the first time (only), you'll be taken to own User page.

  3. Modify your User page (optional).
       and/or
    Create a sandbox page (to play with wiki text) ... in the Search field, type User:YourUserName/Sandbox
  4. Initially, you'll be prompted to Add a Page (this is a one-time action) ... click the Add a Page button.

For details on creating/modifying wiki text, see Wiki 101 for RAOGK and Modify your User page.
(Creating a user page is not required.) To exit out of the user page, just click the RAOGK name in the masthead.

Wiki Basics

Take the RAOGK wiki Grand Tour

Frequently Asked Questions about Wikis

Go to Frequently Asked Questions to view answers to questions that people typically ask who are new to wikis.

Info for Volunteers

Suggestions for Volunteers:

  • To reduce spam and to keep RAOGK email separate from regular email, volunteers may want to create a free email with gmail, hotmail, or yahoo to use only for your RAOGK correspondence, possibly even creating a username with RAOGK in it -- e.g., RAOGK_username@provider.xxx. (In creating the new account, do not tie the new account to an existing email account. Thus, if your RAOGK account were to be hacked, the hacker wouldn't have a link to your regular email account.)
  • Click the Follow button below the page where your services appear. Then, any time the page changes, you'll get an email alert.
  1. Create a RAOGK wiki account (one-time action)
  2. Sign in to the RAOGK wiki.

When you login for the first time (only), you'll be taken to own User page.

  1. Modify your User page (optional) ... in the Search field, type User:YourUserName (the name you chose when you created your wiki account) and press Enter.    and/or
    Create a sandbox page (to play with wiki text) ... in the Search field, type User:YourUserName/Sandbox
  2. Initially, you'll be prompted to Add a Page (this is a one-time action) ... click the Add a Page button.

You can practice/experiment with wiki text on your Sandbox page.

For details on creating/modifying wiki text, see Wiki 101 for RAOGK and Update Your Volunteer Information

Digital Archives

RAOGK Facebook members, Suzanne Clair and Beverly Harper, started a list of state websites that have digital archives without charge. See their Digital Archives list.

Useful Links


Switch to:
RAOGK main page        Find a Volunteer (USA / Worldwide)        Latest Wiki News        Take Wiki Poll

Latest activity


Can you please send me an email confirmation as I do not recieve one

I have been a volunteer before and would like to join again


A (Kalishoek)

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