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Designs Creating Web Pages since 1996 About Us Ancestral Designs was started by Carol Ann "C.A.T." Tindell as the principal domain name used to publish all of her genealogy websites, both personal and for non-profit organizations. She has devoted over 7 years of her volunteer time to creating and hosting multiple USGenWeb project county sites. In spring of 2004, C.A.T. decided that she could help more people by funneling her efforts into her existing sites and launching SMARC. She resigned from all her activities within the USGenWeb Project and from being a webspinner for local non-profit organizations. C.A.T. noticed that in particularly the past 3 years on-line information needed to construct a basic family tree was either not getting on-line or it was so spread out among numerous county, surname and individual web sites, it was very difficult to find them. SMARC: Southern Mountain Ancestor Research Center was conceived based on solving this on-line navigational nightmare. Also, no one site seemed to cover ALL information available. SMARC offers the most comprehensive list of genealogical resources as possible for researching ancestors in the mountain areas of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee and in the fall of 2004, even more North Georgia areas as well as parts of South Carolina. SMARC points to resources that are free on-line, on-line by paid subscription, available for purchase on-line, available for purchase off-line, and off-line resources and where to find them. This vast amount of information is categorized by subject, not county, just the way we do research. This design method makes it easier to track an ancestor's migration patterns back and forth across county and state lines. We want our SMARC visitors to know what is available, to have a choice as to type of resources, and to make genealogy easier. After all, tracing family trees is supposed to be a fun and exciting hobby. SMARC is also a permanent, on-line repository for transcribed genealogical resources. The benefits of placing these with SMARC as opposed to other sites is that SMARC can assure that those records remain independent of special interest groups and remain 'free access', and that the submitter does not lose their copyrights to that material. Too many researchers are uploading information to free sites failing to read the fine print about who owns the copyrights to that uploaded information, only to learn later that their information was burned onto CDs and sold. Many of the popular free sites are actually owned by for-profit companies so those free sites gathering data from the public today may not be free in the future. The data researchers have uploaded to them will be going to line the pockets of those companies. C.A.T.'s background is in the areas of law, trust banking, mortgage banking, loan origination, real estate broker, computer training & consulting, computer database management, and education. She is now semi-retired and devotes much of her non-computer time aiding others with their genealogical research and caring for her elderly mother. She is an avid dog-lover and presently has four K-9 kids in her immediate family: 2 MinPins who retired from the show ring and 2 locally rescued dogs. She absolutely adores Miniature Pinschers and has been owned by one or more of them since 1968. C.A.T. combined her love for these "King of the Toys" and her computer know-how and started a new, all encompassing web site: The Min Pin Place. It is full of useful information, tips, how-to's, and scores of on-line products suitable for their small size and personality. The Min Pin Place directly supports Miniature Pinscher rescue in the USA.
To contact us, send an email to
info@ancestraldesigns.com URL: http://www.ancestraldesigns.com © Copyright 1996-2004 Ancestral Designs, Jacksonville Beach, FL and Blue Ridge, GA |
