For the most part, the genealogical community is a wonderfully supportive and delightful group of people. At our best, we’re collaborative, sharing, thoughtful, insightful, and keen to help each other reach our genealogical goals. I’ve benefitted a lot from other genealogists and I hope I’ve been able to contribute my fair share.
While I can think of many examples, perhaps the greatest genealogical good deed was the kindness of an unexpected gift from the late Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy. (While Lorine passed away in 2022, her website and blog are still online.)
When I was in elementary school, I got an amazing genealogy book for kids through Scholastic book orders, called Digging for My Roots. It is full of charts, tables, and other worksheets for you to fill in as you learn about your family history. It’s been out of print for decades, but I still have my copy.
Our eldest son developed an interest in genealogy when he was seve years old – about a year or two younger than I was when I started. I even bought him a membership in the British Columbia Genealogical Society for his tenth birthday. It hasn’t a passing fancy, either. He’s now almost in his mid-teens and he is still deeply interested and involved.
When he became interested in genealogy, I started looking for kid-appropriate genealogy books for him. However, none of the currently published books I could find were anywhere near as good as Digging for My Roots. Some were okay, but many were subpar.
Back in the good old days, before it was sold and turned into a dumpster fire, Lorine posted a question on Twitter, asking the genealogical community what inspired us to take up our search for our ancestors. In my response, I mentioned the book in passing and how I would love to have a copy for my son.
A few months later, I received a direct message from Lorine. It turns out that after seeing my Tweet, on her own volition she searched out a copy of the book, and found one. She bought it and wanted to send it to me to give to my son.
The amazing thing was that the book was pristine. None of the worksheets had been filled in. Forty-plus years out of print, and not a single item filled in. I was gobsmacked. Not only that, but Lorine absolutely refused to let me pay for the book. She wouldn’t even let me pay for the shipping.
Lorine did not have to do any of that for us. I’m also certain that she had so much on her plate that there was no need to put in the time it must have taken to do this for us. I’m sure I must have interacted with her with some “likes” and retweets, but otherwise she did not know me at all and I only knew her through her website and social media presence. I cannot think of any reason for her to have done this for an otherwise complete stranger other than the kindness of her heart.
Thanks to Lorine’s good deed, my son and I both have copies of Digging For My Roots!
A Deck of Ancestors 
I have been volunteering at our local FHS for over 10 years and it always gives me pleasure to help someone, when we find something, although I warn them that you don’t always find things.
Once this year a lady came and said she had a couple in her tree who were convicts. They were transported to Sydney then still misbehaved so were sent to Newcastle. They had a daughter but she didn’t know what had happened to her. We looked through records and found she had married someone in western New South Wales. The lady said “Oh, I know someone there so will ring her”. She was so glad to find that the daughter had married. I didn’t see her again though, so don’t know if there was any more news.
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