Every day, we are forced to wade through an internet filled with articles and information about the War Between the States from the perspective of those who would rewrite history to fit their Anti-Southern agenda. Almost a year ago , Va Flaggers TriPp and Jack Lewis had an idea to try and do something about it and we launched the Confederate-Friendly search engine www.confederatearchives.com
The site is family friendly, and has fast, free access to facts and information that has been screened and streamlined to make searching for information about the War Between the States faster and more productive.
Why use www.confederatearchives.com instead of google or other search engines?
(1) We only index one topic: Southern History and Heritage from 1828 to present. (Type "Lee" on google and see how many results come up for LEE JEANS instead of General Lee... Then try ours.)
(2) We have quicker updates to our listed sites.
(3) We offer another place to locate information should google ever decide to censor the content in their search engine.
(4) We will allow only accurate information in our search engine. Hate pages, and sites with inaccurate and false information will be removed.
(5) No Pornography.
(6) With this new site, WE can start cataloging and documenting OUR Heritage and History for generations to come and REMAIN in CONTROL of this database when other search engines come and go.
We asked everyone to help us improve the search engine by doing the following:
(1) USE IT! Use it when you're researching the WBTS, ancestry, or any search related to the CSA. The more it is used, the better the results will be when people search in the future.
(2) Add your favorite websites using the link on the front page of the search engine.
Type of websites we would like to add to www.confederatearchives.com :
- Confederate Cemeteries
- Confederate Soldiers Lists
- Museums with Confederate Artifacts
- Newspapers collections from 1828 thru 1941
- Current day news articles concerning Confederate History
- Current day news articles on heritage violations.
- Historical Documents between 1828 to present day.
- UDC Websites
- SCV Camp websites
- Heritage defense websites
- Art work and pictures
- Maps
- Genealogy pages with family tree information
- Love letters and letters to family members...AND MUCH, MUCH MORE
-Pro Confederate Blog Sites
(3) If you see a link with inaccurate information or a link that should not be included, report it on the home page by copying and pasting the link from your address bar into the space provided on the website.
So...how's it going...?
We are 11 months old now with over 1.3 million links in our database. Our content database is over 600 million records. We have had over 11,000 searches which is pretty good considering the only advertising we have done is on Facebook through different Confederate Heritage pages. The search engine has been shared through different home schooling website and pages, as well.
One of the reasons we created the website was to be able to have access to information when other sites fail or disappear. The recent government shutdown allowed us to test this. When the Govt took down websites with maps and other historical information, we were still able to provide cache copies of these pages to users who were searching for them.
We are currently working on two projects to expand on build on www.confederatearchives.com :
*The first one is a database of Confederate Soldiers, in which users enter their ancestors' information. Folks will then be able to login and instantly pull up all links related to their ancestors, as well as be notified when new links have been added.
*The other project is we will be attempting to data mine and identify descendants of Confederate soldiers for the purposes of recruiting new members to the OCR/UDC/SCV and other organizations, as well as possible help meet the new VA requirement regarding the need to have next of kin request headstones.
WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP! Please continue use the search engine for research, and add links that you find that would be useful.
You can enter these links here http://www.confederatearchives.com/add_url1.php.
MANY, MANY thanks to TriPp and Jack Lewis for the COUNTLESS hours they have dedicated to this project!
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More TECHNOLOGY updates:
FACEBOOK: We have made some changes in our FB pages/groups. The GROUP, "Confederate Flaggers - Stand, Fight, and Never Back Down" will continue to be a gathering place for active Flaggers to share experiences, thoughts, ideas, and information, but we have changed it to a "closed" group, so that only member can see the posts. Our new page, "The Virginia Flaggers" will be our public FaceBook vehicle. We had outgrown the previous set up and believe this will be best for all, as we try to keep up with the demand for information, and help facilitate other groups as the Flagging movement spreads across the South...and BEYOND!
Find the new page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Virginia-Flaggers/378823865585630
Give us a "like"...and share!
Finally, we are still looking for help in creating a website. We realize that while social media is a fantastic way to share information, there are many folks who are not a part of it, and we need a website to expand our reach and better disseminate information. We have the domain...all we need is someone to design the site and set it up for us! Please contact us if you are interested in donating of your time and talents.
As always, thanks for your encouragement and support!
Susan Hathaway
Va Flaggers
