How do I publish the legal documents?
Here is a question I am posing to Bogardus researchers. This has to do with a couple of the lawsuits against the Trinity Church that we're all so familiar with. My library has acquired copies of the lineage documents prepared by the lawyer Spencer Gardiner for his lawsuit he filed against the Trinity Church. In what I call the sibling notebooks he shows the lines of descent from Anneke Jans to each person who joined in his lawsuit.
Secondly and more recently we acquired the affidavits from the lawsuit brought by the lawyer Frank A. Travers against the Trinity Church. His cache of papers consists of sworn and notarized letters showing the line of descent of everyone who joined onto his suit, as well as the Power of Representation in some cases. For example Grace E. Wolever of Lansing, Michigan shows her descent of nine generations from Anneke, through her son William. Where as Elsie M. Mosher of Mechanicville, NY has sworn affidavits from seven lines of descent from Anneke.
Now both sets of papers link up to Webber and the King of Holland which we know is incorrect, but the later info looks like most of it could be accurate.
The question I have is what is the best way to post this on my website (www.chaseyourtale.com)? Scans would be nice, but the memory usage would be way to high. I am considering transcribing it all, as text takes up little memory and it is the easiest for a search engine to search. I am figuring listing the people involved in the lawsuit alphabetically. I think there will be two sections, one for Spencer's lawsuit, another for Travers lawsuit.
There are a few things I won't do. I won't put it or offer it to another site, because my sites are my babies and I love unique content. I also don't want to merge it all together in gedcoms, as that ruins the validity of the source.
Does anyone have any suggestions or other ideas? What don't you like about the way I want to present it and what improvements can you suggest that are within my technical limitations? Or is this something you don't think is worth the bother? Do ou think it might be a brilliant idea?
Okay...discuss.